Google plans to add jobs in Ann Arbor as global hiring accelerates
Google confirmed today that it would add jobs at its Ann Arbor operation as part of its plans to hire 6,000 new workers globally in 2011.
The hiring plan -- described by a Google executive in a blog post as "our biggest hiring year in company history" -- includes growth for the company's AdWords office on Division Street in downtown Ann Arbor, spokesman Jake Parrillo said in an e-mail.
Google's Ann Arbor office currently has about 250 employees.
Angela Cesere | AnnArbor.com
The news comes about five years after Google officially launched its Ann Arbor operation with plans to hire 1,000 workers by 2011. Today, the company, which received tax incentives from the Michigan Economic Development Corp. and the city of Ann Arbor as part of its expansion, has about 250 workers here.
Parrillo declined to offer specifics on how many jobs the company would add at its Ann Arbor office, which is primarily a sales operation.
The company's Ann Arbor job postings include positions for account managers and sales associates.
Parrillo added: "Those listings for our A2 office are not 'singular' jobs. We expect to hire multiple people for each of those roles."
The company's official hiring announcement, made by senior vice president for engineering and research Alan Eustace, focused mostly on growth in the company's technology capabilities.
"We’re looking for top talent—across the board and around the globe—and we’ll hire as many smart, creative people as we can to tackle some of the toughest challenges in computer science: like building a web-based operating system from scratch, instantly searching an index of more than 100 million gigabytes and even developing cars that drive themselves," Eustace wrote.
The announcement comes as Google is facing increased competition for top talent from companies like Facebook. That competition even affected Ann Arbor in 2009, when Facebook recruited Google's Ann Arbor site leader, Grady Burnett, to become its director of global online sales.
As a response to the intensified competition, Google in November said that it would give a 10 percent raise to all of its 25,000 employees.
Contact AnnArbor.com's Nathan Bomey at (734) 623-2587 or nathanbomey@annarbor.com. You can also follow him on Twitter or subscribe to AnnArbor.com's newsletters.
Comments
ShadowManager
Wed, Jan 26, 2011 : 3:18 p.m.
Yippee. Remember, let's do this right...let's do this "the Ann Arbor Way"...Let's close off a busy street for a year and give them some free parking.
A2comments
Wed, Jan 26, 2011 : 1:34 p.m.
Google committed to having 1,000 jobs here by 12/31/11. I'd like to see AnnArbor.com research the agreement they made to get the incentives and what penalties, if any, they face if they don't increase their Ann Arbor staff by 300% in the next 11 months and 5 days.
Dug
Wed, Jan 26, 2011 : 12:28 p.m.
@Phil - Google hates to geographically distribute engineering teams. There are several lead engineers in Google that would love to come back, but they need a lot of juice to start a big project here, or convince an entire team to move (unrealistic). The NYC office was originally just ad sales also, but thanks to one very high-profile engineer (the 'W' in awk, for any Unix greybeards ;-), grew to several floors of engineers. Highly unusual in a city where anybody good goes and doubles their salary at Bloomberg, Goldman, etc. (although there is the rare Midwest quant fund around here)... And it has to be more than an isolated project team. The last time they tried to expand the number of Googleplexes (offices with engineering), it was a major debacle - Phoenix closed after 2 years, Austin closed in only 4 months! I've been to Googleplexes in Mtn View, NYC, Zurich, etc. - they are massive operations, and have enormous gravity to pull in engineers regionally. There are a few hundred in the Chicago office, even (I'll probably be there this weekend, after <a href="http://ordcamp.com" rel='nofollow'>http://ordcamp.com</a> ). I would love to build a security engineering team here (or move Niels <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20028623-245.html" rel='nofollow'>http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20028623-245.html</a> ;-) but they'd have to buy my new company first. ;-) Michigan's Ann Arbor and Birmingham ad sales offices are barely a blip. Don't get your hopes up.
Phil Dokas
Wed, Jan 26, 2011 : 4:03 a.m.
It would be really nice if they had engineering jobs at that office. It's not like Ann Arbor isn't ripe with thousands of smart young engineers.
Marshall Applewhite
Wed, Jan 26, 2011 : 5:20 a.m.
Nobody is doing any of their engineering in Michigan anymore....all those jobs are down in Texas.