The social networking and Web services provider will employ "thousands" of new engineers overall to support the company's rapid growth, COO Sheryl Sandberg said.
Facebook announced Dec. 2
that it is opening a new software development and engineering office in New
York City to augment its current Menlo Park and Palo Alto, Calif., and
Seattle-based R&D locations.
The Facebook NYC engineering
office will debut in early 2012 and will begin accepting applications
immediately, Facebook Vice President of Engineering Mike Schroepfer said.
Chief Operating Officer
Sheryl Sandberg, speaking at a press conference with New York City Mayor
Michael Bloomberg and Sen. Charles Schumer, would not be specific about how
many new people the company would hire for the new office. However, she did say
that the social networking and Web services provider will employ
"thousands" of new engineers overall to support the company's rapid
growth.
Up to 800 Million Users
Facebook, which currently
has about 3,000 employees-including 100 in its New York City sales and
marketing office-now claims more than 800 million regular users. Only 12 months
ago, that number was about 500 million.
Facebook, which is expected
to launch its initial public offering of stock sometime in the spring of 2012,
will join other IT companies with New York City software development offices,
including, Microsoft, IBM, Google and several others.
"Facebook is
capitalizing on what more and more tech companies are realizing: that New York
City is the best place in the world to recruit and retain a talented
workforce," Bloomberg said. "Growth in the tech sector is creating
jobs and further diversifying our economy. That's why we are invested in
expanding our engineering workforce by building a new applied sciences school
in the city.
"We want to do
everything we can to make sure that Facebook can grow here, and that the next
Facebook will be founded here."
Serkan Piantino, a Facebook
engineering manager who previously managed the engineering team behind
Facebook's News Feed and built the infrastructure behind Timeline, will run the
new office. Piantino currently manages the engineering teams that power
Facebook Messages and Chat.
Jay Parikh, who oversees
Facebook's infrastructure team, will serve as the executive sponsor for the new
office.
Applicants for the Facebook
engineering team in New York may review the first listing of available
positions
at this site. Others
interested in receiving updates on the developments at the office can
"like" the
Facebook Page for
NYC Engineering.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg
was not present at the New York City press conference.
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Chris Preimesberger was named Editor-in-Chief of Features & Analysis at eWEEK in November 2011. Previously he served eWEEK as Senior Writer, covering a range of IT sectors that include data center systems, cloud computing, storage, virtualization, green IT, e-discovery and IT governance. His blog, Storage Station, is considered a go-to information source. Chris won a national Folio Award for magazine writing in November 2011 for a cover story on Salesforce.com and CEO-founder Marc Benioff, and he has served as a judge for the SIIA Codie Awards since 2005. In previous IT journalism, Chris was a founding editor of both IT Manager's Journal and DevX.com and was managing editor of Software Development magazine. His diverse resume also includes: sportswriter for the Los Angeles Daily News, covering NCAA and NBA basketball, television critic for the Palo Alto Times Tribune, and Sports Information Director at Stanford University. He has served as a correspondent for The Associated Press, covering Stanford and NCAA tournament basketball, since 1983. He has covered a number of major events, including the 1984 Democratic National Convention, a Presidential press conference at the White House in 1993, the Emmy Awards (three times), two Rose Bowls, the Fiesta Bowl, several NCAA men's and women's basketball tournaments, a Formula One Grand Prix auto race, a heavyweight boxing championship bout (Ali vs. Spinks, 1978), and the 1985 Super Bowl. A 1975 graduate of Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., Chris has won more than a dozen regional and national awards for his work. He and his wife, Rebecca, have four children and reside in Redwood City, Calif.Follow on Twitter: editingwhiz
