Jeanne Sheldon
Group Manager of Software Testing, Microsoft Corporation
Jeanne Sheldon is the group manager of software testing for Microsoft Word, one of the most successful business software applications in the history of commercial software. She delights in the opportunities her role gives her to explore and develop a full range of interests and skills across the many facets of software engineering and people management. She also finds in software testing a positive and rewarding outlet for her natural tendencies to find where things break (rather than where they work) and to question even the most cherished assumptions. One of Sheldon's oft-repeated expressions, "One test is worth a thousand theories," was posted on her door for many years, illustrating her approach to just about everything.
As the daughter of an IBMer, she had more exposure to computer design and programming than most of her classmates in the late '60s and even went so far as to join an IBM-sponsored (and almost exclusively male) Explorer Post that focused on computers. Sheldon was used to being the only girl involved in these kinds of activities, because her advanced math and science classes were also made up mostly of boys, but she thrived on the challenge of succeeding in an area where everyone expected her to fail. As a child, Sheldon was often challenged by her father with brain teasers, puzzlers and mini-research projects and by her mother, a feisty, energetic woman, with a strong resistance toward allowing others to define her place. Motivated by a fierce desire to never have to depend for her well-being on the expertise of others Sheldon even learned basic car repair as a teenager (a skill she would still have today if her car ran Windows NT and had a decent debugger in it!) Sheldon early investigation of computers did not immediately turn her to a career in computer science, though. She was frustrated by the tedium of punch cards and distracted by a myriad of other interests, particularly math and science, but also history, drama and social activities, so she set aside her computer work for several years.
In college, curiosity, intellectual excitement, and a strong drive to cover as wide a range of study as possible led her into her courses of study in both history (modern European) and physical science (physics and chemistry) at San Jose State University. She enjoyed the contrasts in "cultures" between the two groups of students and moved readily between the two. She finally found an opportunity to employ, if not reconcile, her love for science and history in graduate school, where she directed her attention to the history of science, particularly to the interaction between a scientist's social and political context and his/her research.
After leaving graduate school, it became clear that her course of study, rich though it may have been, did not map well to a cookie-cutter career, so she tried on a number of vocations, ranging from retail management to a masters program in urban planning. Her work and study eventually brought her back into a number of positions in information technology and software engineering. Encouraged by her husband, a senior software quality specialist, and ready to explore new avenues after spending the first year of her new son's life at home, she tried software testing. It took just about a year for her to realize that the work was more intrinsically satisfying than anything else she had ever been paid to do. Sheldon's technical aptitude and effectiveness coupled with her broad experience base allowed her to rise quickly in the software QA ranks at Software Publishing Corporation, where she became the quality assurance manager for the graphics products, including SPC's flagship product, Harvard Graphics. She left SPC in 1989 to move to the Pacific Northwest, where she joined Microsoft Corporation. Sheldon was initially reluctant to join Microsoft because it had a well-known reputation for being a "boy's club" with limited opportunity for women, but she was persuaded by Jeff Raikes, now a Senior VP of Sales and Marketing, that Microsoft valued only technical expertise, hard work, and raw intelligence and was committed to recruiting and retaining people who met that profile regardless of gender or race.
Sheldon's career at Microsoft is testament to that commitment. She continues to be challenged and enlivened by the discipline of software testing, where she can explore and influence the technical, procedural, and human aspects of software engineering, and by her participation in the design and overall vision of new products and technologies at Microsoft. She advocates a smart, technically strong engineering approach to software test design and execution, coupled with a deep understanding of user expectations and usage. Her approach has been quite successful within Microsoft. Many of the men and women now leading test organizations at Microsoft were first recruited, trained, and eventually promoted to their new jobs from within Jeanne's software test team. Jeanne has spoken at a number of software quality conferences and events both locally and nationally, and she is an active participant in Microsoft recruiting and in scholarship programs at minority and women's schools.
