Amazon recently announced its plans to create 3,500 new technology and corporate jobs in Dallas, Detroit, Denver, New York, Phoenix and San Diego. The online retail giant said it will invest more than $1.4 billion in the new offices, which will host teams supporting businesses across the company.
“People from all walks of life come to Amazon to develop their career – from recent graduates looking for a place to turn their ideas into high-impact products, to veterans accessing new jobs in cloud computing thanks to our upskilling programs,” Amazon Human Resources Senior Vice Beth Galetti said in a statement. “These 3,500 new jobs will be in cities across the country with strong and diverse talent pools. We look forward to helping these communities grow their emerging tech workforce.”
The teams in the aforementioned cities will support numerous Amazon businesses, including AWS, Amazon Advertising, Amazon Fashion, OpsTech, Amazon Fresh and more. The company plans to hire for a variety of roles including cloud infrastructure architects and software engineers, data scientists, product managers, and user experience designers.
Amazon’s Tech Hub and corporate office expansions will be in the following locations:
• Dallas—Amazon is expanding the current Dallas Tech Hub at its Galleria location. It will add 100,000 square feet of space and 600 tech and corporate roles.
• Detroit—The company will add more than 25,000 square feet of office space for 100 more jobs.
• Denver—Amazon’s Denver Tech Hub will also add 100 more jobs and 20,000 square feet of new office space.
• New York—Amazon plans to create 2,000 new jobs and acquired the Lord & Taylor Fifth Avenue building where it will open a 630,000 square foot office.
• Phoenix—The company will add 90,000 square feet to its Phoenix Tech Hub at 100 Mill, creating 500 new jobs.
• San Diego—Amazon will add 40,000 square feet of office space and 200 jobs.
Their expansion breaks increased remote work trend
Amazon’s announcement comes at a time when more companies are letting employees work from home because of the COVID-19 pandemic—including fellow tech giants. Facebook recently said it would move towards more of a remote workforce in the next decade. Meanwhile, Twitter has allowed employees to work from home indefinitely. Google is letting employees work from home until 2021.
Amazon Vice President of Workforce Development Ardine Williams noted predicting how things will go next year and how employees will return to these office spaces will be challenging. The company is currently letting employees who can work remotely do so until January 8. However, Amazon also recognizes that while companies are happy with how well their employees have adapted to the remote model, telework has its downsides, too. The negatives include difficulty training new hires, longer project timelines and less collaboration.
“The ability to connect with people, the ability for teams to work together in an ad hoc fashion—you can do it virtually, but it isn’t as spontaneous,” Williams, told The Wall Street Journal. “We are looking forward to returning to the office.”
