Occupation Description:
As part of Microsoft Leap, program participants deliver technologies and solutions for Microsoft products and services. They can be found in organizations such as Azure, Xbox, Bing, and Office365. Specific role functions may differ based on which organization a program participant is employed.
Program Description:
In 2015, we launched Microsoft Leap to introduce more people to work in the tech industry. The program offers an immersive 16-week learning experience for those who have a base foundation of technical training. It combines in-classroom learning with hands-on engineering projects and team projects. Microsoft Leap participants are change catalysts and change multipliers: they bring a diverse set of personal experiences and cognitive abilities to their work as well as to their colleagues and communities at Microsoft. They play a vital role in advancing engineering processes, accelerating innovation, and activating inclusion as a part of the Microsoft culture.
Program Objective:
Build relationships and community
Partake in a supportive community and develop relationships needed for professional growth. Relationships developed during the classroom provide a support base for participants during their training and beyond. This support base is especially important to underrepresented communities entering tech.
Become lifelong learners
Have ongoing, voluntary, and self-motivated learning and be able to find this learning. Becoming a life-long learner means fostering formal and informal learning opportunities throughout one's life for continuous development of the knowledge and skills needed for employment and personal fulfillment.
Embrace Microsoft Culture
Program participants belong and bring value to Microsoft because of their experiences. The mission and cultural pillars of Microsoft are taught and practiced in the classroom and on sponsoring teams. These are demonstrated by failing fast, supporting each other, working as a team, communicating respectfully, being authentic, and coming together as one.
Gain Fundamental Knowledge and Skills
Program participants will develop the necessary pathway fundamentals, tools, services, and processes to work at Microsoft. The classroom covers fundamental technical and subject matter training pertinent to all participants for their respective teams. Additional skills and knowledge are gained through on-the-job training working on projects and continued study outlined in the PDP.
Be Excellent Teammates and Leaders
Program participants should be open-minded, passionate, and focused on improving shared success. There are regular core skills trainings and reflection exercises, which are applied in the classroom group work. Classroom activities include paired discussion, pair programming, and working to solve problems as a group. These skills continue to be practiced and built while working on a project as part of their sponsoring teams.
Learning Outcomes:
- demonstrate presentation skills
- prepare effective business messages for culturally diverse audiences
- communicate by written, oral, and visual methods
- compose clean and concise business letters, reports, memoranda, and emails
- discuss project management using project terminology
- be conversant with agile methodology
- prepare a project management plan using scrum; allocate time, personnel, and other resources to enable timely completion of a project
- monitor and control project progress against the baseline
- conduct risk management processes
- employ project management principles and processes
- manage and control change, and close the project
- learn cloud concepts such as High Availability, Scalability, Elasticity, Agility, Fault Tolerance, and Disaster Recovery
- Understand the benefits of cloud computing in Azure and how it can save you time and money
- Compare and contrast basic strategies for transitioning to the Azure cloud
- Explore the breadth of services available in Azure including compute, network, storage, and security
- utilize the C# programming language format and structure in coding
- understand and utilize C# programming concepts, including lists, dictionaries, classes, and loops
- use C# libraries and tools; debug basic C# programs; and employ C# as a means for developing information security tools
- employ regular expressions in processing text
- demonstrate the use of scripting languages to manage applications using networks
- explain how to use scripting language to process other application's data
- show the use of scripting developing applications using networks and databases