Location San Francisco, CA

Description Amazon Music is an immersive audio entertainment service that deepens connections between fans, artists, and creators. From personalized music playlists to exclusive podcasts, concert livestreams to artist merch, Amazon Music is innovating at some of the most exciting intersections of music and culture. We offer experiences that serve all listeners with our different tiers of service: Prime members get access to all the music in shuffle mode, and top ad-free podcasts, included with their membership; customers can upgrade to Amazon Music Unlimited for unlimited, on-demand access to 100 million songs, including millions in HD, Ultra HD, and spatial audio; and anyone can listen for free by downloading the Amazon Music app or via Alexa-enabled devices. Join us for the opportunity to influence how Amazon Music engages fans, artists, and creators on a global scale.

You will be managing a team within the Music Machine Learning and Personalization organization that is responsible for developing, training, serving and iterating on models used for personalized candidate generation for both Music and Podcasts.

Excited to see you at CVPR! We’ll be at booth 1404. Come see us to talk more about roles.

Our team consists of people with diverse software and academic experiences. We work together towards one common goal: integrating the software, you'll help us build into hundreds of millions of vehicles.

As a Research Engineer for Optimization, you will focus on research and development related to the optimization of ML models on GPU’s or AI accelerators. You will use your judgment in complex scenarios and apply optimization techniques to a wide variety of technical problems. Specifically, you will:

• Research, prototype and evaluate state of the art model optimization techniques and algorithms
• Characterize neural network quality and performance based on research, experiment and performance data and profiling
• Incorporate optimizations and model development best practices into existing ML development lifecycle and workflow.
• Define the technical vision and roadmap for DL model optimizations
• Write technical reports indicating qualitative and quantitative results to colleagues and customers
• Develop, deploy and optimize deep learning (DL) models on various GPU and AI accelerator chipsets/platforms

We are seeking a highly motivated candidate for a fully funded postdoctoral researcher position to work in 3D computer graphics and 3D computer vision.

The successful candidate will join the 3D Graphics and Vision research group led by Prof. Binh-Son Hua at the School of Computer Science and Statistics, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland to work on topics related to generative AI in the 3D domain. The School of Computer Science and Statistics at Trinity College Dublin is a collegiate, friendly, and research-intensive centre for academic study and research excellence. The School has been ranked #1 in Ireland, top 25 in Europe, and top 100 Worldwide (QS Subject Rankings 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021).

The postdoctoral researcher is expected to conduct fundamental research and publish in top-tier computer vision and computer graphics conferences (CVPR, ECCV, ICCV, SIGGRAPH) and journals (TPAMI, IJCV). Other responsibilities include supporting graduate or undergraduate students with technical guidance and engagement in other research activities such as paper reviews, reading group, workshop organization, etc.

The start date of the position is August 01, 2024. Contract duration is 1 year with the option of renewing for a second year. The successful candidate will require the following skills and knowledge: • PhD in Computer Science or related fields; • Strong tracked records in 3D computer graphics, 3D computer vision; • Hands-on experience in training deep models and generative models is required; • Hands-on experience and relevant skills in computer graphics and computer vision application development such as OpenGL, OpenCV, CUDA, Blender is desirable; • Strong programming skills in C++, Python. Capability in implementing systems from research papers and open-source software. • Additional background in math, statistics, or physics is an advantage.

Applicants should provide the following information: • A comprehensive CV including a full list of publications; • The name and contact details of two referees. One of the referees should be the applicant’s PhD supervisor; • Two representative papers by the applicant. Interested candidates should email their applications to Binh-Son Hua (https://sonhua.github.io) directly. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until the position has been filled.

Vancouver

Who we are Established in 2017, Wayve is a leader in autonomous vehicle technology, driven by breakthroughs in Embodied AI. Our intelligent, mapless, and hardware-agnostic technologies empower vehicles to navigate complex environments effortlessly.

Supported by prominent investors, Wayve is advancing the transition from assisted to fully automated driving, making transportation safer, more efficient, and universally accessible. Join our world-class, multinational team of engineers and researchers as we push the boundaries of frontier AI and autonomous driving, creating impactful technologies and products on a global scale

Where you will have an impact Science is the team that is advancing our end-to-end autonomous driving research. The team’s mission is to accelerate our journey to AV2.0 and ensure the future success of Wayve by incubating and investing in new ideas that have the potential to become game-changing technological advances for the company.

As the first Research Manager in our Vancouver office, you will be responsible for managing & scaling a strong Science team in collaboration with other Wayve science teams in London and Mountain View. You will provide coaching and guidance to each of the researchers and engineers within your team and work with leaders across the company to ensure sustainable career growth for your team during a period of growth in the company. You will participate in our project-based operating model where your focus will be unlocking the potential of your team and its technical leaders to drive industry-leading impact. As part of your work, you will help identify the right projects to invest in, ensure the right allocation of resources to those projects, keep the team in good health, provide technical feedback to your team, share progress to build momentum, and build alignment and strong collaboration across the wider Science organisation. We are actively hiring and aim to substantially grow our research team over the next two years and you will be at the heart of this.

Challenges you will own Work closely with team members to develop career plans and growth trajectories based on each individual’s strengths and weaknesses and their own aspirations. Work closely with project leads to ensure team members are having strong impact and are set up for success. Work closely with project leads and Science leadership to ensure projects are resourced in a way that balances the needs of the business with the needs of the individuals. Offer coaching and technical mentorship to direct reports (especially project leads). Bring technical & project management expertise and experience to help accelerate our progress and decision-making. Challenge the status quo (both technical and organisational/process). Prioritize effectively and keep processes lean and effective. Partner with leadership to maintain a culture of cross-boundary collaboration, impact, innovation, and health. Grow the team as a hiring manager, to bring in complementary, diverse skill sets and backgrounds. Anticipate the needs of the business 6-24 months out, identify areas where additional resources are needed or we need to grow new domain expertise, and pitch this to leadership for investment. Contribute to the day-to-day running of the Science team’s operations and larger collaborative efforts.

Captions is the AI-powered creative studio. Millions of creators around the world have used Captions to make their video content stand out from the pack and we're on a mission to empower the next billion.

Based in NYC, we are a team of ambitious, experienced, and devoted engineers, designers, and marketers. You'll be joining an early team where you'll have an outsized impact on both the product and company's culture.

We’re very fortunate to have some the best investors and entrepreneurs backing us, including Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Uncommon Projects, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, Antoine Martin, Julie Zhuo, Ben Rubin, Jaren Glover, SVAngel, 20VC, Ludlow Ventures, Chapter One, Lenny Rachitsky, and more.

Check out our latest milestone and our recent feature on the TODAY show and the New York Times.

** Please note that all of our roles will require you to be in-person at our NYC HQ (located in Union Square) **

Responsibilities:

Conduct research and develop models to advance the state-of-the-art in generative computer vision technologies, with a focus on creating highly realistic digital faces, bodies, avatars.

Strive to set new standards in the realism of 3D digital human appearance, movement, and personality, ensuring that generated content closely resembles real-life scenarios.

Implement techniques to achieve high-quality results in zero-shot or few-shot settings, as well as customized avatars for different use cases while maintaining speed and accuracy.

Develop innovative solutions to enable comprehensive customization of video content, including the creation of digital people, modifying scenes, and manipulating actions and speech within videos.

Preferred Qualifications:

PhD in computer science (or related field) and/ or 5+ years of industry experience.

Strong academic background with a focus on computer vision and transformers, specializing in NeRFs, Gaussian Splatting, Diffusion, GANs or related areas.

Publication Record: Highly relevant publication history, with a focus on generating or manipulating realistic digital faces, bodies, expressions, body movements, etc. Ideal candidates will have served as the primary author on these publications.

Expertise in Deep Learning: Proficiency in deep learning frameworks such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, or similar, with hands-on experience in designing, training, and deploying neural networks for multimodal tasks.

Strong understanding of Computer Science fundamentals (algorithms and data structures).

Benefits: Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans

Anything you need to do your best work

We’ve done team off-sites to places like Paris, London, Park City, Los Angeles, Upstate NY, and Nashville with more planned in the future.

Captions provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.

Please note benefits apply to full time employees only.

Location Mountain View, CA

Description Gatik is thrilled to be at CVPR! Come meet our team at booth 1831 to talk about how you could make an impact at the autonomous middle mile logistics company redefining the transportation landscape.

Who we are: Gatik, the leader in autonomous middle mile logistics, delivers goods safely and efficiently using its fleet of light & medium-duty trucks. The company focuses on short-haul, B2B logistics for Fortune 500 customers including Kroger, Walmart, Tyson Foods, Loblaw, Pitney Bowes, Georgia-Pacific, and KBX; enabling them to optimize their hub-and-spoke supply chain operations, enhance service levels and product flow across multiple locations while reducing labor costs and meeting an unprecedented expectation for faster deliveries. Gatik’s Class 3-7 autonomous box trucks are commercially deployed in multiple markets including Texas, Arkansas, and Ontario, Canada.

About the role: We are seeking passionate Senior/Staff Software Engineers, who have strong fundamentals in software development practices and are experts in C++ language in production-oriented environment. The ideal candidate is a highly experienced C++ developer with a passion for enabling the world's first safe, reliable & efficient network of autonomous vehicles. You will partner with the research and software engineers to design, develop, test and validate AV features for our autonomous fleet.

This role will be onsite at our Mountain View office.

What you'll do: +Design, implement, integrate, and support real-time mission-critical software for the Gatik’s autonomy stack +Work with the research engineers to develop maintainable, testable and robust software designs +Architect and implement solutions to complex issues between components partitioned across the large software stack +Be at the forefront of guiding & ensuring best SDLC practices while contributing to improving the safety in the core autonomy stack +Collaborate with the Infrastructure and DevOps teams for efficient, secure and scalable software delivery to a network of Gatik’s autonomous fleet
+Guide and mentor autonomy researchers and algorithm developers to make sure their components are running efficiently and with optimal compute and memory usage +Review and refine technical requirements and translate them into high-level design & plans to support the development of safe AV technology +Conduct code and design reviews and advise on technical matters

Click the apply button below to see the full job description and apply

Seattle, US

Our Company Changing the world through digital experiences is what Adobe’s all about. We give everyone—from emerging artists to global brands—everything they need to design and deliver exceptional digital experiences. We’re passionate about empowering people to craft beautiful and powerful images, videos, and apps, and transform how companies interact with customers across every screen.

We’re on a mission to hire the very best and are committed to building exceptional employee experiences where everyone is respected and has access to equal opportunity. We realize that new ideas can come from everywhere in the organization, and we know the next big idea could be yours!

The Opportunity Photoshop ART is seeking a Research Scientist to join our inpainting R&D team focused on making significant progress in image generation/restoration, low level vision, image editing with an eventual posture toward productization. Individuals in this role are expected to be expert in identified research areas such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer vision, and image processing. The ideal candidate will have a keen interest in producing new science to advance Adobe products.

What you'll Do Work towards long-term results-oriented research goals, while identifying intermediate achievements. Contribute to research that can be applied to Adobe product development. Help integrating novel research work into Adobe’s product. Lead and collaborate on research projects across different Adobe divisions. What you need to succeed Ph.D. and solid publications in machine learning, AI, computer science, statistics, or scene semantic understanding. Experience communicating research for public audiences of peers. Experience working in teams. Knowledge in a programming language. Preferred Qualification 2 years of professional full-time experience preferred, but not required 2+ year(s) of internship with primary emphasis on AI research in image generation, low level vision, image restoration, and segmentation Experience in collaboration with a team with varied strengths. 4+ First-author publications at peer-reviewed AI conferences (e.g. NIPS, CVPR, ECCV, ICML, ICLR, ICCV, and ACL). Experience in developing and debugging in Python. At Adobe, you will be immersed in an exceptional work environment that is recognized throughout the world on Best Companies lists. You will also be surrounded by colleagues who are committed to helping each other grow through our unique Check-In approach where ongoing feedback flows freely.

If you’re looking to make an impact, Adobe's the place for you. Discover what our employees are saying about their career experiences on the Adobe Life blog and explore the meaningful benefits we offer.

Adobe is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome and encourage diversity in the workplace regardless of gender, race or color, ethnicity or national origin, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or veteran status.

Our compensation reflects the cost of labor across several  U.S. geographic markets, and we pay differently based on those defined markets. The U.S. pay range for this position is $129,400 -- $242,200 annually. Pay within this range varies by work location and may also depend on job-relate

Gothenburg, Sweden

This fully-funded PhD position offers an opportunity to delve into the area of geometric deep learning within the broader landscape of machine learning and 3D computer vision. As a candidate, you'll have the chance to develop theoretical concepts and innovative methodologies while contributing to real-world imaging applications. Moreover, you will enjoy working in a diverse, collaborative, supportive and internationally recognized environment.

The PhD project centers on understanding and improving deep learning methods for 3D scene analysis and 3D generative diffusion models. We aim to explore new ways of encoding symmetries in deep learning models in order to scale up computations, a necessity for realizing truly 3D generative models for general scenes. We aim to explore the application of these models in key problems involving novel view synthesis and self-supervised learning.

If you are interested and present at CVPR, then feel free to reach out to Prof. Fredrik Kahl, head of the Computer Vision Group.

Redwood City, CA; or Remote, US

We help make autonomous technologies more efficient, safer, and accessible.

Helm.ai builds AI software for autonomous driving and robotics. Our "Deep Teaching" methodology is uniquely data and capital efficient, allowing us to surpass traditional approaches. Our unsupervised learning software can train neural networks without the need for human annotation or simulation and is hardware-agnostic. We work with some of the world's largest automotive manufacturers and we've raised over $100M from Honda, Goodyear Ventures, Mando, and others to help us scale.

Our team is made up of people with a diverse set of experiences in software and academia. We work together towards one common goal: to integrate the software you'll help us build into hundreds of millions of vehicles.

We offer: - Competitive health insurance options - 401K plan management - Remote-friendly and flexible team culture - Free lunch and fully-stocked kitchen in our South Bay office - Additional perks: monthly wellness stipend, office set up allowance, company retreats, and more to come as we scale - The opportunity to work on one of the most interesting, impactful problems of the decade

Visit our website to apply for a position.

San Jose, CA

B GARAGE was founded in 2017 by a Ph.D. graduate from Stanford University. After having spent over five years researching robotics, computer vision, aeronautics, and drone autonomy, the founder and team set their minds on building a future where aerial robots would become an integral part of our daily lives without anyone necessarily piloting them. Together, our common goal is to redefine the user experience of drones and to expand the horizon for the use of drones.

Roles and Responsibilities

Design and develop perception for aerial robot and inventory recognition for warehouses by leveraging computer vision and deep learning techniques

Aid the computer vision team to deliver prototype and product in a timely manner

Collaborate with other teams within the company

Minimum Qualifications

M.S. degree in computer science, robotics, electrical engineering, or other engineering disciplines

10+ years of experience with computer vision and machine learning

Proficient in image processing algorithms and multiple view geometry using camera

Experience with machine learning architectures for object detection, segmentation, text recognition etc.

Proficient with ROS, C++, and Python

Experience with popular computer vision and GPU frameworks/libraries (e.g., OpenCV,TensorFlow, PyTorch, CUDA, cuDNN etc.)

Proficient in containerization technologies (Docker, Kubernetes) and container orchestration technologies

Experience in cloud computing platforms (AWS, GCP, etc.)

Experience with robots operating on real-time onboard processing

Self-motivated person who thrives in a fast-paced environment

Good problem solving and troubleshooting skills

Legally authorized to work in the United States

Optional Qualifications

Ph.D. degree in computer science, robotics, electrical engineering, or other engineering disciplines

Experience with scene reconstruction, bundle adjustment and factor graph optimization libraries

Experience with Javascript and massively parallel cloud computing technologies involving Kafka, Spark, MapReduce

Published research papers in CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, ICRA, IROS, etc.

Company Benefits

Competitive compensation packages

Medical, dental, vision, life insurance, and 401(k)

Flexible vacation and paid holidays

Complimentary lunches and snacks

Professional development reimbursement (online courses, conference, exhibit, etc.)

B GARAGE stands for an open and respectful corporate culture because we believe diversity helps us to find new perspectives.

B GARAGE ensures that all our members have equal opportunities – regardless of age, ethnic origin and nationality, gender and gender identity, physical and mental abilities, religion and belief, sexual orientation, and social background. We always ensure diversity right from the recruitment stage and therefore make hiring decisions based on a candidate’s actual competencies, qualifications, and business needs at the point of the time.

Captions is the AI-powered creative studio. Millions of creators around the world have used Captions to make their video content stand out from the pack and we're on a mission to empower the next billion.

Based in NYC, we are a team of ambitious, experienced, and devoted engineers, designers, and marketers. You'll be joining an early team where you'll have an outsized impact on both the product and company's culture.

We’re very fortunate to have some the best investors and entrepreneurs backing us, including Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Uncommon Projects, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, Antoine Martin, Julie Zhuo, Ben Rubin, Jaren Glover, SVAngel, 20VC, Ludlow Ventures, Chapter One, Lenny Rachitsky, and more.

Check out our latest milestone and our recent feature on the TODAY show and the New York Times.

** Please note that all of our roles will require you to be in-person at our NYC HQ (located in Union Square) **

Responsibilities:

Conduct research and develop models to advance the state-of-the-art in generative video technologies, focusing on areas such as video in-painting, super resolution, text-to-video conversion, background removal, and neural background rendering.

Design and develop advanced neural network models tailored for generative video applications, exploring innovative techniques to manipulate and enhance video content for storytelling purposes.

Explore new areas and techniques to enhance video storytelling, including research into novel generative approaches and their applications in video production and editing.

Create tools and systems that leverage machine learning, artificial intelligence, and computational techniques to generate, manipulate, and enhance video content, with a focus on usability and scalability.

Preferred Qualifications:

PhD in computer science or related field or 3+ years of industry experience.

Publication Record: Highly relevant publication history, with a focus on generative video techniques and applications. Ideal candidates will have served as the primary author on these publications.

Video Processing Skills: Strong understanding of video processing techniques, including video compression, motion estimation, and object tracking, with the ability to apply these techniques in generative video applications.

Expertise in Deep Learning: Proficiency in deep learning frameworks such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, or similar, with hands-on experience in designing, training, and deploying neural networks for video-related tasks.

Strong understanding of Computer Science fundamentals (algorithms and data structures).

Benefits: Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans

Anything you need to do your best work

We’ve done team off-sites to places like Paris, London, Park City, Los Angeles, Upstate NY, and Nashville with more planned in the future.

Captions provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.

Please note benefits apply to full time employees only.

Redmond, Washington, United States

Overview Microsoft Research (MSR) AI Frontiers lab is seeking applications for the position of Senior Research Engineer – Generative AI to join their team in Redmond, WA and New York City, NY.

The mission of the AI Frontiers lab is to expand the pareto frontier of AI capabilities, efficiency, and safety through innovations in foundation models and learning agent platforms. Some of our projects include work on Small Language Models (e.g. Phi, Orca), foundation models for actions (e.g., in gaming, robotics, and Office productivity tools) and Multi-Agent AI (e.g. AutoGen).

We are seeking Senior Research Engineers to join our team and contribute to the advancement of Generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs) technologies. As a Research Engineer, you will play a crucial role in developing, improving, and exploring the capabilities of Generative AI models. Your work will have a significant impact on the development of cutting-edge technologies, advancing state-of-the-art and providing practical solutions to real-world problems.  

Our ongoing research areas encompass but are not limited to:

Pre-training: especially of language models, action models and multimodal models Alignment and Post-training: e.g., Instruction tuning and reinforcement learning from feedback Continual Learning: Enabling LLMs to evolve and adapt over time and learn from previous experiences human interactions Specialization: Tailoring models to meet application-specific requirements Orchestration and multi-agent systems: automated orchestration between multiple agents incorporating human feedback and oversight

Microsoft Research (MSR) offers a vibrant environment for cutting-edge, multidisciplinary, research, including access to diverse, real-world problems and data, opportunities for experimentation and real-world impact, an open publication policy, and close links to top academic institutions around the world.

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.

Embody our Culture and Values

Responsibilities As a Senior Research Engineer in AI Frontiers, you will design, develop, execute, and implement technology research projects in collaboration with other researchers, engineers, and product groups.

As a member of a word-class research organization, you will be a part of research breakthroughs in the field and will be given an opportunity to realize your ideas in products and services used worldwide.

Redmond, Washington, United States

Overview We are seeking skilled and passionate Senior Research Scientist to join our Responsible & Open Ai Research (ROAR) team in Azure Cognitive Services at Redmond, WA.

As a Senior Research Scientist, you will play a key role in advancing Responsible AI approaches to ensure safe releases of the rapidly evolving multimodal, AI models such as GPT-4 Vision, DALL-E, Sora, and beyond, as well as to expand and enhance the Azure AI Content Safety Service.

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.

In alignment with our Microsoft values, we are committed to cultivating an inclusive work environment for all employees to positively impact our culture every day.

Responsibilities Conduct cutting-edge research to develop Responsible AI definitions, methodologies, algorithms, and models for both measurement and mitigation of multimodal AI risks. Stay abreast of the latest advancements in the field and contribute to the scientific community through publications at top venues. Enable the safe release of multimodal models from OpenAI in Azure OpenAI Service, expand and enhance the Azure AI Content Safety Service with new detection technologies. Develop innovative approaches to address AI safety challenges for diverse customer scenarios. Embody our Culture and Values

Redmond, Washington, United States

Overview Are you interested in developing and optimizing deep learning systems? Are you interested in designing novel technology to accelerate their training and serving for cutting edge models and applications? Do you want to scale large Artificial Intelligence models to their limits on massive supercomputers? Are you interested in being part of an exciting open-source library for deep learning systems? The DeepSpeed team is hiring!

Microsoft's DeepSpeed is an open-source library built on the PyTorch (machine learning framework) ecosystem that combines numerous research innovations and technology advancements to make deep learning efficient and easier to use. DeepSpeed can parallelize across thousands of GPUs and train models with trillions of parameters. Our OSS (Open Source Software) has powered many advanced models like MT-530B and BLOOM, and it supports unprecedented scale and speed for both training and inference.

The DeepSpeed team is also part of the larger Microsoft AI at Scale initiative, which is pioneering the next-generation AI capabilities that are scaled across the company’s products and AI platforms.

The DeepSpeed team is looking for a Senior Researcher in Redmond, WA with passion for innovations and for building high-quality systems that will make significant impact inside and outside of Microsoft. Our team is highly collaborative, innovative, and end-user obsessed. We are looking for candidates with systems skills and passionate about driving innovations to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of deep learning systems. We value creativity, agility, accountability, and a desire to learn new technologies.

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.

Responsibilities Excels in one or more subareas and gains expertise in a broad area of research. Identifies and articulates problems in an area of research that are academically novel and may directly or indirectly impact business opportunities. Collaborates with other relevant researchers or research groups to contribute to or advance a research agenda. Researches and develops an understanding of the state-of-the-art insights, tools, technologies, or methods being used in the research community. Expands collaborative relationships with relevant product and business groups inside or outside of Microsoft and provides expertise or technology to them.