Paul Allen’s AI unit doubles down on startup support

Matt Day | The Seattle Times | 15 August 2017

“Paul Allen’s artificial-intelligence research outfit is opening its doors to a handful of startups, dangling $250,000 in funding and the promise of opportunities to draw on the human brain power of its in-house Ph.D.s.

The Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence has already lent a hand to a couple of Seattle startups that have gone on to success. Kitt.ai was recently acquired by Chinese search giant Baidu, and Xnor.ai has raised a round of venture capital funding. As of Tuesday, AI2, as the research unit calls itself, is seeking applications for startups to follow in those companies’ footsteps.”

Read more here.

View AI2’s job openings here.

 

Ten Questions Recruiters Ask — That Are None Of Their Business

Liz Ryan | Forbes.com | 15 August 2017

“…For decades recruiters have been trained to ask job candidates “What are you earning now?” It is hard to give up a well-established habit like the habit of demanding a job-seeker’s salary details. Some recruiters are having trouble learning the new-millennium process of placing a candidate into a new position using their salary target rather than salary details in the process.

That is understandable, because we all have trouble shaking off our early training. Look how easily job applicants fall into Good Little Job Seeker mode on job interviews — even when they don’t want to! It’s because of our early training. We learned to sit nicely in our chairs and be silent while grownups were talking, and wait to be asked a question before speaking. We still do it as adults when we feel nervous — as most people do in a job interview.”

Read more here.

 

Tech Hiring Trends: Buzzwords, Trump Effect, and Gender-Pay Gap

Benjamin Romano | Xconomy |10 August 2017

“As the tech economy continues its historic boom, here’s three views of labor market trends released this week, including the rise and fall of buzzwords in engineering job postings; the Trump Administration’s impact on U.S. companies’ interest in foreign workers; and another disappointing look at the gender-pay gap.

—In the last two years, big data has fallen off the buzzword bingo card. Data is table-stakes for doing practically anything interesting in tech, and it’s the fuel for machine learning algorithms. And of course we’re not talking about a little data here or there. It’s got to be big. So there’s probably not much need to signal that in an engineering job post anymore, and indeed, that’s what a new analysis by augmented writing company Textio shows. The term’s usage peaked in 2015 and has since declined to 2012 levels.”

Read more here.

 

‘All seeing’ Seattle startup helps people search videos the way they search the web

Rachel Lerman | The Seattle Times | 6 August 2017

“In his 20 years of involvement with a video-technology project, Eric Burns has learned that people want to be able to search videos the same way they search the web.

Need to find a specific quote from a Ted Talk? Want to see that part of a video where a professor discusses the geologic history of Mesopotamia? Panopto can help with that.

The Seattle company’s technology lets people create searchable videos as well as search video libraries — by what is said or shown on screen in the video.

Panopto, which comes from the Greek root words for “all seeing,” started in 1998 as a project at Carnegie Mellon University.”

Read more here.

View Panopto’s job opening here.

 

Big growth? Indeed. Job search company doubles Seattle headcount, leases new office space

Nat Levy | GeekWire | 3 August 2017

“Job search giant Indeed.com is again expanding in Seattle.

The Austin-based company said its Seattle headcount has increased from about 80 a year ago to 172 today, and it is quickly outgrowing its current location in the Pioneer Square neighborhood. The company said it recently leased a full floor at Russell Investments Center in downtown Seattle totaling 44,631 square feet, a space with room for 215 people.

An Indeed spokeswoman told GeekWire that the company will move into the new space in the fourth quarter of the year. Even with the new lease, Indeed will hang on to its current space in Pioneer Square — approximately 29,400 square feet — as the company continues to grow in Seattle.”

Read more here.

View Indeed’s job opening here.