Redmond, Washington, United States

Overview We are seeking a highly skilled and passionate Research Scientist to join our Responsible & OpenAI Research (ROAR) team in Azure Cognitive Services.

As a Research Scientist, you will play a key role in advancing the field of Responsible Artificial Intelligence (AI) to ensure safe releases of the rapidly advancing AI technologies, such as GPT-4, GPT-4V, DALL-E 3 and beyond, as well as to expand and enhance our standalone 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 AI risks. Stay abreast of the latest advancements in the field and contribute to the scientific community through publications at top venues. Contribute to the development of Responsible AI policies, guidelines, and best practices and ensure the practical implementation of these guidelines within various AI technology stacks across Microsoft, promoting a consistent approach to Responsible AI. Enable the safe release of new Azure OpenAI Service features, 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. Other: Embody our Culture and Values

About the role You will join a team of 40+ Researchers and Engineers within the R&D Department working on cutting edge challenges in the Generative AI space, with a focus on creating highly realistic, emotional and life-like Synthetic humans through text-to-video. Within the team you’ll have the opportunity to work with different research teams and squads across multiple areas led by our Director of Science, Prof. Vittorio Ferrari, and directly impact our solutions that are used worldwide by over 55,000 businesses.

If you have seen the full ML lifecycle from ideation through implementation, testing and release, and you have a passion for large data, large model training and building solutions with clean code, this is your chance. This is an opportunity to work for a company that is impacting businesses at a rapid pace across the globe.

Location Multiple Locations

Description The Qualcomm Cloud Computing team is developing hardware and software for Machine Learning solutions spanning the data center, edge, infrastructure, automotive market. Qualcomm’s Cloud AI 100 accelerators are currently deployed at AWS / Cirrascale Cloud and at several large organizations. We are rapidly expanding our ML hardware and software solutions for large scale deployments and are hiring across many disciplines.

We are seeing to hire for multiple machine learning positions in the Qualcomm Cloud team. In this role, you will work with Qualcomm's partners to develop and deploy best in class ML applications (CV, NLP, GenAI, LLMs etc) based on popular frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow and ONNX, that are optimized for Qualcomm's Cloud AI accelerators. The work will include model assessment of throughput, latency and accuracy, model profiling and optimization, end-to-end application pipeline development, integration with customer frameworks and libraries and responsibility for customer documentation, training, and demos. This candidate must possess excellent communication, leadership, interpersonal and organizational skills, and analytical skills.

This role will interact with individuals of all levels and requires an experienced, dedicated professional to effectively collaborate with internal and external stakeholders. The ideal candidate has either developed or deployed deep learning models on popular ML frameworks. If you have a strong appetite for technology and enjoy working in small, agile, empowered teams solving complex problems within a high energy, oftentimes chaotic environment then this is the role for you.

Minimum Qualifications: • Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Science, or related field and 4+ years of Software Applications Engineering, Software Development experience, or related work experience. OR Master's degree in Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Science, or related field and 3+ years of Software Applications Engineering, Software Development experience, or related work experience. OR PhD in Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Science, or related field and 2+ years of Software Applications Engineering, Software Development experience, or related work experience.

• 2+ years of experience with Programming Language such as C, C++, Java, Python, etc. • 1+ year of experience with debugging techniques.Key Responsibilities: Key contributor to Qualcomm’s Cloud AI GitHub repo and developer documentation. Work with developers in large organizations to Onboard them on Qualcomm’s Cloud AI ML stack improve and optimize their Deep Learning models on Qualcomm AI 100 deploy their applications at scale Collaborate and interact with internal teams to analyze and optimize training and inference for deep learning. Work on Triton, ExecuTorch, Inductor, TorchDynamo to build abstraction layers for inference accelerator. Optimize LLM/GenAI workloads for both scale-up (multi-SoC) and scale-out (multi-card) systems. Partner with product management, hardware/software engineering to highlight customer progress, gaps in product features etc.

Canberra/Australia

We are looking for new outstanding PhD students for the upcoming scholarship round (application is due on 31st August 2024) at the Australian National University (ANU is ranked #30 in the QS Ranking 2025) or possibly at another Australian universities.

We are looking for new PhD students to work on new problems that may span over (but are not limited to) "clever" adapting of Foundation Models, LLMs, diffusion models (LORAs etc.,), NERF, or design of Graph Neural Networks, design of new (multi-modal) Self-supervised Learning and Contrastive Learning Models (masked models, images, videos, text, graphs, time series, sequences, etc. ) or adversarial and/or federated learning or other contemporary fundamental/applied problems (e.g., learning without backprop, adapting FMs to be less resource hungry, planning and reasoning, hyperbolic geometry, protein property prediction, structured output generative models, visual relation inference, incremental/learning to learn problems, low shot, etc.)

To succeed, you need an outstanding publication record, e.g., one or more first-author papers in venues such CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, AAAI, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML, IJCAI, ACM KDD, ACCV, BMVC, ACM MM, IEEE. Trans. On Image Processing, CVIU, IEEE TPAMI, or similar (the list is non-exhaustive). Non-first author papers will also help if they are in the mix. Some patents and/or professional experience in Computer Vision, Machine Learning or AI are a bonus. You also need a good GPA to succeed.

We are open to discussing your interests and topics, if you reach out, we can discuss what is possible. Yes, we have GPUs.

If you are interested, reach out for an informal chat with Dr. Koniusz. I am at CVPR if you want to chat?): piotr.koniusz@data61.csiro.au (or piotr.koniusz@anu.edu.au, www.koniusz.com)

The Perception team at Zoox is responsible for developing the eyes and ears of our self driving car. Navigating safely and competently in the world requires us to detect, classify, track and understand several different attributes of all the objects around us that we might interact with, all in real time and with very high precision.

As a member of the Perception team at Zoox, you will be responsible for developing and improving state of the art machine learning techniques for doing everything from 2D/3D object detection, panoptic segmentation, tracking, to attribute classification. You will be working not just with our team of talented engineers and researchers in perception, but cross functionally with several teams including sensors, prediction and planning, and you will have access to the best sensor data in the world and an incredible infrastructure for testing and validating your algorithms.

Location Multiple Locations

Description

Qualcomm's Multimedia R&D and Standards Group is seeking candidates for Video Compression Research Engineer positions. You will be part of world-renowned team of video compression experts. The team develops algorithms, hardware architectures, and systems for state-of-the-art applications of classical and machine learning methods in video compression, video processing, point cloud coding and processing, AR/VR and computer vision use cases. The successful candidate for this position will be a highly self-directed individual with strong creative and analytic skills and a passion for video compression technology. You will work on, but not be limited to, developing new applications of classical and machine learning methods in video compression improving state-of-the-art video codecs.

We are considering candidates with various levels of experience. We are flexible on location and open to hiring anywhere, preferred locations are USA, Germany and Taiwan.

Responsibilities: Contribute to the conception, development, implementation, and optimization of new algorithms extending existing techniques and systems allowing improved video compression. Initiate ideas, design and implement algorithms for superior hardware encoder performance, including perceptually based bit allocation. Develop new algorithms for deep learning-based video compression solutions. Represent Qualcomm in the related standardization forums: JVET, MPEG Video, and ITU-T/VCEG. Document and present new algorithms and implementations in various forms, including standards contributions, patent applications, conference and journal publications, presentations, etc. Ideal candidate would have the skills/experience below: Expert knowledge of the theory, algorithms, and techniques used in video and image coding. Knowledge and experience of video codecs and their test models, such as ECM, VVC, HEVC and AV1. Experience with deep learning structures CNN, RNN, autoencoder etc. and frameworks like TensorFlow/PyTorch. Track record of successful research accomplishments demonstrated through published papers, and/or patent applications in the fields of video coding or video processing. Solid programming and debugging skills in C/C++. Strong written and verbal English communication skills, great work ethic, and ability to work in a team environment to accomplish common goals. PhD or Masters degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Physics, Mathematics or similar field, or equivalent practical experience.

Qualifications: PhD or Masters degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Physics, Mathematics, or similar fields. 1+ years of experience with programming language such as C, C++, MATLAB, etc.

London

Who are we?

Our team is the first in the world to use autonomous vehicles on public roads using end-to-end deep learning, computer vision and reinforcement learning. Leveraging our multi-national world-class team of researchers and engineers, we’re using data to learn more intelligent algorithms to bring autonomy for everyone, everywhere. We aim to be the future of self-driving cars, learning from experience and data.

Where you’ll have an impact

We are currently looking for people with research expertise in AI applied to autonomous driving or similar robotics or decision making domain, inclusive, but not limited to the following specific areas:

Foundation models for robotics Model-free and model-based reinforcement learning Offline reinforcement learning Large language models Planning with learned models, model predictive control and tree search Imitation learning, inverse reinforcement learning and causal inference Learned agent models: behavioral and physical models of cars, people, and other dynamic agents You'll be working on some of the world's hardest problems, and able to attack them in new ways. You'll be a key member of our diverse, cross-disciplinary team, helping teach our robots how to drive safely and comfortably in complex real-world environments. This encompasses many aspects of research across perception, prediction, planning, and control, including:

How to leverage our large, rich, and diverse sources of real-world driving data How to architect our models to best employ the latest advances in foundation models, transformers, world models, etc. Which learning algorithms to use (e.g. reinforcement learning, behavioural cloning) How to leverage simulation for controlled experimental insight, training data augmentation, and re-simulation How to scale models efficiently across data, model size, and compute, while maintaining efficient deployment on the car You also have the potential to contribute to academic publications for top-tier conferences like NeurIPS, CVPR, ICRA, ICLR, CoRL etc. working in a world-class team to achieve this.

What you’ll bring to Wayve

Thorough knowledge of and 5+ years applied experience in AI research, computer vision, deep learning, reinforcement learning or robotics Ability to deliver high quality code and familiarity with deep learning frameworks (Python and Pytorch preferred) Experience leading a research agenda aligned with larger goals Industrial and / or academic experience in deep learning, software engineering, automotive or robotics Experience working with training data, metrics, visualisation tools, and in-depth analysis of results Ability to understand, author and critique cutting-edge research papers Familiarity with code-reviewing, C++, Linux, Git is a plus PhD in a relevant area and / or track records of delivering value through machine learning are a big plus. What we offer you

Attractive compensation with salary and equity Immersion in a team of world-class researchers, engineers and entrepreneurs A unique position to shape the future of autonomy and tackle the biggest challenge of our time Bespoke learning and development opportunities Relocation support with visa sponsorship Flexible working hours - we trust you to do your job well, at times that suit you and your time Benefits such as an onsite chef, workplace nursery scheme, private health insurance, therapy, daily yoga, onsite bar, large social budgets, unlimited L&D requests, enhanced parental leave, and more!

We are seeking a highly motivated candidate for a fully funded PhD 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 PhD student 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).

The start date of the position is September 01, 2024. The position is fully funded for 4 years by Science Foundation Ireland.

The successful candidate will require the following skills and knowledge: • Bachelor or Master in Computer Science or related fields; • Strong competence in computer graphics, computer vision; • Solid experience in academic research and publications is an advantage; • Additional background in math, statistics, or physics is an advantage. • Hands-on experience in training deep models; • Hands-on experience in computer graphics and computer vision application development such as OpenGL, OpenCV, CUDA, Blender; • Strong programming skills in C++, Python. Capability in implementing systems based on open-source software.

Applicants should provide the following information: • A comprehensive CV; • Academic transcripts of Bachelor and Master’s degree; • The name and contact details of two referees.

Interested candidates can email Binh-Son Hua (https://sonhua.github.io) for an informal discussion of the position. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until the position has been filled.

The Autonomy Software Metrics team is responsible for providing engineers and leadership at Zoox with tools to evaluate the behavior of Zoox’s autonomy stack using simulation. The team collaborates with experts across the organization to ensure a high safety bar, great customer experience, and rapid feedback to developers. The metrics team is responsible for evaluating the complete end-to-end customer experience through simulation, evaluating factors that impact safety, comfort, legality, road citizenship, progress, and more. You’ll be part of a passionate team making transportation safer, smarter, and more sustainable. This role gives you high visibility within the company and is critical for successfully launching our autonomous driving software.

Open to Seattle, WA; Costa Mesa, CA; or Washington, DC

Anduril Industries is a defense technology company with a mission to transform U.S. and allied military capabilities with advanced technology. By bringing the expertise, technology, and business model of the 21st century’s most innovative companies to the defense industry, Anduril is changing how military systems are designed, built and sold. Anduril’s family of systems is powered by Lattice OS, an AI-powered operating system that turns thousands of data streams into a realtime, 3D command and control center. As the world enters an era of strategic competition, Anduril is committed to bringing cutting-edge autonomy, AI, computer vision, sensor fusion, and networking technology to the military in months, not years.

WHY WE’RE HERE The Mission Software Engineering team builds, deploys, integrates, extends, and scales Anduril's software to deliver mission-critical capabilities to our customers. As the software engineers closest to Anduril customers and end-users, Mission Software Engineers solve technical challenges of operational scenarios while owning the end-to-end delivery of winning capabilities such as Counter Intrusion, Joint All Domain Command & Control, and Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems.

As a Mission Software Engineer, you will solve a wide variety of problems involving networking, autonomy, systems integration, robotics, and more, while making pragmatic engineering tradeoffs along the way. Your efforts will ensure that Anduril products seamlessly work together to achieve a variety of critical outcomes. Above all, Mission Software Engineers are driven by a “Whatever It Takes” mindset—executing in an expedient, scalable, and pragmatic way while keeping the mission top-of-mind and making sound engineering decisions to deliver successful outcomes correctly, on-time, and with high quality.

WHAT YOU’LL DO -Own the software solutions that are deployed to customers -Write code to improve products and scale the mission capability to more customers -Collaborate across multiple teams to plan, build, and test complex functionality -Create and analyze metrics that are leveraged for debugging and monitoring -Triage issues, root cause failures, and coordinate next-steps -Partner with end-users to turn needs into features while balancing user experience with engineering constraints -Travel up to 30% of time to build, test, and deploy capabilities in the real world

CORE REQUIREMENTS -Strong engineering background from industry or school, ideally in areas/fields such as Computer Science, Software Engineering, Mathematics, or Physics. -At least 2-5+ years working with a variety of programming languages such as Java, Python, Rust, Go, JavaScript, etc. (We encourage all levels to apply) -Experience building software solutions involving significant amounts of data processing and analysis -Ability to quickly understand and navigate complex systems and established code bases -A desire to work on critical software that has a real-world impact -Must be eligible to obtain and maintain a U.S. TS clearance

Desired Requirements -Strong background with focus in Physics, Mathematics, and/or Motion Planning to inform modeling & simulation (M&S) and physical systems -Developing and testing multi-agent autonomous systems and deploying in real-world environments. -Feature and algorithm development with an understanding of behavior trees. -Developing software/hardware for flight systems and safety critical functionality. -Distributed communication networks and message standards -Knowledge of military systems and operational tactics

WHAT WE VALUE IN MISSION SOFTWARE Customer Facing - Mission Software Engineers are the software engineers closest to Anduril customers, end-users, and the technical challenges of operational scenarios. Mission First - Above all, MSEs execute their mission in an expedient, scalable, and pragmatic way. They keep the mission top-

Location Amsterdam, Netherlands

Description

At Qualcomm AI Research, we are advancing AI to make its core capabilities – perception, reasoning, and action – ubiquitous across devices. Our mission is to make breakthroughs in fundamental AI research and scale them across industries. By bringing together some of the best minds in the field, we’re pushing the boundaries of what’s possible and shaping the future of AI.

As Principal Machine Learning Researcher at Qualcomm, you conduct innovative research in machine learning, deep learning, and AI that advances the state-of-the-art. · You develop and quickly iterate on innovative research ideas, and prototype and implement them in collaboration with other researchers and engineers. · You are on top of and actively shaping the latest research in the field and publish papers at top scientific conferences. · You help define and shape our research vision and planning within and across teams and are passionate at execution. · You engage with leads and stakeholders across business units on how to translate research progress into business impact. · You work in one or more of the following research areas: Generative AI, foundation models (LLMs, LVMs), reinforcement learning, neural network efficiency (e.g., quantization, conditional computation, efficient HW), on-device learning and personalization, and foundational AI research.

Working at Qualcomm means being part of a global company (headquartered in San Diego) that fosters a diverse workforce and puts emphasis on the learning opportunities and professional development of its employees. You will work closely with researchers that have published at major conferences, work on campus at the University of Amsterdam, where you have the opportunity to collaborate with academic researchers through university partnerships such as the QUVA lab, and live in a scenic, vibrant city with a healthy work/life balance and a diversity of cultural activities. In addition, you can join plenty of mentorship, learning, peer, and affinity group opportunities within the company. In this way you can easily develop personal and professional skills in your areas of interest. You’re empowered to start your own initiatives and, in doing so, collaborate with colleagues in offices across teams and countries.

Minimum qualifications: · PhD or Master’s degree in Machine Learning, Computer Vision, Physics, Mathematics, Electrical engineering or similar field, or equivalent practical experience. · 8+ years of experience in machine learning and AI, and experience in working in an academic or industry research lab. · Strong drive to continuously improve beyond the status quo in translating new ideas into innovative solutions. · Track record of scientific leadership by having published impactful work at major conferences in machine learning, computer vision, or NLP (e.g., NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, CVPR, ICCV, ACL, EMNLP, NAACL, etc.). · Programming experience in Python and experience with standard deep learning toolkits.

Preferred qualifications: · Hands-on experience with foundation models (LLMs, LVMs) and reinforcement learning. · Proven experience in technology and team leadership, and experience with cross-functional stakeholder engagements. · Experience in writing clean and maintainable code for research-internal use (no product development). · Aptitude for guiding and mentoring more junior researchers.

Location Bellevue, WA

Description Are you excited about developing generative AI and foundation models to revolutionize automation, robotics and computer vision? Are you looking for opportunities to build and deploy them on real problems at truly vast scale? At Amazon Fulfillment Technologies and Robotics we are on a mission to build high-performance autonomous systems that perceive and act to further improve our world-class customer experience - at Amazon scale.

This role is for the AFT AI team which has deep expertise developing cutting edge AI solutions at scale and successfully applying them to business problems in the Amazon Fulfillment Network. These solutions typically utilize machine learning and computer vision techniques, applied to text, sequences of events, images or video from existing or new hardware. The team is comprised of scientists, who develop machine learning and computer vision solutions, analytics, who evaluate the expected business impact for a project and the performance of these solutions, and software engineers, who provide necessary support such as annotation pipelines and machine learning library development.

We are looking for an Applied Scientist with expertise in computer vision. You will work alongside other CV scientists, engineers, product managers and various stakeholders to deploy vision models at scale across a diverse set of initiatives. If you are a self-motivated individual with a zeal for customer obsession and ownership, and are passionate about applying computer vision for real world problems - this is the team for you.

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Overview Microsoft Research (MSR), a leading industrial research laboratory comprised of over 1,000 computer scientists working across the United States, United Kingdom, China, India, Canada, and the Netherlands.

We are currently seeking  a Researcher in the area of  Artificial Specialized Intelligence located in Vancouver, British Columbia, with a keen interest in developing cutting-edge large foundation models and post-training techniques for different domains and scenarios. This is an opportunity to drive an ambitious research agenda while collaborating with diverse teams to push for novel applications of those areas.  
  Over the past 30 years, our scientists have not only conducted world-class computer science research but also integrated advanced technologies into our products and services, positively impacting millions of lives and propelling Microsoft to the forefront of digital transformation.   Responsibilities Conduct cutting-edge research in large foundation models, focusing on applying large foundation models in specific domain. Collaborate with cross-functional teams to integrate solutions into Artificial Intelligence (AI) -driven system. Develop and maintain research prototypes and software tools, ensuring that they are well-documented and adhere to best practices in software development. Publish research findings in top-tier conferences and journals and present your work at industry events. Collaborate with other AI researchers and engineers, sharing knowledge and expertise to foster a culture of innovation and continuous learning within the team.

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.