Steve Coast joined Microsoft in November 2010 as a Principal Architect.   Steve founded OpenStreetMap in 2004 which is a free and open map of the world.  He also co-founded CloudMade in 2008 that monetizes the map as values moves upstream.  Take a look at Steve’s OpenStreetMap talk at Location Strategies San Jose 2011.  http://www.stevecoast.com/talks.html  
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 Hey bloggers!  My name is J.J. and I’m a Test Lead on the Autopilot team within Bing.  Have you ever wondered how a massively distributed search engine is built, monitored, and maintained?  So did I several years ago when I joined the Bing team (back before it was actually called Bing).  My team and I work on testing one of the biggest, baddest, and most highly distributed software applications on the planet. ...
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  Hello job seekers! I hope you are off to a great start into the new decade. Now that 2011 has made its grand entrance and we are in a new year, have you thought about a new job? Here is an easy tip to help you prepare for your next interview! Keep a “kudos” or “You Rock” folder on your computer. Yes, I’m serious! Every time your efforts result in something that gets special recognition from your manager or...
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Dear Candidate: When I like your resume enough to pull you out of our database and we’ve arranged a time to talk on the phone, I hope you’ll to be prepared to talk to me.   When I ask you to “tell me about yourself,” I hope you’ll be ready for the question.   There should not be a long, uncomfortable silence from you when I ask this. When you get on the phone during...
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One of our blog readers asked how he can prep for his upcoming Microsoft interview.  There is a ton of information online and I have provided some of those links below, but here are some tips I give my candidates (thanks to some of my fellow recruiters who have helped articulate the tips so well): Brush up on your programming skills, including algorithms and data structures.  Yes, we may ask you about computer science principles from...
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Before we open a new req at Microsoft, the recruiter sits down with the hiring manager and discusses the role, the business problem to be solved and where we might find this person. (Shocking, game changing, inside information I know, but bear with me… ). The reason I bring this up though, is that in my Advertising R&D -Development org, the problems we’re trying to solve have very little to do with the domain of Online Advertising...
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