If you’re on the job hunt, you might want to consider one company that’s currently looking to fill over 400 positions: Amazon.
The Echo and Alex groups at Amazon (AMZN) are looking to fill 401 positions, according to the Alexa job page. Jobs range from data engineers, to product managers, to machine learning scientists, among others. Locations vary as well, from Amazon’s headquarters in Seattle, to Cambridge, Mass., and Tempe, Ariz. The company’s voice technology group is even hiring in Poland.
Recode reports that the hiring spree comes as Amazon recently added new devices to its line of Echo-controlled speakers, like the Echo Dot, which have had more success than first expected.
But the recruiting shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise: In May, Jeff Bezos said it was “just the tip of the iceberg” after Amazon hired more than 1,000 people to work on Alexa and Echo products, according to Recode.
Amazon hasn’t just been employee-hunting to expand the technology behind Alexa. Just last week, Amazon announced the “Alexa Prize”—a competition that gives college students the chance to win up to $2.5 million if they can create a socialbot that can chat with people about popular culture and news events for 20 minutes, according to a previous report. Through the competition, the company hopes to inspire college students to advance conversational artificial intelligence (AI).
