How can a 12‑year‑old begin preparing for a future career at Microsoft?

Hey there, Andrew Boreiko

When you apply for jobs at Microsoft, or any tech company, they will be looking for experience and any projects you have worked on or made yourself. You will most likely need a degree from university. This means you would need to also look at Computer Science degrees and their entry requirements. From studying IT & Computer Science, the Algorithms & Data Structures module is heavily maths based. Which means you would most likely need to have a Maths GCSE (or equivalent in your country) at a grade 4 or 5 (Some may want 5 or 6), but this will be stipulated on the Universities website. Defiantly speaking to your schools careers adviser will be a good step as they will be able to provide you with information on what colleges and universities are looking for in your area.

Everything I recommend in this post is based on you having permission from your parents and your parents being aware of everything you are doing online or offline.

The first thing I would recommend is waiting until you are 13, then with your parents permission, signing up to GitHub. This will allow you to store your projects privately, keeping a portfolio ready for you to showcase during interviews. You can learn more about GitHub and how to get started here: https://docs.github.com/en/get-started

Please do not sign up without permission from parents/carers and you must wait until you are 13 years old due to child protection policies that must be followed.

Staying on GitHub, please speak to your school about seeing if someone is able to create a coding club, or IT club, where students like yourself can learn how to program or learn more about computer science. If a teacher is up for creating something like this in your school, they can sign up, with the schools permission, to GitHub as a school that allow students to access the Student developer box. I know we have signed up for this in the past, as a secondary school, so you should be fine. However, your teacher/school can find out more here: https://github.com/education/schools

There is online websites that have been set up to allow students to learn how to program. One site I have used previously with students is Code Club, from the Raspberry Pi foundation here: https://codeclub.org/en/learn-to-code

You can access projects on that website that teach you how to program with Python, HTML & CSS, and other programming languages. You can find clubs near you, if you are based in the UK, that you can join. Again, with your parents permission.

Microsoft does have some free software such as:

• Visual Studio Code: https://code.visualstudio.com/download,
• Visual Studio Community: https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs/community/

Before downloading, please make sure you have permission and that your computer meets the requirements to run. I would start with Visual Studio Code as this uses less memory on your computer and allows you to program using Python. You can view Microsoft training modules here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/training/browse/

Please be aware that these may use services such as Azure which cost. There are some that are free and will teach you how to use the Visual Studios environment. One that may be of interest, with Minecraft Education, is this module on how to code with Python https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/training/paths/minecraft-python-coding-academy/

Microsoft also has the Make Code website here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/makecode

This allows people to learn how to program using their coding editors. You can flic between blocks and scripts such as Python. These have tutorials you can follow too. Schools can also use this website to allow students to learn how to program.

I know this is a lot of information, but hope this is helpful. Again, a lot of this will involve talking to your school about creating an opportunity where students can learn how to program.

Hope this helps, Nathan