Reimagining Ireland by Harnessing Innovation

Reimagining Ireland by Harnessing Innovation

Today marked an important day for Microsoft in Ireland as together with the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Leo Varadkar TD and the IDA we announced the creation of 200 new engineering roles to strengthen our existing Irish based team of over 600 highly skilled engineers.

We also unveiled details of our new €27m Engineering Hub at One Microsoft Court in Leopardstown, Dublin. Designed with engineers’ needs at its core, the 10,000m2 facility, located a few steps from Microsoft’s flagship building, One Microsoft Place, will provide an inspiring and smart building where our growing engineering team can innovate together and learn from one another.

At the heart of the new Engineering Hub is The Garage, a space and concept that is well known and established at Microsoft’s Seattle campus. In The Garage, employees have the freedom to innovate, fail, learn and experiment on projects they are passionate about. It’s a fantastic space and we’re looking forward to welcoming colleagues, customers and community members to have fun and to create when restrictions are lifted – particularly our new engineer recruits.

Our decision to invest further in Ireland is a testament to the creativity and ingenuity within our Irish based team. The 200 talented individuals that will be hired for roles in Software Engineering and Product Design, User Experience and Data Science will be involved in the development, deployment and support of new Cloud services and emerging technology solutions for customers around the globe.  Recruitment is already underway and we’re hoping to fill roles in the coming weeks.

This year has been unlike anything we could have imagined.  In our personal and professional lives, we have been pushed to the limit. Cloud and digital technologies have helped to keep the economy open, have supported our healthcare workers, have ensured continued access to learning for young people and importantly, have supported the amazing work of NGOs who are looking after the most vulnerable in our communities.

While we have truly come together as one to tackle the societal impact of COVID-19, we now must face the economic challenges posed by the pandemic. Time to rebuild, recover, reimagine.

Out of this difficult time, we have seen some fantastic innovation and amazing responses from individuals and organisations. Great ideas together with great technology has positioned us well to navigate the past ten months and have given us a firm foundation upon which to start the new year.

And engineers have been at the centre of much of this change, developing new responses and solutions to challenges and opportunities. We want to harness the ability of more talented engineers, bring them in to our redesigned building that will encourage and facilitate collaboration and new thinking so that they can help to tackle current and existing problems – for customers but more importantly – for people, all around the world.

At Microsoft we believe we have an opportunity to leverage new technologies to reimagine Ireland’s future. One where digital technology creates a sustainable and inclusive society that truly empowers every person and organisation to achieve more.

It’s a transformative time to join Microsoft as we work with government, businesses and organisations to reimagine Ireland’s future through the power of innovation. With our continued investment in our engineering capabilities, we can help steer a successful path through these unprecedented times.