Andrew Hill: Council of Outstanding Early Career Engineers - 2012

Lead Mechanical Engineer Microsoft Corporation | Redmond, Wash. 

Andrew Hill, an Oregon State graduate who also earned a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of California at Berkeley, is now a lead mechanical engineer at Microsoft, where he collaborates closely with industrial designers, researchers, electrical and software engineers, and manufacturing partners around the world to bring hardware devices to market.“To me, product development is the perfect set of problems — the interplay among business, technology, and customers is endlessly fascinating,” says Hill. “The dynamics of navigating through these problems with a team is tremendously interesting and presents me with new challenges every day.”Hill continually draws on his experience with Oregon State’s Industrial Assessment Center, where he helped provide energy, waste, and productivity assessments for small and medium-sized firms. In post-graduate work, he spent six years at Xerox Corporation as a mechanical designer and systems engineer before joining Microsoft. “I have been fortunate to work with innovative people on great products while at Xerox and Microsoft,” says Hill. “The products I have helped ship have done great things for customers and their businesses, and that is pretty rewarding.”