Amazon Prepares to Hire for AWS Office in Argentina

Jorgelina do Rosario and Carolina Millan (Bloomberg) -- Amazon.com Inc.’s data services division is recruiting for several positions in Argentina, signaling the online retailer is expanding its presence in Latin America beyond Mexico and Brazil.

The Seattle-based company is advertising for eight full-time positions for its Amazon Web Services cloud-computing business. The job postings on Amazon’s company website include a senior consultant on migration, sales account managers and technical trainer.

“Would you like to be part of a team focused on increasing adoption of Amazon Web Services by developing accounts in Argentina?” the postings read. The company also tweeted a tango picture on its Latin America AWS account, with the caption “when we care about something, we dance to celebrate! #AWSArgentina,” which links to a page with the postings and a mention of a local office.

Amazon has been expanding its cloud-computing infrastructure across the globe as more companies pay to have their data and applications hosted remotely. For tech companies, having an Amazon data center nearby helps reduce costs and improve data speeds compared with having to rely on sites outside the country. AWS is Amazon’s most-profitable business.

Argentina was said to be in the running with Chile as the site of a new data center for Amazon in South America, a sign of President Mauricio Macri’s success in bringing the nation back into the global economy. Macri met late last year in New York with Elaine Feeney, Amazon’s vice president for global infrastructure expansion. Argentina is home to several online-based companies, including retailer MercadoLibre Inc., which uses AWS to host its platforms.

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AWS representatives confirmed they are hiring for the launch of a local office in Argentina, which was announced in July. They said the company had no further comment on the location of a new AWS data center.

Amazon makes most of its money in the U.S., Germany, U.K. and Japan. Its online retail business has committed $5 billion to expand into India and entered Australia earlier this year. It also announced last October its intention to expand sales in Brazil beyond books to electronics.