I'm Transferring to Seattle!

My mind has been anything but calm lately, but my wife (the real boss of the house) and I have finally locked in our plans for at least the next year or two: we’re heading to America!

Last week I came clean to my current manager about it. Not only did he not make things hard for me in any way, he immediately introduced me to colleagues he knew who had recently transferred, to help make sure my plan could still work out given the current pandemic situation. I’ve noticed that every manager I’ve had since I started working has been incredibly kind and supportive. So once again, a heartfelt thank-you to all my former managers. I hope I get the chance to be your code monkey again someday!

During my two years at Microsoft Shanghai (2019-09 to present), I’ve been on the D365 (Dynamics 365) Commerce Channel & Employee Management team. As the name suggests, it owns the part of the business that manages retail stores and store staff. My team in the US will be the D365 Commerce Order Operations team, which owns retail orders (arguably the very core of the retail business).

What’s left is just the process: the Seattle manager will probably send me an offer (within a week); after I sign it, HR / lawyers will help me apply for an L1B visa (the US visa for intracompany transferees), with all the paperwork prepared within a month; then I book the visa interview (1 week to 1 month out), and once the visa is in hand (about 1–2 weeks), I can get ready to head to Seattle.

I’ve looked into the current visa situation: L1B applications are open in both Beijing and Shanghai, but Presidential Proclamation 9984 (link) is still in effect, which means that before entering the US I’d have to spend 14 days in a third country not covered by the entry ban (Singapore, for example). But according to colleagues who just made the move, Microsoft’s lawyers will help apply for an NIE (link) (National Interest Exception) to waive the 14-day requirement so I can fly straight from China to the US. So all I can do is wish myself luck getting that exception.

Finally, let me sum up the reasons behind this transfer:

1. I want to get to know and learn our Commerce business and team faster and more deeply in the US. The US Commerce team has many managers / engineers who grew up alongside this business, and they have far more business knowledge and understanding than the Shanghai team. Because of the time difference, back in Shanghai I mostly learned the business by reading code and docs. Not only was that inefficient, but I often didn’t know the history and context behind a lot of legacy code and docs. That held back and slowed down my confidence and efficiency in making day-to-day decisions, which isn’t good for my own success, or even the team’s.
2. I want to be a bridge between the D365 Commerce Shanghai / Seattle teams. After the move I’ll still work closely with my original team, and I hope to make communication between the two sides smoother. So staying on the Commerce team is a win-win for both the team and me.
3. English communication is one of the skills I should keep improving, especially as a man who’s going to be a CTO someday, and working in the US is the most effective way for me to level it up.
4. My wife is going to UW (the University of Washington in Seattle) as a visiting scholar. She already passed on applying to the schools and advisors that best matched her for my sake, so I want to be there with her. (After all, we did eight years of long distance, and the whole reason I joined Microsoft Shanghai in 2019 was to finally live with her…)

Work isn’t easy, and keeping your career on an upward trajectory isn’t easy either. I hope everyone reading my blog has smooth sailing at work, and doesn’t have to go through as much upheaval as I do.