SEATTLE — Amazon today announced an expansion of its Portland Tech Hub and plans to create 400 new high tech jobs in fields including software development, operations, IT, Support Engineering, Solutions Architects, and Product Management. With a new 84,000 square foot office in downtown Portland, Amazon expects to double its tech workforce in the area. The company has created more than 3,500 full-time jobs in Oregon since 2010 and invested over $9 billion in the state, including customer fulfillment facilities, cloud infrastructure, and compensation to its employees.
“We are excited to create more tech jobs in a city with a historic culture of innovation and tremendous talent,” said Khawaja Shams, VP of Engineering, AWS Elemental in Amazon’s new Portland office. “We look forward to hiring locally and generating more opportunity in our vibrant community. Thank you to all of our partners across the city and state for helping us to continue to invest here and contribute to keep growing and diversifying the local economy.”
“Our state is a great place to live, work, and play, and I’m pleased to see more Oregon jobs in the pipeline via the Amazon Portland Tech Hub,” said Governor Kate Brown. “By adding 400 more jobs, we grow both our vibrant tech industry and our community.”
“The City of Portland continues to be a leader in the technology sector, and the expansion of Amazon’s Portland Tech Hub is another example of that,” Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler said. “It’s a win any time we can add jobs to our already-thriving economy.”
“Amazon’s expansion in Portland will have a tremendous impact on opportunities for our local workforce,” said Kimberly Branam, Prosper Portland executive director. “We look forward to the company’s growth here as a strong community partner helping us build an equitable economy.”
Amazon’s Portland Tech Hub is one of the company’s 18 North American Tech Hubs – a network of development centers in addition to Amazon’s Seattle and Northern Virginia headquarters. Together, these Hubs have more than 20,000 employees innovating for Amazon customers around the world. Portland-based Amazon teams currently build and support products and services for Amazon Web Services (AWS) including AWS Elemental which was founded in Portland in 2006.
Since 2010, Amazon has invested over $9 billion in Oregon, building customer fulfillment facilities, cloud infrastructure and research facilities. The company estimates that these direct investments in the state contributed more than $2 billion to Oregon’s economy (2010-2018) and generated an additional 13,000 indirect jobs on top of the company’s direct hires. There are also more than 34,500 authors, developers, and small and medium-sized businesses in Oregon’s growing their businesses with Amazon.