Jeffrey Snover is retired and spending his time as a Philosopher-Errant, attending Science & Technology conferences and giving public talks. Prior to retiring in 2026, he was a Distinguished Engineer at Google and a Technical Fellow at Microsoft where he was an AI Architect in Office, the Chief Architect for Windows Server Azure Stack. Snover is the inventor of Windows PowerShell, an object-based distributed automation engine, scripting language, and command line shell.
Snover joined Microsoft in 1999 as divisional architect for the Management and Services Division, providing technical direction across Microsoft’s management technologies and products.
Snover held 8 patents prior to joining Microsoft, and has registered over 30 patents since. He is a frequent speaker at industry and research conferences on a variety of management and language topics.
This web site is for his musings about Science, AI, PowerShell, software in general and anything else that he’s currently intrigued by.
What is your opinion on ReactOS?
I have not looked at it.. what is your opinion of it?
Jeffrey, it has been a privilege to have met you in person after a Microsoft conference and for the valuable career advice you gave from your personal experience.
Please keep writing here.
Best regards,
Pooja Gupte
PM, Microsoft Azure
Just saw your speech clip on C# creeping into windows and ms products. Priceless. I totally agree!
I personally felt it first time when they moved bunch of UI code in visual studio to C# and totally ruined it for me.
His master piece is powershell
Learned a new word today.
Opines is the third-person singular present tense of the verb opine, which means to state or express an opinion. It generally involves sharing a viewpoint, belief, or judgment on a subject
thx for triggering an Inquiring mind
Hello Jeffrey,
I’m a middle school student from China. I recently came across your story, and I honestly feel lucky to know that someone like you exists. I’ve read several of your blog posts, and I think every single one of them is of remarkably high quality. I truly consider you a role model.
I’d like to share something from my own life.
I’m part of my school’s aerospace project team. The school gave us half a semester to build a project, enter a competition, and win an award. Last year, we made a rocket out of cardboard with our own hands and won a third-place prize at the municipal level. But I felt uncomfortable when I saw other teams using ready-made rockets. It didn’t feel like a fair comparison.
This year, for the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei competition, the school gave us a rocket — pre-made. We became what we used to look down on.
But before the competition, I did something on my own. I built a modeling algorithm, created a simulation platform, and flashed code to the microcontroller. I went through many lonely failures, watched my passion get extinguished again and again — but in the end, I got it all done.
We were the last team to present. An expert asked whether the rocket was provided by the school. I answered confidently: “This is the launch vehicle. It’s the foundation we used to validate our innovative ideas. We don’t need to change every part — that’s reasonable.”
After the presentation, a young student volunteer asked me: “Did you build your rocket yourselves?” Looking into his sincere eyes, I suddenly lost my confidence.
What are we really doing research for? Why do we constantly chase recognition from others? How I wish I could represent no one — not my team, not my school, not even my country in the future — and simply contribute something genuine to the world.
The school only gave us half a semester. I had so many ideas I couldn’t bring to life in time.
And then I read about you — how you were demoted in 2002 for proposing PowerShell, how you stayed on the margins for five years, and eventually built something I truly admire. That kind of persistence means a great deal to me.
I know you endured a lot of pain inside Microsoft to push PowerShell forward. In your view, what kinds of companies or environments today are suitable for someone who wants to do pure development and research?
My English is not very good, so I hope my message still makes sense. I look forward to your reply — but even if you don’t reply, I want you to know: thank you for not giving up.
Yours sincerely,
Wei Entong(卫恩同)