Greater Seattle’s ICT industry is as strong as its ever been – so much so that big-name companies from Silicon Valley and New York have not only opened offices here but are expanding.
Both Facebook and HBO have announced plans to expand their offices in Seattle, crediting the wealth of ICT talent available here. HBO, which opened an engineering office here last year to focus on developing the company’s HBO Go service as well as other R&D projects, has already grown to 55 employees. Their chief technology officer, Otto Berkes, noted in a Geekwire interview that the office’s growth here has exceeded expectations, saying that “Seattle is an incredible source of very strong software technology talent.” HBO plans to double the size of their operations by the end of the year to 100 people.
Facebook has been in the region for a few years now and has already undergone an expansion phase 2 years ago. Now at 400 employees, Seattle is home to Facebook’s largest office outside of California. It looks like that was still not enough, as new reports surfaced last week that the company is looking for more office space to the tune of up to 100,000 square feet. A real estate source has noted that Facebook is considering the top 2 floors of the Macy’s building in downtown Seattle, which could potentially host 500 workers.
