King 5 takes a look at the tech hiring boom in Seattle, focusing on Google’s growth plans and talking to University of Washington computer science students who are entertaining offers of more than $90,000 right out of school. The report also mentions Western Washington University’s proposal to eliminate its computer science department, which continues to be a hot topic of discussion given WWU Provost Catherine Riordan’s remarks on GeekWire yesterday.

Google currently employs about 1,000 people at offices in Kirkland and Seattle, with roughly 95 percent of the staff working in engineering or software development positions. It continues to hire aggressively at its satellite offices here, the company’s largest engineering outpost outside of Mountain View, California.

“I think this is a great time to be a computer scientist,” says one Google recruit who was recently hired out of the University of Washington and entertained five job offers.

With reports like that, one has to wonder why Western Washington would consider dropping its program. More to come on that controversy.

Here’s the KING 5 report:


Previously on GeekWire: Tech companies are starved for talent, but the jobless rate doesn’t budge

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