By Zoe Goldring

Another beautiful fall day is breaking in Redmond and with that comes the latest dispatch from one of our teams. This week, Harish Jayanti of the Bing Geospatial Platform team wanted to tell you more about his new team and what they are working on. Now, I am not going to be shy on my lack of knowledge of this area –this post contains a lot of engineering terms that went over my head at first. But here’s the thing about reading what Harish has to say; he exudes excitement. Excitement for the engineering problems that he tackles on a daily basis. Excitement for a problem space that he and his team gets to dig into every day. And mostly excitement for the people he spends his time with. So read along and find out what this part of the Microhood has to offer. And then decide if you want to be part of that excitement for yourself!

Cheers,
Zoe

My name is Harish Jayanti and I am a development manager on the Bing Platforms team. I have been in Microsoft since 1997, building large-scale web services for Encarta.com, Virtual Earth/Bing Maps, and now Bing Platforms.

WHAT WE DO

The team that I manage is the Bing Geospatial Platform team. My team builds rich location and spatial services that can be used by the end-to-end Online Services Division (OSD)stack and enables relevance and engagement improvements for all location based scenarios in OSD. With the skyrocketing increase of search traffic from location-aware devices, adding powerful geospatial capabilities to the Bing Platform and making location a first-class citizen across the end-to-end Bing stack has become a top priority.

Working in the geospatial and location-based services space is very exciting as it is a fast moving area with many interesting engineering and algorithmic challenges. Some of the problems that our engineers are currently tackling include building a robust geospatial graph containing all the entities that we know of in the physical world, deeply integrating the geospatial graph with the web graph, and building a large-scale extremely low-latency spatial search service. Writing algorithms that (a) create semantic and spatial relationships across hundreds of millions of entities and (b) query the entities and relationships with rich spatial and relational filters in a few milliseconds, requires deep knowledge in several areas of computer science. So every day at work is very intellectually rewarding for all of us.

OUR TEAM

We are a newly formed team with a few hand-picked rock star engineers from various parts of Bing. We have a startup culture with minimal process and management overhead. We ship updates to our production services every two weeks, using Scrum as the development process. We code primarily in C# and C++ to deliver components and web services to our customers throughout Microsoft.  Everyone writes production code and is responsible for end-to-end quality including test coverage and live site duties. As we are a platform team with SLA commitments for production services, we have a high bar for engineering fundamentals and strive to drive quality upstream as much as possible. We also focus on continuous improvement of our engineering processes with the goal of enhancing our quality and agility. Some of the key values we emphasize on our team include passion for technical growth, strong engineering fundamentals, individual accountability and responsibility, team work and mentoring, and drive for results.

Now that you have an idea of what my team works on, I want to tell you more about the people on the team. We have a lot of fun working closely with each other, helping each other grow, and enjoying shared success. We are relatively flexible with our work schedules and let everyone manage their day-to-day work on their own and track progress on a weekly basis. We work in City Center Plaza in downtown Bellevue, so in addition to enjoying the great views, we usually go out for lunch or drinks on a regular basis to the nearby restaurants. We also take time for regular team outings – recent events include a cooking class at Kaspar’s, a Day of Caring event at The Just Garden Project in Seattle, a picnic at Chism Park, river rafting in Wenatchee river, and a hike at Tiger Mountain in Issaquah.

WE ARE HIRING!

Working on an exciting and challenging charter with a great team has been a lot of fun for all of us! We are looking for more world-class talent to join us and help us shape the future of Bing and advance the area of search. If you are interested, please contact us at bingjobs@microsoft.com or visit: http://bit.ly/binggeospatialjobs to view my engineering job openings.

By Thomas Kohnstamm, Chief Microspotter

Geek in question: Dean Iacovelli

Job title: Director of Collaboration Solutions for Microsoft State and Local Government

By day, Dean Iacovelli travels the country, working to transition New York City, the State of California and other state and local governments into the cloud.

By night, he is a master Italian chef and all-around DIY food and wine geek. Want to make your own mozzarella from scratch? Ask Dean. He’s done it. Homemade salami? Done that too.

Whether he is educating politicians on how the cloud can make city governments more efficient or encouraging friends to explore the great breadth of regional Italian food, Dean is the kind of person who can’t help but share his enthusiasm with others and show them what more is possible.

For the past six years, Dean has combined his passion for cooking and Microsoft to support a greater cause by donating a multi-course dinner for six people to the Microsoft Giving Campaign online auction. Dean works with the auction winner to create a unique menu featuring food and wine pairings from a specific region of Italy.

I recently sat down with Dean at Macrina Bakery in Seattle to discuss the cloud, cuisine and charity.

Where’d you develop such a deep interest in regional Italian food?
I grew up in Montreal and lived close to my Italian grandparents. My grandmother was from outside of Rome and was a master of her regional cuisine. She met my grandfather in Canada and he was from Puglia – so she also learned to make the food that he grew up with.

After my grandmother passed away, I slowly realized that the magnificent food – with all of its culture and history – was not going to cook itself.

I am also diabetic. That means I can’t eat pasta or other carbohydrates and have therefore had to explore beyond Italian restaurants’ “greatest hits.”

How did you decide that you were going to become a dinner party black belt?
I was living in Ottawa and started reading recipes online. I thought I would give a dinner party a shot and invited six friends over for what was like a seven-course meal.

It was pretty much a disaster. I had overlapping courses, huge gaps between other courses and my homemade focaccia was more than a little tough to chew.

But I learned from the experience and starting throwing dinner parties all the time. I soon discovered that research and planning is 80% of the battle.

Has your cooking influenced your work at Microsoft or vice versa?
In both things it is really important to refine your process. But they are very different too. I love the balance between using my brain all the time at work and then switching to something that I create with my hands in the kitchen.

That said; I do get very serious while cooking. My wife avoids me when I have what she calls my “cook face” on.

Tell us how the meal for the giving campaign came to be.
At first, I was donating money each year. But, as my work responsibilities continued to grow, I had less and less time to create elaborate dinner parties. So, I decided that it would be a good way to raise money and to also push myself to evolve as a cook.

A big dinner party can take two months of planning. This event gives me a reason to really challenge myself. In each dinner, I always aim for one big goal… something that I’ve never done before, whether it is curing my own meats, baking a proper rustic bread or infusing my own grappa.

So you work best under pressure?
I essentially work in sales, so I like to have that date on the calendar and then work my ass off to make my numbers or pancetta or whatever it is.

But it’s not just about pressure. I also really like to understand what makes things tick and then share that with others. For example, I do wine pairings for each meal and then create a Word doc with the name, vintage, type of grapes, tasting notes and a picture of the label so people can find the wine again if they like.

Are other people at Microsoft surprised when they learn about your double-life as a super cook?
It’s funny, because I find out all the time that my colleagues have some amazing talent. It’s like, you’ll have known them for years and suddenly they sit down and start playing concert piano or singing an operetta.

That’s just the kind of people we have around here.

Like all good things, My Intern Life video series has come to an end. Alexis, E.J., Frank and John share their parting thoughts on what an internship at our Redmond headquarters taught them in just a few short weeks. 

But with every ending, there is always a beginning. And maybe that beginning starts with  you. Check our all our internship and graduate opportunites on our University site. Who knows, maybe you'll be the next intern featured in My Intern Life!

- The Jobsbloggers

Like millions of young men across the United States, Albert Rocker dreamed of a career in the NFL. Although there’s a better chance of getting struck by lightning than playing professional football, Albert’s ambition, discipline and dedication brought him within striking distance.

As Albert reached his final year of college football eligibility, he found himself at a crossroads: take his last shot at pro football stardom or move to California for a promising career opportunity at Microsoft. "It was probably the most difficult decision of my life," Rocker admits.

This enviable but gut-wrenching choice did not just appear out of the blue. Albert had always treated his academics in the same way he approached football.

He reflects, “As a football player, you learn a lot about teamwork. You live with your teammates, eat with them, lift with them and study with them. If one guy misses curfew, he lets down the whole team. You learn a lot about collaboration and you really come to understand accountability.”

Albert believes that football is good preparation for the challenges of a career. He says, “You learn to deal with adversity. It’s all about using your attitude to never give up a fight and to keep investing time and hard work until you overcome your obstacles.”

At Georgia Tech, Albert played in a total of 38 games, including all 13 games of his junior season in 2010. Around his grueling football schedule, which Albert says could take “up to 60 hours of work per week,” he studied management and landed on the ACC Academic Honor Roll in 2009-2010. During his summer vacations, Albert balanced preparation for the next football season with internships to build his business knowledge.

Early last year, Albert attended a Georgia Tech career fair in search of a new summer internship – something different that would give him broader experience. It was at that career fair that Albert happened upon Georgia Tech alum and current Microsoft program manager Irwin Dolobowsky.

Irwin recalls, “I’ve attend lot of career fairs and sometimes speak with up to 500 students per event. Almost all of them have good grades and good experience. Albert had the background, but he also had exceptional social and leadership skills. He was able to showcase those abilities to me immediately.”

Irwin passed along Albert’s resume to Microsoft recruiter Trish Lincoln. Albert had reconfigured all of his football experience as work experience on his resume. Trish says, “Albert’s resume was really unexpected and special. He showed a breakdown of his hours on and off the field. He had been a leader with younger players and demonstrated not only his management skills, but he had come up with team-wide stats to quantify improvements over time.”

Irwin adds, “Things move fast at Microsoft and you can’t wait around for stuff to happen in this work environment. Albert was clearly the kind of guy who makes things happen.”

Albert’s search for a summer internship soon became the opportunity to take on a fulltime role at Microsoft. However, Albert had never imagined himself at a large company and always considered himself a budding entrepreneur.

But Trish worked to find the ideal role for Albert’s talents. She points out, “Microsoft has a strong entrepreneurial history and is a great place for young employees to build their networks and take risks while benefitting from the stability of the company.”

Albert agrees, “Trish pointed me toward the technical account manager role where I’d work for Microsoft, but most directly interact with clients. There’s a lot of independence and your success is driven by you and you only. It’s like having your own little business with the backing of a major company.”

In the end, Albert decided to go pro… at Microsoft.

It was a painful decision to forsake his final season of college football, but one that Albert knew was the right way to maximize his success over time.

As Albert shrewdly notes, “Success is not about money or the glory of being on the cover of a magazine. Success is about being happy and you get that true happiness by giving yourself 100% to a given endeavor, whether that’s playing football, being part of your family or working in technology. I make sure to take that approach to all I do in life.”

Albert Rocker took the skills he learned in life and on the football field and found a place at Microsoft. How about you? Interested in learning more about technical account manager positions and what they are like? Then see what we have to offer and apply for the job of your dreams!

It’s never easy to say goodbye, so let’s just hope this is just “until we meet again” for Alexandra, Pragun and Amanda. With their internships in Redmond coming to an end they take a moment to tell us about what they have learned over the summer. And it’s really as unique as their differing experiences. Whether they learned about themselves in a work situation, discovered the beauty of Washington state or simply got to know a few great people – their internships made an impact. Listen to what they have to share with us as they get ready to head back to school or on to other adventures.

As always, here is your chance to explore the possibilities that an internship at Microsoft has to offer you!

- The Jobsbloggers

If you are a fan of bloopers, those unintentional mistakes that get caught on film, this episode of My Intern Life 3 is just for you. A slip up and some general silliness get the interns going as they take time to make fun of themselves during the filming of the series. The only way this could be any better is if Dick Clark and Ed McMahon were hosting the outtake real!

- The Jobsbloggers

Microsoft interns work hard on real life projects each summer on our Redmond campus. We hold an exclusive event to celebrate their contributions. This year's event was held at the Woodland Park Zoo. Along with some choice eats, Dave Matthews performed a private concert. To cap off the evening each of our hard working interns received an Xbox and Kinect. They were excited, really excited. But you don't have to take our word for it. Just take a look at what they have to say!

- The Jobsbloggers

What's the signature summer event for interns? The Intern Games of course! Part Survivor, part Amazing Race, but mostly a lot of Midnight Madness this annual event keeps their brains spinning well past business hours. Find out how our My Intern Life team fought sleep deprivation and bad food to solve puzzles all in the name of fun!

- The Jobsbloggers