Amazon is hiring for 100 jobs in South Africa – here is where to apply
Amazon is looking for 102 South Africans to join the company. The jobs available range from customer service and marketing to developers and support engineers.
Amazon is best known as a global eCommerce giant with online stores in countries worldwide. It dominates online shopping globally.
However, the company is also a technology giant. Its Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud platform is a rapidly growing part of the business.
Unbeknownst to many, Amazon Web Services has roots in South Africa and has been present in the country for two decades.
In 2004, Amazon Web Services (AWS) established a development centre in Cape Town under the guidance of South African Chris Pinkham.
Pinkham was well-known in South Africa’s tech circles for founding the first commercial ISP in 1993 – The Internetworking Company of Southern Africa (Ticsa).
In late 2003, Pinkham and his colleague Benjamin Black presented an internal paper that shared a vision for Amazon’s retail computing infrastructure.
He received approval to return to South Africa and hire engineers from the Cape Town community to work on the project.
“We did that in late 2004 or early 2005. We had our first engineers on board in the Constantia area in Cape Town,” he said.
This was the genesis of Amazon’s presence in South Africa and the team that worked on developing EC2.
It grew its local presence in 2010 when it opened customer service operations in Cape Town. This division now employs thousands of individuals.
Another positive development in South Africa was the launch of the Amazon marketplace earlier this year.
Amazon’s South African marketplace allows local shoppers door-to-door delivery or one of 3,000 pickup points.
Amazon has partnered with Pargo and The Courier Guy to meet local delivery and logistics needs.
M&G Investments equity analyst Damon Buss said Amazon’s ability to offer a vastly superior range of products to its competitors gives it an edge.
He explained that this is one reason why Amazon became the dominant player in many of its markets, and South Africa will be no different.
Although Amazon started conservatively, it is gradually ramping up its eCommerce activities in South Africa and is starting to gain market share.
Amazon hiring in South Africa
Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the newly launched Amazon South Africa marketplace dominate its hiring activities in the country.
The company is seeking 34 operations, IT, and support engineers and 16 software developers.
These technical positions are mainly based in Cape Town, the country’s headquarters for its cloud services division.
Amazon is also looking for a large number of non-technical staff, including marketing professionals and sales, advertising, and account managers.
These non-technical positions at Amazon in South Africa are split between Cape Town and Johannesburg.
There are also numerous positions in customer service, human resources, training, and leadership.
The company also strongly focuses on data analytics and is looking for professionals with skills in business intelligence, research science, and machine learning.
South Africans looking to apply for positions at Amazon in South Africa can use this link: