John Deere opens Austin office focused on agriculture technology
When thinking of John Deere, most people probably picture the company’s signature green tractors.
But as the world becomes increasingly dependent on technology, the farming and lawn equipment sectors have been no exception.
That has led Illinois-based John Deere to step up its focus on technology and operations, said Julian Sanchez, the company’s director of emerging technology.
“We are a tech company,” Sanchez said. “We also just happen to build awesome tractors.”
Austin will now play a key role in John Deere’s tech future, as the company has opened an office on South Congress Avenue as part of its agriculture technology team, which aims to develop products to help farmers be more profitable, sustainable and better able to tackle farming’s challenges.
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John Deere executives say the Austin facility will allow the company to connect with local universities, startups and incubators and to leverage the area’s technology community as it looks to innovate in areas including precision agriculture, automation and autonomy. The company has been taking advantage of a similar ecosystem in the San Francisco Bay area since 2017, and last year expanded to open a tech office in Chicago.
Jahmy Hindman, chief technology officer for John Deere, said Austin is a growing destination for some of the brightest minds in tech, and opening an office in Central Texas will help the company expand its talent pool and better collaborate.
“Deere’s mission has always been about helping farmers sustainably feed a growing global population. We’re looking for people who want to help create technology that will have a significant impact on their communities and the world,” Hindman said in a written statement.
The company’s new office takes up two floors totaling 10,000 square feet in a building on South Congress. Deere has about a dozen Austin employees now, with plans to grow to about 75 to 100 within a year.
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Investing heavily in technology
John Deere’s tech team last year began discussions about where to expand to next, and Austin quickly rose to the top, Sanchez said. He said the company was drawn not only to Central Texas’s existing tech talent, but also felt that Austin is a place where the company could find diverse perspectives and problem solvers.
Tech has become increasingly immersed in farming in recent years. Sanchez said farming started heavily digitizing around 2010, and now software and other technolgy is part of many everyday aspects of the farming industry. For example, tractors now often work with the help of 17,000 lines of code and 100 sensors, and farmers are able to monitor equipment location and course and make adjustments from their mobile devices.
“I would expect within the next five years almost every piece of agricultural equipment has some kind of a camera or a sensor and it’s using computer vision and machine learning to make to make better decisions for the farmer,” Sanchez said.
Sanchez said John Deere is investing heavily in technology to help solve problems and to help farmers do more with less.
“The ultimate goal of any farmer is to be able to maximize what each single plant does in the ground in the field, and minimize the amount of chemicals and inputs they have to use to care for that plant,” Sanchez said. “When we think about agriculture tech, we look at it through the lens of that objective. And they need to be able to do it at scale.”
Sanchez said the company is always looking around for new locations, places and environments, where the company can tap into not just tech talent but also brings diverse perspectives and experiences.
In Austin, the company’s teams will be especially focused on software and data. Sanchez said some teams will be focused on developing software used in autonomous tractors that helps tractors use data from the cloud and GPS signals to take a precise and specific path.
“Everything from a data scientist to cloud architects that are able to build piping for data, are critical skills and talent,” Sanchez said.
Austin already has a thriving software scene, as well as companies working on high-tech vehicle technology including electrification and automation in cars. All of that was a draw for John Deere executives, Sanchez said.
“Electrification and autonomy are obviously two key trends in automotive. They’re also just as important trends in agriculture, as well as data,” Sanchez said. “In agriculture, you’re recording everything that happens in the field, where ever seed is placed, what chemicals are applied, and all that data is moving back and forth to the cloud.”
Sanchez said the company’s South Congress office lets them feel really part of Austin and its culture while also giving them close access to Texas farmland.
“Within 20 minutes, we can be in a tractor or a cotton picker or a harvesting combine,” Sanchez said. “We can bridge the gap forany software engineering software developer or data scientist between what they’re doing in the office and what happens out there in the real field.”
https://www.statesman.com/story/business/2022/02/25/john-deere-opens-austin-office-focused-agriculture-technology/6914135001/
