(already subscribe? log in).

Amazon plans Cambridge office

THIS STORY APPEARED IN

December 23, 2011|By Scott Kirsner

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos introduced the Kindle Fire tablet at a New York event… (EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty…)

Amazon’s Massachusetts strategy in the past could be described with two words: free shipping. When the tech giant has acquired local companies, it has shipped the products and people out to Seattle. And when it has hired local talent, it has provided one-way tickets to Washington State, along with other lucrative relocation benefits.

That strategy will change in 2012, when Amazon opens up its first outpost in the Boston area. The company has been communicating with software developers who’ve previously been reluctant to head west, informing them that a Boston office will be open in February. And Amazon has also posted four public job listings for PhD-level research scientists who will work on “a variety of technical initiatives” in Boston. The research positions are apparently under the umbrella of Amazon’s a2z Development Center, a subsidiary that works on software to “enable great retailing experiences.”

For Amazon, a Boston office actually means Cambridge: the company has been hunting for about 40,000 square feet in the Kendall Square area, according to two people with knowledge of the search, both of whom requested anonymity. That’s enough space to ultimately house anywhere from 100 to 150 employees. Amazon has been trying to keep things quiet, asking to be described only as “confidential company” in dealings with prospective landlords.

Amazon seems to be on the fast-track to set up in Cambridge; while the target date for opening is February 1st, members of Amazon’s engineering team will be in town the week of January 23rd to conduct interviews. On the software development side, Amazon is looking for engineering managers, software engineers, and quality assurance engineers who will work on Amazon’s digital products team, which handles services like Amazon’s MP3 store, online video delivery, Kindle e-books, and Amazon’s Cloud Drive storage service.

In the late 1990s, Amazon acquired two Cambridge companies, PlanetAll and Exchange.com, but never set up a local office. More recently, it has recruited tech executives like Raju Matta from local companies — Matta had been a senior director of engineering at TripAdvisor — and moved them out to Amazon’s headquarters.

”I’m intrigued by the idea of a Cambridge office,” says Jim Savage, the former CEO of PlanetAll who now works as a venture capitalist at Longworth Venture Partners. “Google has quite a big presence here, but from a consumer perspective, there’s no bigger brand than Amazon.” Savage says the local outpost is likely a way for Amazon to hire people who want to stay on the east coast.