Amazon now in the market for high-end tech workers

What does it take to work at Amazon? Amazing scripting skills, a healthy dose of scepticism, limitless curiosity and a condition dubbed “system availability disorder” - depending on the job you are applying for.

The company announced it would create 500 jobs at its Dublin operations over the next two years, although given the pace of hiring for its last intake – Amazon filled 300 jobs ahead of its own schedule – there's every reason to suspect that it may reach that number before the 2018 deadline.

It will add to the company’s current workforce of 1,700 people, some of whom are located in Cork carrying out customer service functions for Amazon customers.

Hub

Among the positions currently being recruited for at the Dublin technical hub are software development engineers, network development engineers, data centre engineering, support engineers, systems engineers, optical deployment engineers, security specialists, big data specialists, devops engineers, and a range of technical management positions.

The company said it had historically had good experience with finding the skills it needs in the irish market – good news for job seekers – but the current round of recruitment is seeking high tech qualifications, and more importantly, several years of experience for many of the roles.

For most of the engineering positions, such as the security engineers, applicants will need a formal qualification in computer science or other technical degree, with mathematics another option for several of the roles.

Experience

It’s not all about the qualifications on paper though, with Amazon’s recruiters also stipulating some experience is necessary.

In most cases, that’s three years in a specific field, from scripting in a Linux environment to two years of experience in system, network or application security engineering.

If you want to work as a software development engineer for AWS EC2 Cloudwatch though, you’ll need at least eight years of experience developing objected-oriented software, and have mastered Java, C#, C++ or Ruby programming languages.

The systems development engineers will swap the degree in computer science, engineering or related field for four years or more of relevant work experience.

The technical customer services roles, meanwhile, require no formal qualifications, but look for candidates with experience in customer service and account management, along with top notch communication skills and a strong grip of web technologies and the internet.

The company is keen to keep its customer service record, which has seen it voted the fifth most admired company in the US, taking the top spot in customer service.