Seattle’s status as a cloud engineering hub just went up another notch with Oracle’s announcement that it’s opening a new Cloud Infrastructure Development Center — aiming to hire more than 100 engineers for the new office in the heart of Seattle’s downtown core.
The new Oracle office, which totals more than 17,000 square feet of space, will be led by a team that includes two former Amazon engineers. The company is kicking off the new Seattle engineering office with a HackerX recruiting event next week.
Oracle’s move adds to a critical mass of cloud ventures in the Seattle region, anchored by Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure but also including a host of cloud computing startups. In May, HP said it would base its Helion cloud computing initiative in Seattle, aiming to hire more than 200 people over the next 18 months.
Oracle says its new office in Seattle’s Century Square high-rise will be led by cloud engineering veterans including Don Johnson, Oracle senior director of engineering, a former Amazon Web Services principal engineer; and Craig Kelly, Oracle senior director of public cloud services, an Amazon veteran who worked most recently at Seattle-area tech company Vizualiiz.
“We are building a team of rock star engineers who want to shape the next-generation, cutting-edge public cloud,” said Johnson in a statement provided by the company. “Equally important, this is a unique opportunity to build the culture from the ground up—like a startup, but with the resources of a company and customer base that can influence the market.”
Oracle’s move also puts its cloud development operations close to Microsoft. The longtime rivals last year announced a broad partnership in cloud computing.
