Microsoft expanding artificial intelligence efforts, ramping up hiring

Ashley Stewart | Puget Sound Business Journal | 29 September 2016

“Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) has formed the Microsoft AI and Research Group to consolidate its research and product development surrounding artificial intelligence.

The new group will be led by Harry Shum, a 20-year Microsoft veteran who has had leadership roles across Microsoft Research and Bing engineering. The new group will include more than 5,000 computer scientists and engineers focused on the company’s AI product efforts. Microsoft said it is also hiring more scientists.”

Read more here.

 

WTIA receives $7.5 million from U.S. for apprentice program

Rachel Lerman | The Seattle Times | 27 September 2016

“A Washington state apprenticeship program designed to train and place people into technology jobs has received $7.5 million from the federal government to expand the program across the country.

Washington Technology Industry Association’s Apprenti program launched last month in the state, bolstered by an earlier, $3.5 million five-year grant from the U.S. Department of Labor.

Apprenti places its students in a yearlong paid position after a short training period. Apprentices work in mid-tier technical jobs, spanning from front-end web development to project management to database administration.”

Read more here.

 

From street to software: This non-profit helps previously homeless men and women start coding careers

Monica Nicklesburg | GeekWire | 27 September 2016

“The pilot program Wallace signed on for eventually developed into Esperas, a non-profit that helps people struggling with homelessness and other issues launch technology careers.

The first year of the Esperas internship is dedicated to intensive training. During that period, the non-profit pays for courses, housing, and basic living expenses. From there, Esperas helps interns find work with technology companies in the Seattle area, while providing ongoing training and support.”

Read more here.

 

Oracle is looking to play the long game in public cloud

Jordan Novet | Venturebeat.com | 25 September 2016

“…the ability to ship faster has to do with the fact that people have come to the Oracle cloud organization from web companies like Amazon, Dropbox, Facebook, Google, and Pinterest, and they’ve sought to put in place the types of tools they’ve used before to rapidly send out updates and to monitor, manage, and automate. “The thing that gives me confidence is really the people,” Johnson said, adding that building the new Oracle cloud infrastructure has been “the most successful and the most fantastic engineering effort that I’ve been a part of.” He wouldn’t talk about the exact size of the company’s geographically dispersed cloud organization, but, in 2014, Oracle said it was looking to hire more than 100 engineers to work at a cloud engineering center in downtown Seattle. “

Read more here.

See Oracle job openings.