My name is Karel Zikmund. I am Software Engineering Manager on .NET team - .NET Libraries / Base Class Libraries at Microsoft.

I spend most of my time as manager of Networking team (and few other areas lately).

You can find me and contact me on Discord: ziki.cz, on LinkedIn, on BlueSky: zikicz, on GitHub: karelz, or via email.

Upcoming Events

• Past events and projects

• Tech Talks for Universities on 2026/11/11 - live-streamed from Matfyz in Prague, CZ

• Active talks on sessionize for conferences and .NET MeetUps

Master and Bachelor thesis topics for Microsoft in Prague, Czech Republic

See Master and Bachelor thesis topics for Microsoft in Prague, Czech Republic page for details.

Using AI in Interviews - Experiment / Mock Interviews

See Using AI in Interviews - Experiment / Mock Interviews page for details.

Hiring for .NET & Compiler teams in Prague, Czech Republic

See Hiring for .NET Teams in Prague, Czech Republic page for details.

Job History & Education

See details about me.

Most important things about me

What is my goal/dream? That one day, when I leave Microsoft/.NET team, many people will come and genuinely thank me for helping them, teaching them, or just expressing joy at getting something done together (despite obstacles). I won't mind tears. That will make my time in the company worthwhile. Not rewards, money, or management clapping. But people's feedback and genuine appreciation. ... And thanks everyone for the gracious feedback I sometimes recieve out of the blue. That makes me keep going and fighting the good fight. And if I mess up, please tell me as wel, don't be shy - that's how I can learn and be better in future.

• I love my job. I love .NET as technology. I love the team culture on .NET team, our focus on people and the fact that we all try to make .NET platform better for all developers, not just to make money or monetize.

• I love the idea of open source / OSS. Even though I am involved in OSS only since 2016, I fell in love with the idea and I can't imagine going back to the dark ages again.

• I really like people. I like team work. I love creating results together, rather than just work in isolation.

• I believe that most people are good deep down and almost all inter-personal problems are just miscommunications. You can see me often trying to understand others view points and explaining my view point.

• I don't have ego. I am not a genius, but I am not a dummy either. Treat me with respect and I am sure we can find common grounds. I am the good guy, believe me.

• I have sometimes little patience with people who refuse to try, are selfish or egoistic, or are not willing to give up their invalid assumptions.

• I am transparent. I will rather say "I can't tell you" than lie.

• I value my work-life balance. I want to spend my time with my wife and my 2 kids. I don't mind working longer hours when the task/project at hand is my "baby", but overall I want it to be my decision when and how much.

• I appreciate freedom at work. Freedom (to certain point) to choose what to do and how to do things. I will voice my opinion when I disagree (sometimes I may push more than I should when I strongly disagree), but at the end of the day I respect chain of command. Anything else would be chaos.

• I want to grow, become better and more efficient at things I am doing. I appreciate any feedback from any source, it helps me discover blind spots and alternative view points. I am not career obsessed. I want to be better and more efficient to take on other challenges.

• I am interested in other people's stories, experiences, past mistakes and lessons learned. I can often learn from them instead of doing similar mistakes myself. I am more than happy to share same things with others.

• I am inefficient at doing code reviews. It takes me 2x-4x more time and energy than anyone else. When I do them, I need to understand everything perfectly, before I "approve" (kind of OCD). Therefore I stay away from code reviews if I can, doing team-wide efficiency on the team - I let others who do them "faster & better" do them.

• I don;t drink beer or non-alcoholic beer anymore, but I am always happy to discuss anything over a glass.

Check my LinkedIn profile for more details.