If you’re like me you just watched Monday Night Football and now you’re watching SportsCenter or the evening news. I am long overdue with this blog post. Since Russell Wilson became starting QB for the Seattle Seahawks, I have blogged about his performance each year.  As this young man develops, matures, and gains experience it is evident that he is surrounded by the best staff, coaches, and teammates which allows him to excel in an exponential...
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Dear Santa: I don’t ask for much but since last year’s request of winning the lotto or hitting the jackpot in Vegas was a bust, I have prepared a better list.  One with more tangible items that I know you can easily get your hands on.  Louis Vuitton Handbag Jimmy Choo Shoes (size 8 ½ ) Diamond Earrings Anything  Burberry Microsoft’s Surface Halo 4 and some toys for my cat Rose and puppy Colonel Oh and last...
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I think that everyone would agree with the statement that we live in a world that is ever changing and always evolving. The standard way of doing things in the past are being replaced with the better, faster, more efficient versions and this can been seen in almost everything we do. Making a career change is no exception. Gone are the days of reading the ‘Want Ads’ in the newspaper, or dropping off your resume to that potential...
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Working as a Staffing Consultant within Online Services Division here at Microsoft, I am constantly reminded that my job has a lot of similar aspects to sports and trying to put together a team that is set up to win. While watching the NBA Eastern Conference Finals this past weekend, I noticed the intricacies of what it took to put a winning team on the court. Even before teams come together, there is a lot of behind the scenes work that...
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As we head into the NBA Finals, my mind turns to Erik Spoelstra and the unique situation he is in.  With the finals starting tonight, I think about how Erik Spoelstra’s role as head coach of the Miami Heat, a team of very strong individual players each with their own strengths translates to the world of high technology and people management. Understand your players – Understand your team – how they operate as a team, their...
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Have you heard about The Microsoft Garage? It’s not a place to park or fix cars. The Garage is company wide initiative, compromised of a community, events, and services to foster and support grassroots innovation inside of Microsoft. In the Garage, you’ll find over 3000 people from across Microsoft who are eager to hear your ideas, provide feedback and, quite possibly, turn those ideas into reality.The Garage also offers...
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    One question I am frequently asked by candidates is “what defines the culture at Microsoft Advertising and the Online Services Division?” A few words that come to mind when describing our work environment and culture are: innovation, creativity and passion. One great example of keeping the spirit of innovation alive is the “Creativity @ Microsoft Advertising” initiative that Microsoft Advertising recently...
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My name is Chris Hanaoka and I lead software development for the infrastructure organization that powers Microsoft’s online services. Talk about a dream job! I’m surrounded by really, really smart people that I get to learn from every day. I have the opportunity to contribute to cutting edge technology. Everything is at an insanely massive scale. And I get to build solutions that I’m proud of!   Our team is called...
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Michele Banko, Senior Research Software Development Engineer.   Michele is part of the Query Understanding team within Microsoft Advertising Research and Relevance.  This team develops models and algorithms that reflect user intent of Bing queries in the context of advertising. By doing so, they aim to make advertising more efficient for both advertisers and consumers.   Michele’s team consists of nine applied scientists and...
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My name is Ed Harris, and I am a development manager on the Bing team.  I’ve been at Bing since 2004, and worked on a lot of different teams – on the front-end/consumer-facing bits, deep in the platform space, and now in our infrastructure team.   The infrastructure team’s mission is to provide a stable foundation for Bing and other online applications to run upon.  Want to install an operating system and deploy a...
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