Microsoft International Tech Jobs Blog

Office Community growing in Ireland - test jobs, test jobs, test jobs - read all about it!

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 09:10:12 GMT

Anyone out there looking for some test engineering jobs!

The Irish development centre is growing as I explained in many a blog before... but this time I want to highlight a new team called Office Community which is growing!!! Office Live has been building out a lot of new functionality of late and we continue to prepare for our next release of Office itself... these positions are very much involved in both of these worlds and are in a very small start up environment for those of you that enjoy the energy assoicated with start-ups and so called "organised chaos"!!!

Here is job spec. If interested in applying for a role please send your CV to Natalia at: v-natsea@microsoft.com

JOB DESCRIPTION

We are currently setting up new teams to work on some very new and exciting functionality that we will be building into the next version of Microsoft Office. We are looking for Software Development Engineers in Test (SDET) to work on the “Office Online” and “Product Lifecycle and Engineering Excellence” (PLEX) teams.

Responsibilities for the candidate will include participating in product architecture and design decisions, and working closely with the Development and Program Management teams to ensure the feature/product is compliant to design specifications. You will create features that encourage users to buy Office rather than pirate it by providing additional value and enticing new scenarios. You will own defining how these new features work. You will engage marketing and program management, take scenarios and specifications and design high quality features that will benefit the Office system. You will also take part in creating the strategy, defining the product, building the deployment expertise and knowledge base that this software development organization needs.

You will be responsible for writing and executing test plans and cases, and designing and developing test tools and test automation. This is not about regression or manual testing it’s about development in test!

Responsibilities

· Demonstrates hands-on testing ability,

· Highlights inefficiencies within test strategies & provides solutions.

· Become an expert in all aspects of the functionality of the Office Deployment including all the underlying/dependant products, components, and technologies.

· Reviewing functional specifications and design specifications to highlight problems with the design at an early stage.

· Developing a test plan and test suite.

· Developing test automation.

· Key contributor on bug resolutions in app triage for all areas – expected to understand impact of bug resolutions on customer.

· Creative Problem Solver, proven ability to work through complex issues, implementing creative effective test solutions for the business.

Basic Qualifications:

· 2+ years experience in software design, testing, and shipping

· BA/BS in Computer Science or a related technical discipline

Essential Requirements:

· A minimum of 2 years experience in developing automated testing (unit and UI driven) in C# with 4-5 years experience in software testing.

· Experience of Test execution at both the UI (browser) layer, and at the IIS server layer is essential.

· In-depth knowledge of software testing methodologies

· Expert understanding of OS concepts (such as memory and process management, kernel mode/user mode, network technology, client/server communication. etc)

· Great problem solving traits, cross-group relationships and communication skills with a strong technical aptitude.

Software Architect Role in Denmark now open

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 11:45:53 GMT

For all those architects out there amongst you - really cool Senior Architect position in Microsoft Denmark is now open and it's a fantastic senior level position that may interest one of you out there, or maybe even someone you know... check out the following link to find out more.

Candidates should have 15 years experience in software development and experience with ERP software to apply.

So what is Microsoft doing with Experimentation in Europe

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 09:06:51 GMT

Randy Henne, recently moved to Ireland from Redmond to set up Microsoft's new Experimental Platform team for Window's Live from its quickly expanding Irish development centre. But, what is experimentation...? This how Randy describes it...

"Our mission is to accelerate software innovation through trustworthy experimentation. Controlled Experiments have existed for tens of years, and with the web, we have an unprecedented opportunity to try things quickly and make data-driven decisions. Don't fall into the trap of believing you know what is best for the customer, and don't let the HiPPO (Highest Paid Person's Opinion) guide you. One of the simplest ways to improve click through rates is to change images. It's usually trivial to change images, and when someone is designing an image, they typically have several alternatives. Instead of betting on one, Experimentation allows you to try the top three (and encourage diversity of ideas).

At the cutting edge of BI, online experimentation lets companies actively evaluate significantly different designs, algorithms and approaches by analyzing data from millions of users in real time. Our Experimentation Platform Team is developing the next generation of highly scalable online services, analysis pipeline and experimentation techniques to support this data driven decision approach. As a strong team, we are looking for exceptionally strong people (not necessarily with experience in experimentation). Come be part of the platform team right at the center of Ray Ozzie’s Software + Services strategy. Read more about the team, the product and our publications at http://www.exp-platform.com."

Experimenation currently has a very interesting Software Development Engineer open reporting directly to Randy. So if you want to check it out go here on the GPD-E micro-site or here on our career's web site. It'a an excellent opportunity, on a small start-up team, working on very new concept technologies.

Base salary is highly competitive, you can earn an annual bonus of 0- to 20% per year, annual leave is 25 days per year, there is a comprehensive relocation package involved in moving to Ireland, and also there is excellent other benefits including world-class training, healthe insurance, pension contributon, and much, much more!

Egypt Hiring...know any Architects that want to work on an Arabic language project

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 12:10:43 GMT

Microsoft Egypt is hiring! At the moment there is a number of junior and senior roles in its R&D centres that offer candidates the opportunity to work from Cairo in one of the most exciting technological environment in the region. At the moment there are research develop roles of all levels of seniority, development lead and PM roles as well as an Architect role.

In this blog entry I am going to highlight the Architect role in the Arabic Language technology team which looks particularly interesting. Here’s the spec! If interested in finding anything else about the roles send an email to Hassan Zulficar at v-hzulf@microsoft.com

This position is based in the Microsoft Applied Research and Development Center in Cairo, Egypt. The center will be expanding its original applied research focus to include developing/integrating Arabic content services and Arabic language specific technologies for a wide range of Microsoft products. The new Arabic language support will be primary catering to the Arab countries regional and cultural requirements.

We are looking for a talented, innovative, highly motivated hands-on principal level architect to lead a team in designing, prototyping and with potential to incubate, innovative new experiences with software and services targeting Arabic speaking users. In a Arabic Natural Language Processing (NLP) technical leadership role as an individual contributor, you will be responsible for guiding the team and become the point person for deep technical NLP architectural decisions and designs

This position requires skills in architecture, design and hands on implementation, with strong rapid prototyping experience. An ideal candidate excels and enjoys working on a small team in a dynamic start-up environment, can work independently and cooperatively, demonstrates strong communications skills, and has the flexibility to adapt to changing requirements and roles on any given project, including: creating specifications, and hands on development.

Required experience

15 years minimum as an architect and development lead with strong track record of building and delivering Arabic NLP products from inception to ship, with exceptionally strong starter skills, with the ability to lead and build strong teams. Broad understanding of software architecture, engineering principles and development methodologies is required along with knowledge of latest Web technologies. Working within and driving teams in geo-distributed development is a significant plus. This position requires a BA/BS degree in Computer Science or comparable technical discipline and business knowledge, plus 15+ years of industry experience.

Denmark is hiring

Wed, 14 May 2008 15:15:59 GMT

Denmark is continuing to expand. This week there are 4 very interesting senior jobs on open. Who knows one of which could be of interest to you or someone you know:

Software Architect

Test Architect

Product Unit Manager, and,

Development Manager

To learn more check out the MS Denmark web site here. And if you haven't checked out their new 4 minute video, please do so.

Im back from holidays and loads of jobs on offer

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 15:11:30 GMT

I'm just back from my holidays and for any of you who have been to the south of France or north west of Italy you'll know what I'm talking about when I talk about sleepy little villages with rolling fields and lofty castles surrounded by artisits and poets with giant crusie ships and casiona wheels close by!

Anyway, I'm back and we have loads of brillant opportunities on offer as usual all across Europe:

1. The Danish development centre currently has a cool Localisation Project Engineer role open in its Navision division. You can check out it and many more of the jobs on offer here.

2. Also the European development centre in Ireland is growing fast and has over 20 roles on offer with much more to come. Check out the GPD-E microsite here to learn more. What's great about the roles on offer in Ireland at the moment is there is a nice mix of senior and junior opportunities for program management, development and test and we even have a new Development Manager role coming on line soon which should be an excellent opportunity for someone.

Talk soon.

Israel has a brillant new recruitment micro-site

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 12:21:52 GMT

If you are thinking of looking for a job down in Israel you should really check out our new recruitment site: here.

The videos are brillant!

St Patricks Day, Leg Waxing and Food in Dublin!

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 18:56:11 GMT

Check out my Irish canteen tour and watch two grown men getting their legs waxed for charity for St Patrick's day.

Also check out out some of our camera shy chefs! Enjoy :)

And here is a little bit about the parade and what the country has to offer. Enjoy!

Testing the Ribbon on Microsoft Office

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 18:15:04 GMT

Listen to Justin give a great explanation of what testing is all about in Microsoft. He talks about the common misconceptions some engineers have to what the job actually consists of and he talks a lot about his most technical challenge he ever faced in Microsoft which was a real brain teezer: testing the Office ribbon user interface.

As he explains it himself:

"An SDET is a developer of internal products that ensure better quality of Microsoft’s customer-facing products along with improved efficiency in how Software Development Engineers (SDE) and Program Managers (PM) perform their tasks. Our primary objective is to improve customer-facing product quality, which means a lot more than just point-and-click testing. We are the customer’s last line of defence from poor design (a primary function of a PM) and errant implementation (the primary function of an SDE). An SDET guides a product from design through development as a constantly analyzing and calculating set of eyes that engender the persona of customer and make recommendations for improvements to the design. At Microsoft an SDET is required to be a technical equivalent to an SDE and is valued as such. SDETs produce solutions that either ensure the quality of code or improve the ability to produce outstanding designs and software. We are the jack-of-all-trades internally and creating tools, assisting in design, customer advocacy, and breaking software are just a few of the critical ways SDETs ensure that what started off as a good idea is going to be a great idea when the customer experiences it for the first time."

Check out his video to learn more: and if you think you have the right skills to be a SDET in Microsoft and are looking to join Justin in the Irish dev team that is currently hiring check out www.joinmicrosofteurope.com.

Mobile jobs on offer in the UK and Ireland

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 11:00:47 GMT

At the moment there is a lot of open positions in both the UK and Ireland for mobile development, test and program management roles.

Here's a slither of some of the stuff going on:

1. The Windows Mobile OEM and Response Team (OORT) is looking for strong developers who have a passion for writing test tools, automation and basically breaking lots and lots of things :) Strong design and coding skill sin c# and c++ are a must as well as strong desgugging and expereience driving features from development right through to release... to check out this role and more go here.

2. Also, there is large expansion across many many teams of which mobile is just one going on in Dublin. To check out the projects and jobs go to www.joinmicrosofteurope.com. This is an exapanding team with Program Manager, Lead Test and Development roles as well as Senior Test and Development roles. Again, we are looking for proven C++ and C# coders with a passion for mobile technologies. The very cool thing about this team is we are working heavily with Live.com and search technologies so there is a lot of opportunity to learn about web technologies and our strategy to bring a far richer mobile experience to the world.

I hope your not a lone server too :)

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 10:31:12 GMT

I hope you get a little giggle out of this one!

Meet one of our engineers in Dynamics in Denmark

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 16:34:40 GMT

Meet one of the engineers in the Danish development centre talking about our Dynamics product and the use of X++. He interestingly talks also about how the application layer is open source which provides his team with some difficult challenges as well as how they manage code bases.

Also, learn about what training is on offer in MS and listen to him telling his manager to stop interrupting him in the middle of this video shoot :)

And don't forget Denmark is hiring with a large variety of program manager, developer and test roles. Follow the links on the right hand side to know more or send your CV to Simon at: Ssimmons@microsoft.com

Meet one of our Beijing Researchers

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 14:50:14 GMT

Watch this very interesting interview with one of our researchers in Microsoft's world class Beijing research team.

Learn about what skills and what mentality is neeed to be successful and learn about what daily responsibilities a researcher has.

Check out the Chinease link on the right to learn more about the wide variety of jobs open in core-tech in China at the moment and if you want to learn more news as it comes in sign up to the RSS!

Bill G's last day

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 13:54:01 GMT

For a bit of fun I thought I'd share with you the very funny video in relation to Bill G's last day in Microsoft!

Video: Keynote - Bill Gates' Last Day

New Mobile jobs in Global Products Development - Europe team

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 17:17:35 GMT

2 job postings in one day that 's a new record for me!

The GPD-E team has now got Edge Computing, Experimentation Platform, AdCentre and NEW mobile jobs on offer in Dublin.

The NEW mobile roles are very cool! There are Program Manager, Lead Developer, Software Developer Engineer and Test Engineer jobs on offer of mainly mid to high level experience requirements.

Here is an example of one of the specs (to see all the others go to www.joinmicrosofteurope.com):

Lead Software Developer - Mobile Applications

Join us to become an integral part of Microsoft’s “Mobile” and “Live” strategy. As part of our Dublin-based Global Product Development team, you will be leading a small team that will drive the delivery of features and services for mobile phones.

We are building key features for social networking, communications platform, commercialization, and other areas. You and your team will be responsible for all aspects of product feature development including design, development, and quality.

You should have a passion for designing and developing end to end experiences on the mobile phone and be enthusiastic about a hands-on leadership role operating in an agile environment. Your team will have the opportunity to deliver technology and services to a global audience. You will spend at least 50% of your time coding, and you will work closely with Microsoft teams in the US and around the world.

This is a unique opportunity to work in a dynamic and technically challenging start-up environment, while making a significant impact in an area with huge business value for Microsoft.

Key requirements:

Outstanding C or C++ programming skills
At least 5 years of experience designing, implementing, and shipping complex software applications
Experience leading a small team (3-6 people)
Great blend of technology background, passion to learn, and customer focus
Energy and desire to deliver high-quality software on aggressive schedules (minor releases every 3-6 months, major releases within 12-18 months)
A proven track record of shipping on time and at a very high quality level
Strong English verbal and written communication skills
A university computer science degree or equivalent

Other experience that would be a plus for this position:

Knowledge of Windows Mobile or other mobile development platforms
Knowledge of client/server protocols, internet servers, mobile technology, or Web 2.0 technologies (social networking, IM, etc.)
Experience with agile development methodologies
Knowledge of C#
Post-graduate degree in computer science or equivalent field

Interested? Send your CV to eurojobs@microsoft.com

Keywords: C, C++, C#, distributed systems, web services, client-server, file systems, device drivers, networking, operating systems, kernel mode, kernel development, web server, web proxy, web crawler, embedded systems, real-time systems, multithreading, synchronization, inter-process communication, RPC, XML, JavaScript, Silverlight, SOAP, REST, ASP.NET, MVT, A/B Testing, web analytics, social networking, Apache, agile development, sprint, scrum, database, SQL, MySQL, SQL Server, ADO.NET, stored procedures, data modeling, OLAP, fault tolerance, replication, fault recovery, performance, performance tuning, profiling, scalability, scalable systems, throughput, latency, simulation, modeling, validation, Windows Mobile, Windows CE, Symbian, J2ME.

Germany expands with 15 new core-tech research development positions in Aachen

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 11:04:07 GMT

Germany is expanding its operations with 15 new core-tech positions in Aachen. And for those of you that don't know anything about lovely Aachen it is a university town boasting cobblestone streets, a pedestrian-friendly lifestyle and is located just minutes from both Belgium and the Netherlands.

The European Microsoft Innovation Centre (EMIC) is an incubation and innovation R&D lab working on a diverse range of collaborative research projects in embedded computing, mobile networking, security, SOA and home entertainment. They are working on R&D systems and services targeting embedded systems. They are focusing on requirements such as security, reliability, power efficiency, interoperability, as well as real-time characteristics and the effect of the evolving hardware capabilities. To do this there is a lot of close collaboration with other Microsoft research facilities in Europe, the US and Asia. If you join and work in this team you will work on a number of levels - high level vision, architecture, low level implementation and prototyping. The work is extremely hands on and self directing.

There are two profiles the team is hiring for. The first is a software development research engineer with embedded systems development experience. This candidate should have a minimum of 5 years relevant work experience with expertise in operating systems, project management and cross country collaboration communications. Managerial experience or collaborative research experience is are a plus.

The second profile on offer is a software development research engineer working on our formal verification of systems level technologies. This involves a collaboration with the programming languages and methods group of Microsoft Research (the home of spec#) and academic partners to prove correctness of Microsoft code.

The use of formal methods to verify systems-level C code to the size and complexity of this code is a unique effort for both Microsoft and the software industry. It requires the development of new methodologies and tools, and an intimate understanding of the implementation and its underlying x64 multi-processor architecture.

We ar looking for researchers and experienced developers interested in applied research with excellent programming skills and a proven ability to generate and realize new ideas. As a successful candidate, you will have an advanced degree or PhD in computer science or a related field with significant industry experience and a track record in systems programming with C/C++ or formal methods. Additional experience in compiler technologies and tool building is a plus.

There are 15 roles on offer so we are looking for a wide range of senior experiences for the roles. Excellent written and spoken English is a requirement. German language skills would be a plus but or not a requirement.

To learn more please go to the following site: http://www.microsoft.com/emic/joboffers.mspx

If you think you have the skills and are interested in applying for the role please fill in the following online form, here.

Office Tube team in Ireland being created and new development centre in Vancouver, Canada

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 16:08:31 GMT

Jobs, jobs, jobs and more jobs from around the world!

Straight off the press. Over the last couple of weeks the European Development Centre in Ireland has created a new group that will be building some exciting new video functionality into our future releases of Office. At present there are 3 jobs on offer but this is planned to grow quickly. We currently have a Program Manager, a Software Developer Engineer and a Software Developer Engineer in Test role open but there will be much much more.

So if you have 3+ years experience in either C++, C# or Java and have some web development experience this could a team you may want to apply for to join. Microsoft Ireland has over 400 employees working on a variety of Office realted projects but especially localisation. This will be the first time we set up a team of between 10+ people that will do core-tech product development in the Office organisation. Experience in client/server and or experience with web services will be a big advantage as well as experience working with sharepoint, video, mobile and SilverLight technologies. If intersted, please send your CV to Natalia at: v-natsea@microsoft.com

Also, did you know we have a development centre in Vancouver, Canada? If interested check out the video below:

So what jobs are on offer in Microsoft this month. C++, C#, test, development, architecture, etc

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 10:20:45 GMT

I'll do this in my best bell boy newspaper selling voice.....extra, extra, extra,.. read all about it....development, development, development, test, test, test, design, design design...extra, extra, extra.... read all about it... architecture, architecture, architecture, c++, c++, c++, c#,c#,c#.. jobs, jobs, jobs.... going once, going twice, going three times....

Ok, I was never to good at sales so I guess that's maybe why I ended up in recruitment!

This month there is a lot of jobs on offer in Microsoft's International development centres, here's a flavour:

Denmark is on a hiring spree at the moment where they need to hire 15 software development engineers in test and 15 software development engineers. If you would like to work on some of ERP systems like Dynamics in Denmark send your CV to Scott Simons at Ssimmons@microsoft.com.

Ireland continues its growth and the Global Products Development team in Dublin are now working on a variety of cool projects in search, visualisation, mobile and now also experimental platforms and edge computing. If you want know more you should check out their excellent web site that I've already blogged about in the past at www.joinmicrosofteurope.com. It's brilliantly designed using SilverLight and gives a really good feel for who the team are and the variety of senior and mid level roles on offer. Off the press at the moment is this team is currently searching for an experienced Test Manager and Lead Developer so if you consider yourself one of the best in one of the above fields and have strong coding ability check out the site.

The UK team are currently looking for two Software Development Engineers in Test in one of their mobile groups. Check out the link on the right to learn more.

The Egyptian, Cairo innovation centre is growing very quickly and this month the open requisition count is at 5: with 2 researchers, 1 research developer lead and 2 developer engineers. This group is a very small, talented group that are working on a lot of prototyping projects. If you think Cairo is somewhere you would like to apply your trade and some of the roles sound interesting check out the link on the right and send your application to Astrid at v-astcon@microsoft.com

The Zurich team concentrating on telecommunication technologies currently has one priority position to fill: a software development engineer. They are looking for a candidate who wants to help drive industry leadership and vision for the enterprise telephony, instant messaging, presence and conferencing. The ideal candidate will need at least 3 years experience in c#. Expertise in SIP, other communication protocols, and SharePoint are a plus. To apply contact Sarah at v-sarahj@microsoft.com

Group Product Development - Europe is hiring

Fri, 23 Nov 2007 11:48:38 GMT

Recently the Windows Live Europe team in Dublin, Ireland changed its name to Group Product Development - Europe (GPD-E). The team has recently begun to expand heavily and there is now a new project in Edge Computing which is creating 4 new positions in the team: 1 x Program Manager, 1 x Lead Developer, 1 x Software Developer and 1 x Software Developer in Test. These jobs are so new off the press that we don't even have them on our career site or the teams micro-site yet!!! There is also two new jobs coming into the team in a new project involving our Experimental Platform technologies. To learn more check out the following link.

To keep up to date with these projects and see the job specifications when they are posted make sure you keep a close eye on thet team's microsite: www.joinmicrosofteurope.com

Have a great w/end!

By the way, here are some of the keywords we are very interested in at the moment:

C, C++, C#, distributed systems, edge computing, web services, client-server, file systems, device drivers, networking, operating systems, kernel mode, kernel development, web server, web proxy, web crawler, embedded systems, real-time systems, multithreading, synchronization, inter-process communication, RPC, XML, SOAP, REST, RESTful, JSON, ASP.NET, Apache, agile development, sprint, scrum, database, SQL, MySQL, SQL Server, ADO.NET, stored procedures, data modeling, OLAP, fault tolerance, replication, fault recovery, performance, performance tuning, profiling, scalability, scalable systems, throughput, latency, simulation, modeling, validation, A/B testing, controlled experiments, experimentation, randomized experimental design, parallel flights, split testing, experiments, hippo, web analytics, multivariable test, multivariate test, landing page optimization, site optimization

Meet Peter in test engineering Denmark

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 16:08:53 GMT

In this interview Peter talks about web client technology and automation. He also tells us about his commute from Sweden to Denmark every day!

So if you are looking for what we call a software development test engineer or what others sometimes call a quality engineering or simply test engineer don't forget to consider Denmark, Ireland, the UK, Zurich and Israel in your search as have loads of testing opportunies on offer at the moment!

Custom List: Jobs and Contacts

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 10:10:02 GMT

Jobs and Contacts

Blog list: Blog list

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 13:17:42 GMT

US Jobs Blog
If you are looking for a job in the US here is a good place to start.

Custom List: Intro

Fri, 06 Jul 2007 11:08:55 GMT

Intro

Start here: dev centre tour!

Movie List: Movie List

Mon, 07 May 2007 16:30:48 GMT

The European Developement Centre's Director speaks
If you want to know more about our development centre work in Ireland check this out!