Engineering at Pinterest

Our Engineering team is at the core of bringing our platform to life for Pinners worldwide. Working collaboratively and cross-functionally with teams across the company, our engineers tackle growth-driving challenges to build an inspired and inclusive platform for all.

Our future of work is PinFlex

At Pinterest, we know that our best work happens when we feel most inspired. PinFlex promotes flexibility while prioritizing in-person moments to celebrate our culture and drive inspiration. We know that some work can be performed anywhere, and we encourage employees to work where they choose within their country or region, whether that’s at home, at a Pinterest office, or another virtual location. We believe that there is value in a distributed workforce but there are essential touch points for in-person collaboration that will create a big impact for our business and for development and connection.

Stop by booth #2100 to learn more about our open roles and our in-house generative AI foundation model that leverages the full power of our visual search and taste graph! Our engineers and recruiters are excited to connect with you!

Redmond, Washington, United States

Overview Do you want to shape the future of Artificial Intelligence (AI)? Do you have a passion for solving real-world problems with cutting-edge technologies? Do you enjoy working in a diverse and collaborative team?

The Microsoft Research AI Frontiers group is looking for a Principal Research Software Engineer with demonstrated machine learning experience to advance the state-of-the-art in foundational model-based technologies. Areas of focus on our team include, but are not limited to:

Human-AI interaction, collaboration, and experiences Applications of foundation models and model-based technologies Multi-agent systems and agent platform technologies Model, agent, and AI systems evaluation As a Principal Research Software Engineer on our team, you will need:

A drive for real world impact, demonstrated by a passion to build and deploy applications, prototypes, or open-source technologies. Demonstrated experience working with large foundation models and state-of-the-art ML frameworks and toolkits. A team player mindset, characterized by effective communication, collaboration, and feedback skills. 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 Leverage full-stack software engineering skills to build, test, and deploy robust and intuitive AI based technologies. Work closely with researchers and engineers to rapidly develop and test research ideas and drive a high-impact agenda. Collaborate with product partners to integrate and test new ideas within existing frameworks and toolchains. Embody our culture and values.

A postdoctoral position is available in Harvard Ophthalmology Artificial Intelligence (AI) Lab (https://ophai.hms.harvard.edu) under the supervision of Dr. Mengyu Wang (https://ophai.hms.harvard.edu/team/dr-wang/) at Schepens Eye Research Institute of Massachusetts Eye and Ear and Harvard Medical School. The start date is flexible, with a preference for candidates capable of starting in August or September 2024. The initial appointment will be for one year with the possibility of extension. Review of applications will begin immediately and will continue until the position is filled. Salary for the postdoctoral fellow will follow the NIH guideline commensurate with years of postdoctoral research experience.

In the course of this interdisciplinary project, the postdoc will collaborate with a team of world-class scientists and clinicians with backgrounds in visual psychophysics, engineering, biostatistics, computer science, and ophthalmology. The postdoc will work on developing statistical and machine learning models to improve the diagnosis and prognosis of common eye diseases such as glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration, and diabetic retinopathy. The postdoc will have access to abundant resources for education, career development and research both from the Harvard hospital campus and Harvard University campus. More than half of our postdocs secured a faculty position after their time in our lab.

For our data resources, we have about 3 million 2D fundus photos and more than 1 million 3D optical coherence tomography scans. Please check http://ophai.hms.harvard.edu/data for more details. For our GPU resources, we have 22 in-house GPUs in total including 8 80-GB Nvidia H100 GPUs, 10 48-GB Nvidia RTX A6000 GPUs, and 4 Nvidia RTX 6000 GPUs. Please check http://ophai.hms.harvard.edu/computing for more details. Our recent research has been published in ICCV 2023, ICLR 2024, CVPR 2024, IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, and Medical Image Analysis. Please check https://github.com/Harvard-Ophthalmology-AI-Lab for more details.

The successful applicant will:

1. possess or be on track to complete a PhD or MD with background in computer science, mathematics, computational science, statistics, machine learning, deep learning, computer vision, image processing, biomedical engineering, bioinformatics, visual science and ophthalmology or a related field. Fluency in written and spoken English is essential.

2. have strong programming skills (Python, R, MATLAB, C++, etc.) and in-depth understanding of statistics and machine learning. Experience with Linux clusters is a plus.

3. have a strong and productive publication record.

4. have a strong work ethic and time management skills along with the ability to work independently and within a multidisciplinary team as required.

Your application should include:

1. curriculum vitae

2. statement of past research accomplishments, career goal and how this position will help you achieve your goals

3. Two representative publications

4. contact information for three references

The application should be sent to Mengyu Wang via email (mengyu_wang at meei.harvard.edu) with subject “Postdoctoral Application in Harvard Ophthalmology AI Lab".

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.

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

Geomagical Labs is a 3D R&D lab, in partnership with IKEA. We create magical mixed-reality experiences for hundreds of millions of users, using computer vision, neural networks, graphics, and computational photography. Last year we launched IKEA Kreativ, and we’re excited for what’s next! We have an opening in our lab for a senior computer vision researcher, with 3D Reconstruction and Deep Learning expertise, to develop and improve the underlying algorithms powering our consumer products. We are looking for highly-motivated, creative, applied researchers with entrepreneurial drive, that are excited about building novel technologies and shipping them all the way to the hands of millions of customers!

Requirements: Ph.D. and 2+ years of experience, or Master's and 6+ years of experience, focused on 3D Computer Vision and Deep Learning. Experience in classical methods for 3D Reconstruction: SfM/SLAM, Multi-view Stereo, RGB-D Fusion. Experience in using Deep Learning for 3D Reconstruction and/or Scene Understanding, having worked in any of: Depth Estimation, Room Layout Estimation, NeRFs, Inverse Rendering, 3D Scene Understanding. Familiarity with Computer Graphics and Computational Photography. Expertise in ML frameworks and libraries, e.g. PyTorch. Highly productive in Python. Ability to architect and implement complex systems at the micro and macro level. Entrepreneurial: Adventurous, self-driven, comfortable under uncertainty, with a desire to make systems work end-to-end. Innovative; with a track record of patents and/or first-authored publications at leading workshops or conferences such as CVPR, ECCV/ICCV, SIGGRAPH, ISMAR, NeurIPS, ICLR etc. Experience in developing technologies that got integrated into products, as well as post-launch performance tracking and shipping improvements. [Bonus] Comfortable with C++.

Benefits: Join a mission-driven R&D lab, strategically backed by an influential global brand. Work in a dynamic team of computer vision, AI, computational photography, AR, graphics, and design professionals, and successful serial entrepreneurs. Opportunity to publish novel and relevant research. Fully remote work available to people living in the USA or Canada. Headquartered in downtown Palo Alto, California --- an easy walk from restaurants, coffee shops and Caltrain commuter rail. The USA base salary for this full-time position ranges from $180,000 to $250,000 determined by location, role, skill, and experience level. Geomagical Labs offers a comprehensive set of benefits, and for qualifying roles, substantial incentive grants, vesting annually.

ASML US, including its affiliates and subsidiaries, bring together the most creative minds in science and technology to develop lithography machines that are key to producing faster, cheaper, more energy-efficient microchips. We design, develop, integrate, market and service these advanced machines, which enable our customers - the world’s leading chipmakers - to reduce the size and increase the functionality of their microchips, which in turn leads to smaller, more powerful consumer electronics. Our headquarters are in Veldhoven, Netherlands and we have 18 office locations around the United States including main offices in Chandler, Arizona, San Jose and San Diego, California, Wilton, Connecticut, and Hillsboro, Oregon.

ASML’s Optical Sensing (Wafer Alignment Sensor and YieldStar) department in Wilton, Connecticut is seeking a Design Engineer to support and develop complex optical/photonic sensor systems used within ASML’s photolithography tools. These systems typically include light sources, detectors, optical/electro-optical components, fiber optics, electronics and signal processing software functioning in close collaboration with the rest of the lithography system. As a design engineer, you will design, develop, build and integrate optical sensor systems.

Role and Responsibilities Use general Physics, Optics, Software knowledge and an understanding of the sensor systems and tools to develop optical alignment sensors in lithography machines Have hands-on sills of building optical systems (e.g. imaging, testing, alignment, detector system, etc.) Have strong data analysis sills to evaluate sensor performance and troubleshooting Leadership:

Lead executing activities for determining problem root cause, execute complex tests, gather data and effectively communicate results on different levels of abstraction (from technical colleagues to high level managers) Lead engineers in various competencies (e.g. software, electronics, equipment engineering, manufacturing engineering, etc.) in support of feature delivery for alignment sensors Problem Solving: Troubleshooting complex technical problems Develop/debug data signal processing algorithms Develop and execute test plans in order to determine problem root cause Communications/Teamwork: Draw conclusions based on the input from different stakeholders Capability to clearly communicate the information on different level of abstraction Programming: Implement data analysis techniques into functioning MATLAB codes Optimization skills GUI building experience Familiarly with LabView and Python Some travel (up to 10%) to Europe, Asia and within the US can be expected

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

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

Location Sunnyvale, CA Seattle, WA New York, NY Cambridge, MA

Description The Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) team is looking for a passionate, talented, and inventive Applied Scientist with a strong deep learning background, to help build industry-leading technology with multimodal systems.

As an Applied Scientist with the AGI team, you will work with talented peers to develop novel algorithms and modeling techniques to advance the state of the art with multimodal systems. Your work will directly impact our customers in the form of products and services that make use of vision and language technology. You will leverage Amazon’s heterogeneous data sources and large-scale computing resources to accelerate development with multimodal Large Language Models (LLMs) and Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI) in Computer Vision.

Location San Diego

Description

Artificial Intelligence is changing the world for the benefit of human beings and societies. QUALCOMM, as the world's leading mobile computing platform provider, is committed to enable the wide deployment of intelligent solutions on all possible devices – like smart phones, autonomous vehicles, robotics and IOT devices. Qualcomm is creating building blocks for the intelligent edge.

We are part of Qualcomm AI Research, and we focus on advancing Edge AI machine learning technology – including model fine tuning, hardware acceleration, model quantization, model compression, network architecture search (NAS), edge inference and related fields. Come join us on this exciting journey. In this particular role, you will work in a dynamic research environment, be part of a multi-disciplinary team of researchers and software engineers who work with cutting edge AI frameworks and tools. You will architect, design, develop, test, and deploy on- and off-device benchmarking workflows for model zoos.

Minimum Qualifications: • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related field and 4+ years of Hardware Engineering, Software Engineering, Systems Engineering, or related work experience. OR Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related field and 3+ years of Hardware Engineering, Software Engineering, Systems Engineering, or related work experience. OR PhD in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related field and 2+ years of Hardware Engineering, Software Engineering, Systems Engineering, or related work experience.The successful applicant should have a strong theoretical background and proven hands-on experience with AI as modern software-, web-, and cloud-engineering.

Must have experience and skills: Strong theoretical background in AI and general ML techniques Proven hands-on experience with model training, inference, and evaluation. Proven hands-on experience with PyTorch, ONNX, TensorFlow, CUDA, and others. Experience developing data pipelines for ML/AI training and inferencing in the cloud. Prior experience in deploying containerized (web-) applications to IAAS environments such as AWS (preferred), Azure or GCP, backed by Dev-Ops and CI/CD technologies. Strong Linux command line skills. Strong experience with Docker and Git. Strong general analytical and debugging skills. Prior experience working in agile environments. Prior experience in collaborating with multi-disciplinary teams across time zones. Strong team player, communicator, presenter, mentor, and teacher. Preferred extra experience and skills: Prior experience with model quantization, profiling and running models on edge devices. Prior experience in developing full stack web applications using frameworks such as Ruby-on-Rails (preferred), Django, Phoenix/Elixir, Spring, Node.js or others. Knowledge of relational database design and optimization, hands on experience with running Postgres (preferred), MySQL or other relational databases in production Preferred qualifications: Bachelor's, Master's and/or PhD degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related field and 2-5 years of work experience in Software Engineering, Systems Engineering, Hardware Engineering or related.

Redmond, Washington, United States

Overview Do you want to shape the future of Artificial Intelligence (AI)? Do you have a passion for solving real-world problems with cutting-edge technologies?

The Human-AI eXperiences (HAX) team at Microsoft Research AI Frontiers is looking for exceptional candidates to advance the state-of-the-art in human-AI collaboration with a focus on leveraging the capabilities of people and foundation model-based agents and systems to solve real problems.

As a Principal Researcher on our team, you will:

Work on challenging and impactful projects in areas such as human-AI collaboration and teaming, foundation model-based systems, multi-agent systems, next generation AI experiences and responsible AI. Apply your skills and knowledge to build practical solutions to solve real problems and impact the world. Collaborate with other researchers and engineers across the company to amplify your impact and grow your career in a supportive and stimulating environment. We are looking for candidates who have:

A drive for real world impact, demonstrated by a passion to build and release prototypes or OSS frameworks.
Demonstrated track record of influential projects and publications in relevant fields and top-tier conferences and journals (such as NeurIPS, ICML, AAAI, CHI, UIST). Demonstrated interdisciplinary experience in applied machine learning, natural language processing, and human computer interaction including experience doing offline and online evaluations, and conducting user studies and user-centered research. Exceptional coding experience and hands-on experience working with large foundation models and related frameworks and toolkits. Familiarity with LLMs such as the OpenAI Generative Pre-Trained Transformers (GPT) models, LLAMA etc., model finetuning techniques (LORA, QLORA), prompting techniques (Chain of Thought, ReACT etc.) and model evaluation is beneficial.
A passion for innovation and creativity, evidenced by the ability to generate novel ideas, approaches, and solutions. A team player mindset, characterized by effective communication, collaboration, and feedback skills.

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 Perform cutting-edge research to solve real-world problems. Collaborate closely with other researchers, engineers, and product group partners on high-impact projects that deliver real-world impact to people and society. Embody our culture and values.

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 Mountain View, CA

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're currently looking for a tech lead with specialized skills in LiDAR, camera, and radar perception technologies to enhance our autonomous driving systems' ability to understand and interact with complex environments. In this pivotal role, you'll be instrumental in designing and refining the ML algorithms that enable our trucks to safely navigate and operate in complex, dynamic environments. You will collaborate with a team of experts in AI, robotics, and software engineering to push the boundaries of what's possible in autonomous trucking.

What you'll do: - Design and implement cutting-edge perception algorithms for autonomous vehicles, focusing on areas such as sensor fusion, 3D object detection, segmentation, and tracking in complex dynamic environments - Design and implement ML models for real-time perception tasks, leveraging deep neural networks to enhance the perception capabilities of self-driving trucks - Lead initiatives to collect, augment, and utilize large-scale datasets for training and validating perception models under various driving conditions - Develop robust testing and validation frameworks to ensure the reliability and safety of the perception systems across diverse scenarios and edge cases - Conduct field tests and simulations to validate and refine perception algorithms, ensuring robust performance in real-world trucking routes and conditions - Work closely with the data engineering team to build and maintain large-scale datasets for training and evaluating perception models, including the development of data augmentation techniques

**Please click on the Apply link below to see the full job description and apply.

Location Sunnyvale, CA Bellevue, WA

Description Are you a passionate scientist in the computer vision area who is aspired to apply your skills to bring value to millions of customers? Here at Ring, we have a unique possibility to innovate and see how the results of our work improve the lives of millions of people and make neighborhoods safer. You will be part of a team committed to pushing the frontier of computer vision and machine learning technology to deliver the best experience for our neighbors. This is a great opportunity for you to innovate in this space by developing highly optimized algorithms that will work on scale. This position requires experience with developing Multi-modal LLMs and Vision Language Models. You will collaborate with different Amazon teams to make informed decisions on the best practices in machine learning to build highly-optimized integrated hardware and software platforms.