The AT&T Foundry is unique because it is one of the only places in our industry where you can take risks, and fail, like a startup, but use the resources and institutional knowledge of a Fortune 10 company. We have a positive culture, a wide-ranging mandate, great people to work with, and drive real-world impact.
What are you working on now?
Primarily AT&T Network 3.0 Indigo data sharing communities. AT&T Network 3.0 Indigo is a project to build a platform for creating data sharing communities both inside and outside of AT&T. Our goal is to build a place where companies can share data to generate insights and analysis without giving that data away.
How did you get your job?
I was leaving Graduate School and applied to an online job posting. AT&T was building out our Big Data organization in partnership with the AT&T Foundry, and I was hired to help boost the AT&T Foundry’s capabilities in distributed computing.
What do you love most about coming to work?
I get to work with very smart people using interesting, cutting edge technologies to solve difficult problems almost every day.
Where do you see the technology you focus on going in the next few years?
As data feeds continue to grow in both volume (amount of data collected) and velocity (frequency of data collection), the need for efficient, low-latency distributed computing will only continue to grow. With the role of automation, data-driven machine learning, and AI continuing to expand, new and better systems will be developed to ingest the incoming data streams, analyze the data and produce actionable insights – decisions – that will drive everything from how your car is routed to what you view on your TV screen.
What do you do outside of work for fun?
These days I primarily go on adventures with my kids, but I also enjoy tinkering with my home electronics, the occasional construction or renovation project, and playing tabletop and video games with my friends.
Mike Albrecht is an Innovation Coach at the AT&T Foundry Innovation Center in Plano, TX. He joined AT&T in September 2013. He received his Masters and Bachelor of Science, both in Computer Science and Engineering, from the University of Notre Dame. Stay tuned for more from our innovators inside the AT&T Foundry.
