Amazon To Hire 100 More Staff In London

Amazon today announced it will create 100 new IT jobs at its Digital Media Development Centre in London.

The new recruits will work in design and development for interactive TV specialists Pushbutton and film rental service LoveFilm, both Amazon subsidiaries.

The workforce

The eight floor Centre near Barbican station, which opened in September, creates interactive digital services for televisions, game consoles, smartphones and PCs, as well as features and APIs that improve the overall “digital media experience” of Amazon’s worldwide websites. It also houses the development teams for projects such as Pushbutton and LoveFilm.

The Centre is located in the Tech City area around Shoreditch, where the government hopes to establish a hive of IT activity, recently announcing a £50 million investment to transform the Old Street roundabout.

Amazon already hired 100 new workers in addition to existing Lovefilm and PushButton staff when it opened the Centre. Now, the company is adding another batch of employees. The roles currently being recruited for include software development engineers, user-interface experts and graphic designers.

One of the most recent innovations from the London Development Centre was the LOVEFiLM Instant application on Nintendo’s latest gaming console – the Wii U. The app, which allows users to watch and browse movies between sessions of Mario Kart, now comes pre-installed on the devices in the UK. It also provides second screen capability through the Wii U gamepad.

“We have always known that there is a wealth of tech talent here in London and we continue to look for the most creative minds in the UK to work on the next generation of TV and film services for Amazon customers all over the world,” said Paula Byrne, managing director of the Centre in London.

Meanwhile, MPs have criticised the online retailer for ‘immoral’ tax avoidance. In 2012, Amazon allegedly paid no corporation tax on the £3.3 billion of sales it made in the UK.

“The UK government is by far the biggest purchaser and grant-awarding body in this country. Is it right that Amazon can get more than £10 million of Government money for a new warehouse in Dunfermline when it is a Luxembourg-based retailer paying little corporation tax in this country, and apparently does not pay VAT on all its sales either?” asked the parliament Ian Swales, MP for Redcar, earlier this week.

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