Google Seattle lands UW computer science professors
Cross-posted from John Cook's Venture Blog — Two University of Washington computer science professors are joining Google's new development office in Seattle's Fremont neighborhood, strengthening the search giant's ties …
Context & Ripple Effects
Google's Seattle push is graduating from raids to institutions. The company signaled its intent back in February 2006 with its hire of Amazon's search chief, and it now has a dedicated development office in Fremont — staffed this week with two University of Washington computer science professors moving straight from faculty into industry research.
The timing matters: the announcement lands one day after Google unveiled the Open Handset Alliance and Android, part of a broad engineering scale-up. It also comes months after two top Google engineers left for Benchmark Capital in June, a reminder that Seattle-area talent flows both directions — and that Google is competing for credibility, not just headcount, in a market where Microsoft and Amazon already sit.
First-order effects
- UW's computer science department loses two active professors to Google's Fremont office, which gains academic pedigree and an on-campus recruiting pipeline in its newest engineering hub.
Second-order effects
- Microsoft and Amazon, Google's established Seattle-area rivals for engineering talent, face a competitor willing to pull directly from university faculties — raising the retention and counteroffer pressure on every local employer chasing the same researchers.
Third-order effects
- If Google keeps seeding satellite offices with senior academic hires rather than transfers from Mountain View, university departments become a structural input to its expansion — and the academia-to-industry brain drain becomes a standing cost for research universities in tech-heavy regions like Puget Sound.
The trend: Google is building distributed engineering hubs by recruiting senior talent straight out of universities located in its rivals' home markets, with Seattle the clearest early test case.