Seattle is an Innovation Hub and Needs Smart Graduates!

Two years ago Northeastern was very intentional in choosing the center of the South Lake Union neighborhood as the location for our Seattle Graduate Campus.  Within a mile we have 50+ biotech/biomedical research institutes (see graphic), the Gates Foundation global headquarters, and dozens of innovative technology companies, including Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft. Finally, just across the street, the headquarters of Amazon. Within a year Amazon alone will have 36,000 employees working in this area!

Beyond the big name companies, and under the radar screen, there are dozens of tech start-ups at various stages of growth in our neighborhood.  All of these companies are in a constant battle for talent, and each employ many different ways to acquire that talent.   Piracy is an advanced art here, with companies battling every day to steal each other’s employees.  But the real war is for graduates from higher education institutions with skills and training in computer science-related areas. The Seattle environment presents great opportunities for students to find short and long-term positions at any one of these companies.

At Northeastern-Seattle, we regularly introduce our graduate students to tech companies in the area.  A few weeks ago Google came to our campus and talked about careers at Google, and the skills they value.  Last week, our relationship with a new startup, Porch, which is growing rapidly brought six representatives to our campus to talk with 50 students. They explained how the idea for Porch.com was developed, the months they devoted to gathering and analyzing data from many agencies and sources, and the software development that created the Porch.com platform.   They talked about their business model, how they get revenue, and their short-term strategies to secure venture capital funding.  They devoted most of their time to talking about the company culture and the types of work co-ops or interns do if they come to Porch.

Porch stated the traits they look for most in new employees include: 1) people with a passion for what they do; 2) the ability to really focus; 3) the ability to self-motivate;  4) the ability to learn quickly; and 5) the determination to  learn.  They noted they are not concerned that employees come in knowing everything – more important is for them to have the attitude, “I will learn it.”

One of our computer science students, Miles Gillis, is currently at Porch for a six month co-op position.  He was assigned initially to the “Data Squad”, dealing with “cleaning up” the messy data they get from various sources.  Within two weeks, he was assigned his own projects, moved on to production servers, and is thoroughly enjoying the firm culture and his work.  Porch officials noted one of their most innovative products, the Porch Home Report, was developed and created by one of their interns.

Northeastern has many decades of experience in working with its Co-op program.  Today at any point in time over 5,000 Northeastern undergraduates and graduates are working in their field of study at one of 3,000 companies in one of 123 countries.  Experiential learning is a key trademark of Northeastern, and has been recognized as the national leader by Princeton Review several times in recent years.

Here in Washington, all higher-ed institutions can work with local companies to build an internship or co-op pipeline, such as Northeastern has in place, with local companies.    I have worked with the Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA) to see if all higher ed institutions can work together to provide as many internship opportunities as a group as we can.  This statewide focus on providing more internship opportunities will be a win-win approach for students and companies.