Brent's Bio

Hi my name is Brent and I'm a software tester for the Embedded Windows team. I've been a part of this team since 2007, mostly working on the testing of driver packages and other driver issues. Lately I've been branching out into other feature areas as well. This is my first full time position in the software industry and a bit of a career change for me. My original degree was in business, and I spend the better part of 10+ years in retail management. It had its good points, but I never really embraced it as a career. I always wanted to do something else.

The problem was that I wasn’t sure what “something else” was. In the late nineties I had a few friends that worked in the computer industry, and their jobs sounded challenging but fun. I had a little bit of experience programming, but I never thought of using it in a career until that point. I started my journey by getting a software testing certificate at a community college. That led to a couple of contract positions at Microsoft dealing with speech recognition software, and video playback. Those were good positions, but I really wanted to work full time, and it seemed like I didn’t have the skills necessary. I felt I needed more education than the certificate to work as a software developer in test. I went back to college to get a computer science degree, and after that I started working for the embedded team as a contractor, which led to a full time position. This has been a challenging team to work for as there are so many parts of Windows that we are involved with, but also rewarding, since I’ve learned so much.