Adding capacity to its Tech Hubs network, Amazon will expand its corporate and tech locations in Irvine, Santa Monica, and San Diego.

Amazon announced plans to create more than 2,500 corporate and technology jobs over the coming years in multiple cities across Southern California. The company will expand its Tech Hubs in San Diego and the Los Angeles area, including Irvine and Santa Monica, as it seeks to recruit local talent and continue inventing and innovating on behalf of its customers. These latest investments come after Amazon opened more than 15 sites across Southern California and created more than 17,000 jobs statewide in 2021 alone.

“Communities across California have welcomed Amazon over the past decade and have seen firsthand how our investments can unlock new opportunities for their neighbors and local economies. We’ve created more than 170,000 jobs across the state and are committed to continue investing here,” said Holly Sullivan, Amazon’s vice president of worldwide economic development. “These 2,500 new jobs includeroles building cloud infrastructure, improving the Alexa experience,and designing cutting edge video games. They’re afantastic opportunity for Californians of all backgrounds to join Amazon and build a successful career.”

Amazon’s expansions in California will support various teams across the company, including retail, Amazon Games, Amazon Web Services, and operations. A variety of roles are already available, including software development engineers, game designers, and user experience designers, along with positions in human resources, finance, IT, and more.

“Economic development, especially job creation, is critical to our city’s growth. Amazon’s expansion of its tech hub in Irvine is a testament to the fantastic talent pool and high quality of life our city has to offer,” said Farrah Khan, mayor of Irvine. “Investments like Amazon’s act as a vote of confidence for Irvine and these 800 new corporate and tech roles will continue to unlock economic opportunity for our community.”

“Job creation and economic development is essential to a sustainable and vibrant city,” said San Diego City Councilmember Chris Cate. “I am excited to see how Amazon’s expanded presence in San Diego will drive new investments in our region and bring 700 new tech and corporate jobs, boosting economic growth for years to come. San Diego is the perfect place for Amazon to bring cutting edge innovation and technology to reality.”

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Amazon’s investments in California will include new office space in three cities, contributing to local job creation and the revitalization of downtown areas. These investments include:

Santa Monica

As part of Amazon’s expansion at its Los Angeles Tech Hub, the company plans to create more than 1,000 new corporate and tech jobs in Santa Monica over the coming years. To accommodate this hiring effort, Amazon has signed a lease for a 200,000-square-foot space with J.P. Morgan Asset Management at the Water Garden. The new site will begin welcoming employees in mid-2023.

Irvine

Further expanding its Los Angeles Tech Hub, Amazon also plans to create more than 800 corporate and tech jobs over the next few years in Irvine. The company has signed a lease for 116,000 square feet of space at Spectrum Terrace with Irvine Company and plans to occupy the office space later this year. 

San Diego

Amazon has signed a lease for a 123,000-square-foot space with Seritage Growth Properties and Invesco at University Town Center to accommodate more than 700 employees. About 1,000 tech and corporate employees are already working at Amazon’s San Diego Tech Hub. The new office space will open for employees in early 2023.

Amazon is constantly innovating and creating new programs to provide candidates of all backgrounds and levels of experience the opportunity to join the company. Now, candidates from California can benefit from Amazon Returnship, an initiative to help professionals get back to work after they’ve lost or left their jobs—including people displaced by the impacts of COVID-19. People applying for a tech role can also use Amazon’s newest recruiting program, Best Fit, which uses a new technology that allows software engineers to apply once and be considered for thousands of jobs across hundreds of Amazon teams—including some roles they may not have even thought of.

Unlocking opportunity in Southern California

Beyond its hiring efforts, Amazon contributes millions of dollars and continues to partner with more than 100 organizations across Southern California, including the Children’s Hospital of Orange County, Orange County United Way, the San Diego LGBT Community Center, the San Ysidro Women’s Club, and the Surfrider Foundation.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Amazon has donated transportation services to deliver more than 4 million meals on behalf of Los Angeles Regional Food Bank. The company also made philanthropic contributions to programs that provided small business relief, allowed for the expansion of online learning, supported food distribution programs, and created mobile COVID-19 testing and vaccine clinics. As the U.S. emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, Amazon continues to build economic opportunity in the communities it calls home. In Southern California, Amazon has built workforce development partnerships with city and county agencies across the region to offer Californian workers the opportunity to learn new skills in emerging fields like robotics, advanced logistics, and cloud computing.

Amazon also supports local schools through Amazon Future Engineer, the company’s global philanthropic computer science education program designed to inspire and educate millions of students each year to try computer science and coding. The program supports close to 600 schools across California, including Los Angeles and San Diego schools, providing students with high-quality computer science curriculum, robotics clubs, and project-based learning.

Since 2010, Amazon has created more than 170,000 full- and part-time jobs in California and invested more than $81 billion across the state, including infrastructure from fulfillment centers, Whole Foods Market locations, and three Tech Hubs. These investments have contributed an additional $80 billion to the California economy and support 259,000 indirect jobs—in addition to the employees the company directly employs—in industries like construction, logistics, and professional services. Currently, more than 220,000 independent authors and small and medium-sized businesses in California are growing their businesses with Amazon.

Source: Amazon