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Dona Sarkar

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Dona Sarkar(she/her)

Director of Technology · Microsoft

Dona is a tech leader at Microsoft, where she leads an enterprise AI program focused on making artificial intelligence genuinely useful for businesses and everyday people. Beyond her corporate career, she has built multiple ventures at once — including a fashion brand, a wine bar, a coaching practice, and several published books — earning recognition from Fast Company and Cosmopolitan magazine for her wide-ranging work. Her story is a reminder that your career doesn't have to fit one box, and that experimenting boldly is often how you find your most powerful path.

Their story

Director of Technology-Microsft, AI evangalist, Fashion Designer

24 min

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Key quotes

“I am the kind of person who likes doing things that no one else has done and no one else really thinks is possible. If you ask a normal person is it possible to work full time at Microsoft and have a full time business on the side, they'll say absolutely not. That's crazy. But it is 100% possible if you want it bad enough.”

Dona Sarkar, Director of Technology, Microsoft

“He didn't ask to see my resume. He didn't ask to see my GPA, nothing. He just saw this project and he had me walk through it.”

Dona Sarkar, Director of Technology, Microsoft

“Everyone is like, oh, I don't see any role models. I'm like, be the role model. Just be the role model you need. I didn't have one. I've never known a woman in technology until I started working.”

Dona Sarkar, Director of Technology, Microsoft

“Do the thing five times if you really want to do something. Learn to sew, learn to code. Fail once, fail twice, fail three, fail four times. You'll get it on the fifth try.”

Dona Sarkar, Director of Technology, Microsoft

“You can be a tech genius, but you don't have to be a tech genius. And I don't like that we in the tech industry put this myth out that you have to be some sort of special blend of genius with science and an amazing coder to be able to succeed.”

Dona Sarkar, Director of Technology, Microsoft

Career highlights

Projects matter more than your GPA — have something you built ready to show at all times.

Dona got her first job at Siebel Systems because she showed a recruiter a palm pilot app she'd built for class, not because of her grades or résumé.

When you fail a class or a task, just do it again. That's literally all you have to do.

Dona failed her first computer science class at University of Michigan, retook it, got a B, and went on to a 20-year career at Microsoft.

Your network doesn't have to be fancy — it just has to be real people who know you're a decent human.

Dona got her path into Microsoft through weekend hikes and Thai food with coworkers from her first job, not through formal networking events.

You don't need to quit your day job to start a business — use your income as your own venture fund.

Dona used her Microsoft salary to slowly and deliberately build Prima Donna Studios over seven years before launching it publicly in 2019.

If you want to do something you've never done, just find step one and start — everything you need to learn is already free and online.

Dona taught herself fashion design at a local school and points to free resources like Khan Academy, freeCodeCamp, GitHub, and Stack Overflow for anyone starting in tech.

Be the role model you never had — don't wait for someone who looks like you to show it's possible.

Dona says she never knew a woman in technology until she started working, so she decided to become the example for herself and for anyone who comes after her.

Student summary
Dona Sarkar is a senior software engineering manager at Microsoft and the founder of a fashion company called Prima Donna Studios — and she does both at the same time. Born in Nepal and raised in Detroit by immigrant parents, she chose computer science at the University of Michigan even though she had zero background in it, failed her first CS class, retook it, got a B, and kept going. That persistence turned into a 20-year career at Microsoft where she now earns around $500,000 a year — not as a CEO, but as a software engineer who loves her work. What makes Dona's story stand out is that she refused to let her career fit just one box. After a decade in tech, she enrolled in fashion school on the side, taught herself to sew, design, and run a business, and launched Prima Donna Studios in 2019 — a fashion brand with a mission to create economic power for women makers around the world. She manages her day by waking up between 4 and 5am to work on fashion, then shifts to tech from 8am onward. It's not glamorous, but it's intentional, and it works because she wants it badly enough. For students thinking about tech, Dona has one clear message: stop believing the myth that you have to be a genius to belong. She wasn't the best in her CS classes. She failed courses. She almost didn't apply to Microsoft because she imposter-syndromed herself out of it. She got her first job not because of her GPA but because she had a project in her pocket and stopped to help a stranger find an interview room. Projects beat grades. Relationships beat résumés. Showing up — even imperfectly — beats waiting until you feel ready. Dona speaks directly to students of color navigating industries that weren't built with them in mind. She acknowledges that discrimination is real and often subtle, but her response is to stay in the room, keep building, and become the role model you never had. She talks about being a minority in Detroit's school system, in computer science classes, and at Microsoft — and how each time, the move was the same: rely on yourself, keep learning, and don't compare your journey to anyone else's. Whether you're drawn to coding, fashion, entrepreneurship, or all three, Dona's story is proof that your career doesn't have to be one thing. You can experiment, pivot, build on the side, and create a life that looks nothing like what anyone told you was possible — because most of the rules about who belongs in tech, fashion, or business were never rules at all.