October 12th, 2020
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In 1979, some software company in Bellevue was hiring

Raymond Chen

I’m guessing that my colleague Chad Beeder had some time on his hands, because he discovered that the Seattle Public Library has searchable archives of the Seattle Times going back to 1895. The earliest mention of Microsoft was a classified ad from October 10, 1979:

position, please call 453-4600 for more information. An Equal Opportunity Employer, M/F/H.
COMPUTER System Programer, full time. Position involves design­ing, debugging & maintaining compiler, interpreters & operating systems for micro-processors. Re­quires BS or MS in computer sci­ence plus at least 2 yrs directly re­lated experience. Company paid health insurance. Salary $18,000. Send resume to: Microsoft, 10800 N.E. 8th St, Suite 819, Bellevue, WA, 98004.
CONTROLLER
CPA, preferably experienced in

Y’know, before hiring a programer, you may want to hire a proofreader.

The downtown Bellevue address used to be the Old National Bank building. (That is, the building for the bank named Old National, not the old building for the National Bank.) It is now known as U.S. Bank Plaza, with retail banking on the ground floor and offices on the upper floors.

Bonus chatter: At the old Bellevue office, you could walk in off the street and buy software from the receptionist. You did have to sign a license agreement in person, though.

Bonus reading: Moving out of the downtown Bellevue office.

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Raymond Chen

Raymond has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than 30 years. In 2003, he began a Web site known as The Old New Thing which has grown in popularity far beyond his wildest imagination, a development which still gives him the heebie-jeebies. The Web site spawned a book, coincidentally also titled The Old New Thing (Addison Wesley 2007). He occasionally appears on the Windows Dev Docs Twitter account to tell stories which convey no useful information.

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  • Alexis Ryan

    of course now we need to know who got hired because of that ad, was it anyone of note that would be well known.

  • Landon Messer

    Even Microsoft didn’t know about pro-grammar (cue the terrible pun).

  • Neil Rashbrook

    Perhaps in trying to simplify English spelling Mr. Webster actually ended up making it more complicated?

  • 紅樓鍮

    I wonder how “programer” is supposed to be pronounced. Like /prəˈɡreɪmər/?

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