Microsoft has started looking for high-value talents that will staff the company's $10 billion project with the U.S. Department of Defense. Specifically, the Richmond-based tech giant is on the hunt not only for qualified individuals. For the candidates to make the shortlist, they need to bring with them security clearance.
It's quite obvious that Microsoft's recruitment for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) is targeting workers experienced in the defense sector. According to WCCFTech, the company plans to stage an event near the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) headquarters at the start of 2020.
The message was clear on the part of Microsoft - the company wants to attract the right people for its defense contract with the U.S. government that has stirred controversy. It was estimated that over 100 new hires are needed by Microsoft to get the lucrative project going, at least in the initial phase.
JEDI, for the most part, is designed to modernize the Pentagon's cloud-based system and related technology infrastructure. Microsoft will need to get the right people for the project and CNBC said, the company is offering attractive pay packages to do so.
Aside from shouldering the cost of application for the security clearance, the company is ready to give a pay hike of up to 30 percent. For an employee that will be tasked to handle sensitive post and can obtain a top-level security approval, maximum pay packages surely await.
Per the same report, Microsoft has already filled up hundreds of slots for the engineers needed for the JEDI project, but more than a hundred more must be recruited soon. The specific needs are software engineers and program managers.
Despite the legal challenge launched by Amazon, Microsoft said it is working on the project unmindful of the distractions.
"We have if anything been moving even faster since that contract was awarded," CNBC reported the company as saying.
As for Amazon's decision to question Pentagon's awarding of the JEDI contract to Microsoft, the e-commerce giant said there was a possibility the decision handed down could be tainted by bias. One glaring indicator was the frequent attacks made by U.S. President Donald Trump on Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, the company noted.
In the lawsuit filed by the company, Amazon claimed the process was marred by "fundamental errors" and insisted Microsoft's version of what Amazon can do for JEDI is inferior.
"Any meaningful review of that decision reveals egregious errors on nearly every evaluation factor, from ignoring the unique strengths of AWS's proposal, to overlooking clear failures in Microsoft's proposal to meet JEDI's technical requirements, to deviating altogether from DoD's own evaluation criteria to give a false sense of parity between the two offerors," Market Watch reported Amazon's filing as saying.
The company noted too that Microsoft appeared shocked by the decision that it took a full day before a comment was offered on the matter.
