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 way. Watching Russell play either in person at CenturyLink or on television, I always walk away with insights for my own life – especially my work life.

10X, Quarterback 2.0, Wonder Kid – Call it what you want. I believe that Russell never stepped onto the field to be exactly like the QB’s before him – he made a conscious decision to not be bound by the culture of QB’s before him. It is clear that he redefined the role and never let social norms (in terms of being a QB) rule the way he thinks, plays, or puts himself out there.  Russell has the unique ability to partner with any person on the field to score resulting in some pretty sensational plays – the kind of plays and 10X thinking that make you stand up and cheer in a dumbfounded way.  Every day you go to work, you have the ability to redefine yourself as a Software Developer 2.0 or 10X Parent. What can you do that may be a little outside of the norm that would change your life, change your work, or change your level of happiness in a measurable way?

Team Player – This can get buried easily since football is a team sport. However in this role, Russell and the coaching staff have found ways to utilize every player.  The number of eligible receivers in a game and how each how every player is utilized brings a new definition of versatile.  Punters make first downs, Quarterbacks rush for 122 yards, and kickers block (last season).  Are you limiting yourself to just one role or have you scoped your own job so much that you are creating invisible boxes, rules, or procedures? 

Attitude through adversity – Russell and team faced such adversity today with penalties, hard hits, and emotion having had three touchdowns turned back.  It is so easy to lose your cool, get spooked, or get derailed by setbacks at work.  I think I have personally learned to take a cue from Mr. Wilson and team by staying calm, very calm – understanding what is expected next and how to complete and execute ultimately getting the job done.  Their attitude demands respect.  In some cases roadblocks happen in threes as we saw tonight however you can win through clear headed perseverance. 

Impressed to say the least – examples and motivators for sure. #GoHawks #BingHawks #Dangeruss

Let us take a look at the work you’re doing, your role as part of that work, and how you are getting that work done.   Try to step back, and ask yourself some questions about each of them, and honestly answer them.

Product– Are you actually making an impact? Do you know what your deliverables are and are you the right or best person to execute? Are you doing the work and heavy lifting or are you just faking it?  We juggle different projects, our day job, and personal projects for ourselves or our families.  Be aware of your level of work for each body of work and own it – even if you’ve committed to playing catch up or to taking on even more work. Being spread thin never feels good but if you are you can effectively communicate this based on your awareness or better yet delegate and choose which projects will receive more of your time.

Role – What is your role in a relationship, project, or agreement? Are you in someone’s space or perhaps you aren’t best suited for a certain area? Are you fulfilling your part and do you know what is expected of you?  Knowing your role and the role of others is helpful and clearly delineates the components or scope of the project you’re working on.  It also helps you see clearly when someone is failing in their part and where you might have to pick up the slack to get things done on time.  Are you and the folks involved taking a principled and logical approach to the work or is it chaos?

The “How” – How do you get your work done? Is it original work, using and building on the work of others, or taking credit for others work?  Style too plays into the ‘how.’  We have big collaborators, those who disappear into their offices and come back later with something great, or those who get lost in the details and can’t manage to take a first step.  You determine the ‘how’ but know the impact of your ‘how’ and your style in delivering your work have downstream effects.  How you handle yourself at work or while working on something is critical to the success or failure of your work.  You can scope our your role and work as much as you want however if you don’t invest in ‘how you will do your work’ you won’t get very far.

Even if you’re very self-aware, it’s then a matter of how you use this information to interact with others.  Will you be transparent or change the way you work even if you have true self-awareness?  You control what you do with the information. Knowing the truth about your relationships, work, and how you get things done make you stronger and help you understand your long term prospects.  Your reputation and level of self-awareness will follow you all of your professional life – better to put up your antennae to get a good idea of how you shine and how you get work done.

Please come by and say hi and enter our raffle for a chance to win a $100 gift certificate to the Microsoft Retail store. Hope to see you there!

Be it a refocus, a restart, or a change in direction these tips should help you get started and set the course for a great year.

1. Resume Refresh

   Find your resume: This may sound funny, but unless you’re actively searching for your next role, you may have no idea where this is.

   Update it: What does your resume say about you? There is really no better place to highlight who you are as a professional, your skills, and accomplishments. The exercise of reviewing past projects can also serve as a mini pat on the back too.

   Stash it away, but don’t forget about it: Now that we’re up to date, let’s keep it that way. Revisiting your resume every year or bi-yearly is good exercise in reflecting where you’ve been and where you’re headed.

   Remember though, as is often the case with resumes, more is less. Shoot for a short, engaging paperback not ‘War and Peace’.

2. Social Media

   Chances are if you’re reading this post you’re not asking yourself “What is social media?” but even the most social-savvy professionals can clean this area up.

   Update your LinkedIn profile: Like your resume, this is often ignored. This is a great place to highlight recent projects, promotions, and other changes in your career. This is also an opportunity for new opportunities to find you or to find new connections.

   Clean up your Twitter Feed: Twitter is a great source of news and happenings in bite size pieces, but if you let your feed get overgrown (like your lawn) it can be overwhelming to keep up with. Trimming (and adding) from time to time will really help to focus your consumption and strengthen your connections and interactions in this space.

   Find a new Social Media space to play in: It might be connecting with like-minded professionals on Facebook or posting something on Github or StackOverflow. There are lots of places and resources you can easily use to expand your network.

    

3. Stretch Yourself

   Identify Areas of Growth: What do you want to learn this year to add to your career toolkit? What skills or experience will land you that promotion or new role? This could be a leadership workshop, adding a new technical skill, or even going back to school for your MBA.

   Make a plan: Now that you’ve identified what you want to learn, make a plan to execute on this. Does your company offer the curriculum? Will you need to attend a conference or go back to school? Map this out and set goals along the way. Think of this as your roadmap to future success.

   Celebrate Wins: As you hit your learning and development goals throughout the year, celebrate your wins (the next section might help with this too). This will make learning new skills easier and will provide the much needed motivation along the way.

    

4. Give yourself a carrot

   Not all our goals need to be deadlines met and projects completed. Sometimes something on the horizon like a vacation, a new sport you’ve been dying to try, or a quick getaway (the carrot J) to look forward to gives us the extra motivation to really do great things. After all, the saying goes Work to Live NOT Live to Work.

If you are interested in getting in touch with a Recruiter or learning more about job openings at Microsoft, you can follow us here: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. Looking forward to seeing you there!

After you brush off the upset/mad/confused feelings and start some introspection, realize that this might be one point in your life where you’re more open to a little self -improvement/growth.

How do you regroup and make this a net positive experience?

1) Ask for feedback: If you have the opportunity – go back to the interviewers and or recruiter about what it was you were missing– either experience wise, skill set, or actual ability to do the job – you should know about it and have the chance to either change your approach, learn, or grow in the areas you are lacking. If you don’t have the opportunity to ask for feedback – honest conversations with your current peers, coworkers, friends and family may be the way to go.

2) Take the feedback or need for change and be real about which you can execute on and which will be most meaningful.  Will you go back and get your Master’s degree or will you get that certification you didn’t have on your resume?  Is your communication style too aggressive or are your answers vague?

3) See if you can gain experience or make changes in your current job so you’re one step closer to filling in some of those skills gaps. If you currently do most of your development in C# yet need Java experience – perhaps take a look around and see what makes sense for you to try. Maybe you haven’t run a product or service full cycle or shipped something from inception to release?  There are opportunities to take on more or perhaps make trade-offs at work that may benefit you long term. 

4) Think about the role you didn’t get – what was it about the role that was so appealing?  What were the areas that didn’t seem too great?  Is this really the right job for you? Is there a variation somewhere else?  Being honest with yourself about what motivates you helps a bit with self-awareness and being real about what positions are ‘right’ for you/your skills level versus which ones you ‘want’. ‘Senior’ in one company does not equate to ‘Senior’ at another company and understanding the levels and roles at each company may help you nail down what job is right for you – and is something you can land.

One last thing to note – think more broadly about different groups and disciplines as you go back to your search.

No one ever feels excellent about not getting the job. However, don’t fall victim to obsessing about what went wrong, take control of the situation and learn and grow from your experience.  We have all been there at one time or another – this time you be the one in charge of what happens next.

1)      Social Media is a Great Platform for Highlighting your Skills

Whether it be LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+ or even Twitter, Social Networking sites allow you to tell others more about yourself outside of a resume. LinkedIn and Google+ are great tools for adding publications and projects that you’ve worked on and joining communities that are interested in the same domain. Facebook allows you to get more personal on who you are outside of work, what interests you, and what you do in your free time. Twitter is great for sharing articles about your area of work and being an active contributor in knowledge and/or opinion sharing. The use of hashtags makes it easy for you to not only keep up on trending topics of interest to you, but others can find you based on the hashtags that you use. For instance, if you are a Data Scientist who works in Machine Learning, anytime you tweet #machinelearning, you can be found in someone’s news feed that is searching for other #machinelearning enthusiasts.

It’s important to add that if you are looking for a job and putting yourself out there on Social Media sites, it’s important to have a profile that attracts employers. Remember to remain professional and don’t share anything that you wouldn’t want your boss or a potential employer to see.

2)      Applying Directly vs. Being Discovered

With the increased use of Social Media is our daily lives, it’s becoming second nature for us to check each site that we are members of on a daily basis just as email has. You can assume that other avenues that you’ve used to find jobs in the past have been replaced with those avenues that we have incorporated into our daily routines. Never before has it been easier to find people with like interests to us and people who are part of our larger professional and social networks than it is today. Companies are relying on these networks more and more for recruiting and relying less on their application systems where thousands of resumes are submitted daily. The application to hire ratio is becoming more favorable for job seekers who are active on social media and easily found vs. those who apply directly and wait with their fingers crossed. It’s similar to back in the day when “pounding the pavement” was a way to show you were determined to get noticed by a potential employer. You should think of Social Media as your pavement and being present and active on it as your way of showing your determination and what you’re made of.

3)      It’s All About Who You Know

Being active on Social Media is a great way to expand your network. In LinkedIn you can join groups of people who have the same interests as you and start/participate in discussions. Not only are recruiters searching these forums but hiring managers are often members as well. LinkedIn is a great way to expand your network and get in touch with the right people. Google+ is another great way to expand your network with their “Circles” feature. You can search for others based on the company they work for, their interests, or even their job title. Once you are part of a circle, you’re part of a community where you can meet and have discussions with others. Sometimes it’s just a matter of meeting and knowing the right people that leads to your next career opportunity. Social Media is a great way to do just that.

4)      It’s Good to be “Searchable”

When looking for a job, do you ever say to yourself, “If only I could get my resume in front of the right people”? Most recruiters are on Social Media sites daily in order to seek out great talent. Recruiters are experts in sourcing talent to fill their hiring needs by performing keyword searches and searching their extended networks. Whether it be utilizing Bing’s search capabilities, Facebook graph search, LinkedIn company searches, or Twitter hashtag searches, if you are active and present on any of these sites, you have a greater chance of coming up in a search result and getting contacted for a job.

If you are interested in getting in touch with a Recruiter or learning more about job openings at Microsoft, you can follow us here: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. Looking forward to seeing you there!

 Written by: Andrea LaCoy, Staffing Consultant 

http://microsoftjobsblog.com/3-tips-for-getting-a-job-in-the-new-year/

As we slip into the holiday season, Bing Jobs wants to help you think about your career presence in the New Year.  What is your professional brand or image at work?

Coming off an action packed NFL weekend – I am more and more impressed by Russell Wilson and his presence both on and off the field.  The maturity, responsibility, and opportunity he has as a second year QB is something I have never seen. A few words that come to mind as I think about Mr. Wilson – philanthropist, humble – always wanting to improve or analyze what he needs to work on, goes above and beyond his normal job description, and leader.

While we know what Mr. Wilson’s image/presence will do for his career, what about you and your image at work?  What will your presence at work do for you in the New Year? Do you need to increase the reach of your presence, fix your image a little, or perhaps change a few misperceptions out there?

Perhaps if we look at Mr. Wilson – we can figure out what changes we can make or take a few cues from his example.

Humbleness/Humility – Even if you have been in your industry for decades or at your company or on the same team for some time, there is ample opportunity to take a look at how you do things – can you streamline anything in the processes you use? Having the right attitude and willingness to change and improve existing processes, or better yet take on new work or areas for problem solving you can change things up at work and potentially save time, money, and be a part of change. Russell seems like an introspective person and I hear him talking about how he wants to improve, how he studied tapes, and I believe he takes the things he learns and applies them almost immediately or real time. Someone of his ability and performance level can easily revert to the “I have this covered” attitude yet Russell fine tunes every single game – you have to love his attitude.

Going above and Beyond – I have written about this before but it never gets old.  Russell makes his own plays happen. If things don’t look right – heck he’ll make that first down happen himself – watching him run the ball on his own is admirable.  You see the rest of the team catching on.  Who can forget the Steven Hauschka hit he took earlier in the season. If you create an environment or tone with your team that you will do whatever it takes to get the job done, help your team attain their goal – it’s almost contagious. Except for if you’re the kicker at work – please know your limitations. J

Leadership – Russell is wise to remember no matter where he is and no matter what he does, he represents Seattle Seahawks football even in the endorsements he takes on.  I wish I was privy to what goes on in the locker room so I knew how Russell has the natural respect of his teammates so this I guess I’ll never know.  Do you exude natural leadership or represent yourself as you want to when you are at work? 

Wishing you all the best during this holiday season. From all of us at @Bingjobs. 

Happy Holidays!!

1. Microsoft News Experience Coding Challenge
2. The Bing Apps Coding Challenge
3. The Bing Phone Apps Coding Challenge

Start marinating over the challenges and when complete, submit your entry or entries to bingjobs@microsoft.com no later than 5:59pm PST, December 13, 2013. Please see official rules on how to submit your entry, prizes, and eligibility.

Submission – submit your answer by email to bingjobs@microsoft.com with a subject line of: Microsoft Coding Challenge. Entries close at 5:59 p.m. PT on December 13th, 2013

Grand Prize: A meeting with Microsoft employees and personnel in Redmond, WA, to answer questions about your background, career, expectations, aspirations and employability. Winner will receive the standard Microsoft recruiting travel package including

1) Round trip coach airfare from major airport closest to winner’s home to Seattle, WA

2) Two night’s standard hotel accommodations

3) Rental car for duration of stay

4) The opportunity to meet with Microsoft recruiting staff

5) $75 per day meal allowance

Microsoft News Experience Coding Challenge:

Assume that millions of news feeds, from thousands of news partner’s worldwide, are processed every day. This includes RSS feeds as well. Most news feeds do not follow any one (or two) schema so the first hurdle in processing these feeds (one at a time) and convert them to an internal canonical format. Next, one needs to verify that mandatory fields exists and for feeds with well-known schema (some partners well-known schema), the values are correct (or in range). Once the validation is complete, the meta-data about the news story (e.g. Source, Dateline, Headline, keywords etc.) is kept in a database whereas the story itself is kept in an XML format in a (distributed) file store. At this time, news index is also updated with this processed news story.

On the consumption (of news) side, the news is rendered via msn.com sites/pages, Bing Apps on Windows and Phone. These applications make a REST-based call to the backend services to fetch a specific news story (by ID) or search by a given page grouping (e.g. entertainment entity in Thailand showing headlines with an image). The editorial team curates the experience by attaching a set of news story (e.g. by using keywords) for a specific market (e.g. French Canada) to a specific Bing App (or msn.com site) visible entity.

Keep in mind that the experiences (Windows 8 Apps, Windows Phone Apps, msn.com sites) have to work for hundreds of millions of users consuming news in over 100+ languages in 200+ countries and regions. Similarly, news feeds could contain news in any of these languages and meant for all regions or a particular region. The experiences need to rendered in sub-seconds.

As part of this coding challenge, you are invited to design any or all parts of the end-to-end data-flow/experience, and write code for a specific component or app. For example, you could submit a Windows 8 app mimicking the UX of Bing News App OR a web app displaying news for a given market (e.g. Israel) OR a Windows Phone App OR a newsfeed ingestion pipeline. You are also welcome to submit code for application or backend services built on non-windows/non-Microsoft platforms, if that is your current expertise.

This challenge is open to industry veterans to seniors in a college and to candidates around the world.

The Bing Apps Coding Challenge:

First head over to Microsoft Channel 9 site and learn how to build Windows 8 Application using WinJS or C#. Next find a Windows 8 machine and run Bing News Application.

Goal

Build your application to mimic the user experience of Bing News Application especially in the following area:

• Have the default news come from

1. A RSS feed (e.g. New York Times). User can override the default by providing a new RSS feed source OR,
2. A RESTful backend service which provides the news stories.

• From navigation point of view, implement (minimum)

1. “Top Edgy” which comes up upon right click near top of the application (or touch near the top on Surface devices)

(Add picture of Top Edgy)

1. “Bottom Edgy” which comes up upon right click near bottom of the application (or touch near the bottom of a Surface Device)
2. User is able to swipe right to left to read pages of the articles
3. User is able to go different sections of the news by clicking on a Table of Content (or via Top Edgy)
4. User is able to mark an article to be saved on local disk to be read during offline mode.
5. On a normal network setting (11Mbps on 802.11b ), the app launches in 2 seconds and each news page renders in 1seconds or less

Considerations and constraints

Here are some aspects to consider:

1. Locally cached articles can be rendered on launch but app must fetch new updates and refresh the pages. Look at Bing News App behavior as template.
2. The App must run on Windows 8 system, Surface will be ideal.

Deliverables

1) Design of the application. Be explicit about the assumptions you make.

2) The Application Code

3) Performance (Time to render) measured using Stop Watch, ETW will be ideal

.

Stretch goal (bonus points)

• Implement Handling multiple news sources
• App follows Windows 8 guidelines for Snapped View
• Enable Semantic Zooming

The Bing Phone Apps Coding Challenge:

First head over to Microsoft Channel 9 site and learn how to build Windows Phone Application. Next find a Windows system which is supported by Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Phone and start building the News Application. For UX, either download Bing Phone News App for Windows Phone or get schematic at this blog.

Deliverables

1) Design of the application. Be explicit about the assumptions you make.

2) The Application Code

3) Performance (Time to render) measured using Stop Watch, ETW will be ideal.

The MSN Web App Coding Challenge:

For building your Web site/App, you can leverage Microsoft platforms (e.g. ASP.NET MVC, Microsoft Azure) or non-Microsoft platforms (e.g. Apache).

For engineers familiar with Windows platform, first head over to learn about MVC platform. Then, create a RESTful service around a real RSS feed or a local file – to get news story for your web site. Then, build the Web UX mimicking a msn.com news site for your (or nearest) region e.g. US Site.

Deliverables

1) Design of the application. Be explicit about the assumptions you make.

2) The Application Code

3) Performance (Time to render) measured using Performance Counters.

Stretch Goals (Bonus Point):

• Design the application such that the same code can be leveraged to render local (to a region) news story around the world
• Design the application such that editorial team can add news clusters after the application is live in data center
• How would you design the system for ensure high availability (e.g. 99.9%)? What design change would you need to make to get to next level (e.g. 99.99% or 99.9999%)?
• Design points around scale. What would change if you have 100 times more feeds? 100 times more stores? 100 times more users
•  

The Bing News Processing Service Coding Challenge:

For engineers fascinated with building massively scale-able systems like news ingestion pipelines (or indexing systems), design the backend system. Remember that data is consumed (via RESTful APIs) around the world (where the users are). Clarify the assumptions you are making as part of the design and then code up one portion of the design and submit both the design and code. You are welcome to assume all services running on physical machines or Cloud-based systems (e.g. Windows Azure, Amazon AWS, or Google Cloud). For building the code, you can leverage Microsoft .Net or Java or any other stack that you are most versatile in.

Deliverables

1) Design of some or whole pipeline. Be explicit about the assumptions you make.

2) The Service Code

3) Performance (e.g. # of ingested feeds per second per system, # of news story indexed per second) measured.

4) Design points around scale. What would change if you have 100 times more feeds? 100 times more stores? 100 times more users

Stretch Goals (Bonus Points):

• Design an end-to-end monitoring solution which tells in real-time if ingestion pipeline is working correctly
• Design a dashboard which shows data flowing end-to-end in this (distributed) ingestion pipeline
• Design an indexing solution which can handle hundreds of millions of news story coming in every day from around the world.

BING CODING CONTEST

OFFICIAL RULES

COMMON TERMS USED IN THESE RULES:

These are the official rules that govern how the Bing Coding contest will operate (“Contest”).

In these rules, “we,” “our,” and “us” refer to Microsoft Corporation, the sponsor of this Contest. “You” refers to an eligible Contest entrant.

CONTEST DESCRIPTION:

This is a skill-based Contest. The object of this Contest is to exhibit skill in software coding.   For purposes of this Contest, each coding exercise that you create and submit in the Contest will be called an “Entry.” All eligible Entries received will be judged using the criteria described below to determine winners.

WHAT ARE THE START AND END DATES?

This Contest starts at 10 a.m. Pacific Time (PT) on October 18, 2013, and ends at 11:59 p.m. PT on December 13, 2013 (“Entry Period”). Public voting will take place during the Entry Period, the results of which will be considered in the judging criteria described more fully below.

CAN I ENTER?

You are eligible to enter this Contest if you meet the following requirements at time Entry:

• You are a legal resident of the 50 United States and District of Columbia, are 21 years of age or older and you have unrestricted authorization to work in the U.S. (proof may be required from selected winner(s)); and

• You are NOT an employee of Microsoft Corporation or an employee of a Microsoft subsidiary; and

• You are NOT involved in any part of the administration and execution of this Contest; and

This Contest is void outside the geographic area described above and wherever else prohibited by law.

HOW DO I ENTER?

To enter visit http://blogs.bing.com/jobs/ and follow the instructions to complete the Contest coding exercise using Object Oriented Programming Language within the Entry Period. A total of one coding exercise will be presented.  

The answer you submit and the registration information you provide will together be called your “Entry.” Limit 1 Entry per person. We are not responsible for Entries that we do not receive for any reason, or for Entries that we receive but are not decipherable for any reason. In the event we receive more than one Entry from you for the same coding exercise, only the first Entry submitted will be considered and the rest will be disqualified.

We will automatically disqualify any incomplete or illegible Entry.

WHAT CONSTITUTES AN ELIGIBLE ENTRY?

To be eligible for judging your Entry must meet the following requirements:

• Your Entry must be your own work; and
• Your Entry cannot have been selected as a winner in any other contest; and
• You must have obtained any and all consents, approvals or licenses required for you to submit your Entry; and

We reserve the right to reject any Entry, in our sole and absolute discretion, that we determine does not meet the above criteria.

HOW WILL MY ENTRY BE POTENTIALLY USED?

By submitting your Entry, you:

• understand and acknowledge that the Sponsor(s) may have developed or commissioned materials similar or identical to your submission and you waive any claims you may have resulting from any similarities to your Entry;

• understand that you will not receive any compensation or credit for use of your Entry, other than what is described in these Official Rules

Please note that your Entry may be posted on a website selected by us for viewing by visitors to that website. We are not responsible for any unauthorized use of your Entry by visitors to this website. While we reserve these rights, we are not obligated to use your Entry for any purpose, even if it has been selected as a winning Entry.

If you do not want to grant us these rights to your Entry, please do not enter this Contest.

WINNER DETERMINATION AND PRIZES

At the close of the Entry Period a panel of Microsoft judges will review all entries and select one Grand Prize winner and three First Place winners based on the following judging criteria:

• Originality / Creativity (35%),
• Composition/syntax (35%)  

The decisions of the judges are final and binding. In the event of a tie between any eligible entries, an additional judge will break the tie based on the judging criteria described above. The decisions of the judges are final and binding. If we do not receive a sufficient number of entries meeting the entry requirements, we may, at our discretion, select fewer or no winners.

Grand Prize:  A meeting with Microsoft employees and personnel in Redmond, WA, to answer questions about your background, career, expectations, aspirations and employability. Winner will receive the standard Microsoft recruiting travel package including Round trip coach airfare from major airport closest to winner’s home to Seattle, WA

• Two nights standard hotel accommodations
• Rental car for duration of stay
• The opportunity to meet with Microsoft recruiting staff
• $75 per day meal allowance paid as a check from Microsoft

Please remember that participation in the Contest, winning the grand prize, or meeting with Microsoft employees is not a guarantee of a job or job-offer at Microsoft.

Winner is responsible for providing all required travel documents, including, but not limited to any required photo identification etc. If winner lives within 500 miles of Redmond, WA, Sponsor reserves the right to provide alternative transportation and hotel accommodations.  

Any expenses not mentioned above are the winner’s responsibility. Some restrictions may apply. Trip dates will be arranged with the winner based on a mutually available time. Winner may not cancel or transfer of reservation to another date after reservation has been made.

(3) First Prize: A Bing branded T-Shirt. ARV ea $20

If you are a potential winner, we will notify you by sending a message to the e-mail address, the phone number, or mailing address (if any) provided at time of Entry within seven (7) days following completion of judging. If the notification that we send is returned as undeliverable, or you are otherwise unreachable for any reason, we may award to a runner-up.

If there is a dispute as to who is the potential winner, we will consider the potential winner to be the authorized account holder of the e-mail address used to enter the Contest. If you are a potential winner, we may require you to sign an affidavit of eligibility, liability and publicity within 10 days of notification. If you do not complete the required forms as instructed and/or return the required forms within the time period listed on the winner notification message, we may disqualify you.

If you are confirmed as a winner of this Contest:

• You may not exchange your prize for cash or any other merchandise or services. and

• You may not designate someone else as the winner. If you are unable or unwilling to accept your prize, we may award it to an alternative winner; and

• If you accept a prize, you will be solely responsible for any applicable taxes related to accepting the prize; and

We will only award one (1) prize per person.

WHAT OTHER CONDITIONS AM I AGREEING TO BY ENTERING?

By entering this Contest you agree:

• To abide by these Official Rules; and

• To release and hold harmless Microsoft and its respective parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, employees and agents from any and all liability or any injury, loss or damage of any kind arising from or in connection with this Contest, or any prize won; and

• That Microsoft’s decisions will be final and binding on all matters related to this Contest; and

• That, by accepting a prize, Microsoft may use of your proper name and state of residence online and in print, or in any other media, in connection with this Contest, without payment or compensation to you, except where prohibited by law.

WHAT LAWS GOVERN THE WAY THIS CONTEST IS EXECUTED AND ADMINISTRATED?

This Contest will be governed by the laws of the State of Washington, and you consent to the exclusive jurisdiction and venue of the courts of the State of Washington for any disputes arising out of this Contest.  

WHAT IF SOMETHING UNEXPECTED HAPPENS AND THE CONTEST CAN’T RUN AS PLANNED?

If someone cheats, or a virus, bug, catastrophic event, or any other unforeseen or unexpected event that cannot be reasonably anticipated or controlled, (also referred to as force majeure) affects the fairness and / or integrity of this Contest, we reserve the right to cancel, change or suspend this Contest. This right is reserved whether the event is due to human or technical error. If a solution cannot be found to restore the integrity of the Contest, we reserve the right to select winners from among all eligible entries received before we had to cancel, change or suspend the Contest.

If you attempt to compromise the integrity or the legitimate operation of this Contest by hacking or by cheating or committing fraud in ANY way, we may seek damages from you to the fullest extent permitted by law. Further, we may ban you from participating in any of our future Contest, so please play fairly.

WINNERS LIST

To find out who won, send an email for receipt by December 20, 2013, with the subject line “Bing Coding Contest Winner” to bingjobs@microsoft.com

WHO IS SPONSORING THIS CONTEST?

Microsoft Corporation

One Microsoft Way

Redmond, WA 98052

Seattle Geek Girl Dinner at EMP!

What do Madonna, Chrissie Hynde, Lady Gaga, and Tina Turner (among many, many others) all have in common? They rock. What do you and your female counterparts in the Seattle tech community solving tough challenges, delivering innovative solutions, and changing the world we live in for the better all have in common? You rock too.

It’s time to get all these rockin’ women under one roof to share ideas, build community, and have a little fun along the way! Please join us at EMP for the Seattle Geek Girl Dinner 2013, hosted by Microsoft.

Event Details

Date and Time: October 10^th, 6:00pm

Venue: EMP, 325 5^th Ave N., Seattle, WA 98109

Cost-We’ve got you covered for this one! Enjoy food and beverages (beer and wine).

Guest Speakers

Tara Roth – CVP, Office

Tara Roth is corporate vice president of Test in the Office Client Services Group, responsible for the Microsoft Office system, an integrated suite of information worker applications, servers and services. Tara is directly responsible for test teams and test engineering in the Office Group. She has additional responsibility to drive engineering standards and methods with other leader across the broader Microsoft community.

Outside of work, Tara enjoys snow skiing, boating, spending time with her husband and two children, and volunteering in local nonprofit work.

Laura Kern – Partner Program Manager, Microsoft Advertising

Laura is a firm believer in the power of people and the strength of emotional design.  She has over a decade of large-scale consumer service design at Microsoft across a variety of disciplines. She started her career in the “Geography Unit” back at the formation of Encarta World Atlas and the initial foray online mapping software where she went on to co-found the Geopolitical Product Strategy unit aimed at keeping regional managers out of jail, consumers happy with Microsoft, and products on the shelves in all our markets — with lots of lively moments from world court, government officials, and political factions. She has spent the last decade in online services, most notably in design and user experience on Bing where she and the other early members learned the ins and outs of building an algorithmic search engine from the ground up, using data in design, and how to run and innovate within agile service models. She also brought the team and the principles together to enable high-value editorial to search as illustrated by the vibrant Bing homepage. She is currently the GM of Design & UX for Microsoft Advertising.

Laura is a Minnesota native with a super-charged 5-year-old daughter, a Microsoft husband, and a passion for making things.

Joy Chik – Partner Director of Development, Windows Server and System Center (WSSC)-Remote Desktop Services

As Partner Development Manager, Joy Chik is responsible for delivering a rich and fluid desktop and application remoting solution called Remote Desktop Services (RDS) which generates $1B revenue as of FY12.  RDS is the workload within Windows Server that enables users to connect to virtual desktops, session-based desktops and RemoteApp programs.  The key value that RDS provides is the ability to centralize and control the applications and data that employees need to perform their job, while making them accessible from the wide variety of devices the employees use.  This provides “work anywhere from any device” while ensuring that your control and compliance needs are met.

Prior to joining Microsoft full time, Joy interned at Microsoft with the Exchange team in 1996.  She graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY in 1998.

Now that you know the details, what are you waiting for? Please RSVP here: https://seattlegirlgeekdinners23.eventbrite.com/

Let’s make this a rockin’ night to remember!

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