Meet 'Salvador Alvarez Patuel', he's an ADC.

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In this weeks ADC interview we meet Salvador Alvarez Patuel.

 

  1. Hello Salvador, who are you?

My name is Salvador Alvarez Patuel, I am a senior ADC working on the most amazing challenges.

I am originally from Argentina but have been living in the UK for the last 7 years. My Gamer Tag is hyper-original: SalvadorPatuel

  1. Have you always worked in the ADC Team?

No, I used to work as main technical architect for real time system, mostly working for the media industry.

I have also been working in the gaming industry writing artificial intelligence engines. 13 years in the industry so far!

  1. What sort of technologies do you use as an ADC?

Ehm.... every single one? That’s what is really amazing about the role. But if I need to choose the top 4 technologies, they would be Silverlight, WPF, WCF and Workflow. I have also been playing a lot with the exciting vNext technology!

  1. What do you enjoy about working at Microsoft?

The people, cleverness and passion everywhere. It is a very challenging environment that really pushes you beyond your limits helping you grow in many directions (technical and human). Not to mention the work/life balance is amazing, great place!

  1. How do you keep skills up to date with the latest technologies?

I will say that this is one of the key areas that you need to master to be an ADC, finding the right balance between customer responsiveness and proactiveness as well as staying on top of every technology to properly support our customer base. I usually talk with the team to discover new trends or to find out about a new “code-name” that may change our recommendations, from there it is a matter of prioritizing the learning and finding the right source!

  1. What software do you use as part of your role?

Common stuff for devs and architects, VS2008 (a bit of VS2010 J), SQL 05/08, Silverlight, Blend 2 and my army of Win 08 VPC with MOSS, TFS, Biztalk. Not to mention all the debugging and fiddling tools!

  1. How would you describe a typical day as an ADC?

Let me explain it, as you are heading to the office you may receive a call from a customer asking you a question around XSLT transformation and five minutes later receive an email from another asking for a code review in a WF/WCF interaction. Before lunch time you will be submerged in a conversation with your colleagues about security and before lunch an extra email from a distribution list about Silverlight! Ahhh another day at the office!

  1. What’s your technology of the moment?

I have to say Silverlight, as I have just finished a new book “Silverlight 2 for ASP.NET developers” together with my other ADC colleagues Jon Swift and Chris Barker!. Also working with certain technology that we are not allowed to disclose yet (it is all about readiness!)

  1. What’s your best and worst moment as an ADC?

The best moments are when you receive an email thanking you for the support and the advises, reading those email really motivate me to go the extra kilometre (not mile, as I use the metric system J). The worst moments are usually related with the size of Microsoft, as we are not as dynamic as we should be, but we are working hard on it!

  1. Thanks for your time; do you have a closing comment?

I hope that one of my blog entries made the front page one day on this blog, as I usually don’t post code but strategic information targeting architects or dev leads! :)