Seven months after pulling out of its planned New York City HQ2 headquarters, instead opting to move all HQ2 operations to one location in Arlington, Va., Amazon is making a big tech splash in two other major metropolitan markets. The e-Commerce giant is expanding its Tech Hubs in Chicago and Austin, Texas, with plans to create 1,000 new tech jobs in fields including cloud computing, advertising, business development and consumer ops technology. While 400 jobs are expected to be added in Chicago, 600 will be created in Austin.
To help fill these positions, Amazon has hosted “Career Day” events in Chicago, Boston, Dallas, Nashville, Seattle and Arlington.
Amazon will extend the Chicago Tech Hub by 70,000 square feet over the next three years and will lease an additional 100,000 square feet of space in the Austin Tech Hub. Amazon previously leased 145,000 square feet in the building.
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The Chicago and Austin Tech Hubs are just two of Amazon’s 18 North American Tech Hubs. Together, these Hubs have more than 20,000 employees. The news comes a month after Amazon announced it would open an 84,000-square-foot office in downtown Portland, Ore. and create 400 jobs there.
Chicago-based Amazon teams currently build and support products and services for Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon Advertising and the company’s transportation and operations units. Austin-based employees also work within the AWS and Amazon Advertising departments, as well as the Amazon Business and Consumer Ops Technology divisions.
Amazon did not disclose salaries for the new positions, but a representative said all full-time employees receive comprehensive medical benefits.
Together with its customer fulfillment and retail facilities, Amazon has created more than 11,000 full-time jobs in Illinois and invested more than $4.4 billion in the state since 2010, including infrastructure and compensation to its employees.
In June, Amazon also opened a second delivery station in Austin, which added 300 full-time and part-time jobs.
