Tech

Amazon’s Alexa group is on a massive hiring spree

Jason Del Rey
WATCH LIVE
Amazon's Alexa unit says it's time to hire
VIDEO0:3400:34
Amazon's Alexa unit says it's time to hire

When Jeff Bezos revealed in May that Amazon employed more than 1,000 people working on Echo and Alexa products, he warned: "It's just the tip of the iceberg."

Here's some proof. The Echo and Alexa groups are currently looking to fill 400 positions, according to Amazon's Alexa job page.

More from Recode:
Google's October 4 hardware event: What to expect
Blue Apron is on pace for more than $1 billion in sales as it preps for an IPO
Watch Alec Baldwin and Kate McKinnon play Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton

The open positions run the gamut from data engineers to product managers to machine learning scientists. And the job locations are as varied: From Amazon's headquarters in Seattle to other U.S. cities like Tempe, Ariz.; Cambridge, Mass.; and Sunnyvale, Calif. Overseas, Amazon's voice technology groups are also hiring in places like Gdansk, Poland.

The hiring push comes as Amazon has recently added new devices to its line of Echo voice-controlled speakers, whose success has been a surprise to even the most optimistic Amazon insiders. In September, Amazon introduced a cheaper $49 Amazon Echo Dot, which syncs up with traditional speakers to allow them to respond to voice commands.

Amazon has also been pushing to get other companies to integrate the Alexa voice assistant technology into their own devices. Amazon isn't charging for the service and believes it can come up with a business model once the technology becomes ubiquitous. Obviously, shopping by voice commands will be one component.

The future of internet search is up for grabs, and Amazon wants Alexa to be the new front door.

By Jason Del Rey, Recode.net.

CNBC's parent NBCUniversal is an investor in Recode's parent Vox, and the companies have a content-sharing arrangement.