It’s a small step, but Amazon.com Inc. just announced the first round of HQ2 jobs in a blog post Monday afternoon and one vice president who will move to the region from Seattle. The five jobs — four in finance and accounting and one in human resources — are the first to be specific to the second headquarters in Crystal City.
“We are ahead of schedule and on pace to create 400 new jobs this year and a total of 25,000 over the next decade plus,” wrote Ardine Williams, vice president of workforce development for HQ2, in the blog post. Williams moved to Greater Washington in December and has already participated in some workforce development calls and local education events.
One big revelation not found in Monday’s post was that HQ2 will be the spring board that takes Alexa internationally. For months, Amazon executives have said that they did not have a preordained set of business they wanted to bring to Crystal City. But Amazon said it will send Rob Pulciani, vice president of Alexa, from Seattle to Arlington to build a team that will push the virtual assistant beyond U.S. market. Pulciani will employ solutions architects, technical program managers, marketers, and business development professionals, among other roles.
Amazon (NYSE: AMZN) has been posting dozens of jobs in Greater Washington for weeks. The vast majority of those list Arlington or Ballston, a neighborhood in Arlington, as the location.