Team Bio: Matt Starn (AccessComputing News - January 2012)

My name's Matt Starn and I'm a new full-time employee at Microsoft as an SDE (Software Design Engineer). I graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) with a Bachelor's in Computer Science and I've been a member of the AccessComputing Team for several years. In the summer of 2007, I participated in the Summer Academy program at the University of Washington. At the time, I was a student at University of California, Los Angeles but I wasn't sure what direction I wanted to go in life after college until I joined the program. Several years later, the lessons I've learned there have helped me get to where I am today. I made connections in Seattle with students that were enrolled at RIT, discovered what an incredible Computer Science program they had and transferred there. I was there as a student for three years and when I finished my coursework, I used as many networking resources as I could to find jobs and internships to keep myself busy until I could land in a place I wanted.

After two three-month stints for a small start-up company in Rochester, a fellow alumni of RIT and current employee at Microsoft got me into the interview process for his company, which led to an SDET (Software Design Engineer in Test) internship with the Microsoft Dynamics AX team. Upon my move back to Seattle for my internship, I felt that Microsoft was a perfect fit for me and I knew I wanted to settle down in Seattle. So this September, when my internship was completed and Microsoft offered me a full-time position to stay on with my old team as a developer, I immediately jumped on the opportunity. Not only is it a great company to work for, but they provide so many accessibility options to support me with whatever I need to do my work, no questions asked. Right now, I'm currently involved with the Project Accounting team, as part of the Service Industries division of Dynamics AX 2012. My duties include working on completing the newest version of the product which will be released shortly as well as trying to improve and innovate the product for future versions down the line.