Amazon this week announced it would be expanding in Southern California, adding “more than 800 corporate and tech jobs” in Irvine.
The company said the hiring would happen over the next few years. Amazon was not specific about the timeline.
To accommodate its growth, the company has signed a lease for 116,000 square feet of office space at Spectrum Terrace, an office campus under development and owned by The Irvine Co. Amazon said it would move into the office space later this year.
The Irvine Spectrum office community continues to draw major star power. Irvine Co.’s twin towers on Spectrum Center Drive are home to Mazda North America Operations and BlackBerry, which bought the Irvine-based cybersecurity firm Cylance for $1.4 billion in 2019.
Amazon this week said it has leased 116,000 square feet at Irvine Company’s Spectrum Terrace, which is underdevelopment. The e-commerce giant is adding “more than 800 corporate and tech jobs” in Irvine. (Rendering courtesy of Irvine Company)
“Economic development, especially job creation, is critical to our city’s growth,” said Irvine’s Mayor Farrah Khan in a statement from Amazon.
She said Amazon’s expansion was a testament to the talent pool our city has to offer.
“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,” she said.
The Spectrum Terrace complex is completing work on its third and final phase, adding three four-story buildings with a combined 345,000 square feet to the office hub. Construction should be done by August, the company said last summer.
The complex will defy most traditional workplace campus by including poolside cabanas set alongside an Olympic-length pool. Irvine Co. said there will be outdoor meeting spaces, high-end locker rooms and gourmet grab-and-go food.
The first two phases of the complex are leased to Alteryx, CoStar Group, iHerb, Kajabi and RSM. The office campus is at the intersection of the 405, 5, and 133 freeways.
Amazon is planning to hire a combined 2,500 office and tech jobs in three counties, with tech hubs also planned in Santa Monica and San Diego.
The Santa Monica tech hub is leasing 200,000-square-feet of at the Water Garden. The new site will open in mid-2023, according to J.P. Morgan Asset Management. In San Diego, the company is going into a 123,000-square-foot space at University Town Center.
Employees at these tech hubs support Amazon’s divisions in retail, games, web services and operations.
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In its announcement, the company said open positions include software development engineers, game designers and user experience designers. Other roles are in human resources, finance and information technology.
In January, Amazon said it was doubling the maximum base salary of many of its corporate jobs to $350,000 from $160,000.
“This past year has seen a particularly competitive labor market, and in doing a thorough analysis of various options, weighing the economics of our business and the need to remain competitive for attracting and retaining top talent, we decided to make meaningfully bigger increases to our compensation levels than we do in a typical year,” the company told employees Monday in a memo reviewed by Bloomberg.
Amazon also said it was increasing the compensation ranges of most jobs globally and is changing the timing of stock awards to align with promotions. Media reports at the time indicated the turnover rate at Amazon had reached crisis levels, and a record 50 vice presidents departed in 2021.
The e-commerce giant employed 1.6 million globally as of Dec. 31, including warehouse workers who are paid hourly and office staff who earn annual salaries. Warehouse workers are paid at least $15 an hour with the average rising to $18 an hour for some warehouse staff.
More on Amazon’s job openings can be found at amazon.jobs.
Bloomberg contributed to this report.
