Amazon set for big South African hiring spree

Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud-computing division is set to go on a big hiring spree in South Africa. The ecommerce and internet giant today announced that it has opened a Johannesburg office, with plans to hire more than 250 engineers over the next 12 months.

The new office joins the established Amazon Development Center Cape Town, which has been in operation since 2004 and develops technology for several Amazon businesses, including Amazon Web Services (AWS).

According to a press release sent to Memeburn, the office is already open and operational.

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As well as engineers, the company is looking for account managers, solutions architects, partner managers and various other functions for South African customers to directly engage with AWS.

The fact that Amazon has had a South African presence for so long is largely due to the fact that former Vice President, IT Infrastructure and EC2 developer Chris Pinkham was allowed to return to his home country, where he helped develop the product alongside Willem van Biljon. The two have since left Amazon and went on to found software startup Nimbula, which was acquired by Oracle in 2013.

“Amazon has been an active contributor to the South African technology community for over a decade,” said Steve Midgley, Head of EMEA, Amazon Web Services. “Over this time we have seen some key technologies of the AWS cloud emerge from the country so it is no surprise we are also seeing strong growth amongst African organisations moving to the cloud. Choosing to locate an AWS office in South Africa speaks to the rapidly growing customer base, the broad set of talent here and the investment we are making to support cloud adoption around the world. By expanding our presence in South Africa, and through hiring highly skilled staff, we intend to further accelerate the growth of our cloud customers in Africa and around the globe.”

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According to Amazon, South African businesses were also among the earliest adopters of AWS when it launched in the country in 2006. “Customers based in South Africa are using AWS to run everything from development and test environments to big data analytics, from mobile, web and social applications to enterprise business applications, public sector and mission critical workloads,” the company says. “AWS now counts some of Africa’s fastest growing businesses as customers including, Entersekt, PayGate and Travelstart as well as established enterprises such as Adcorp and Medscheme”.

Amazon says that the Johannesburg office is part of its wider investment in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region.