Facebook Announces a Big Move in Seattle

You know what's cool? having your own logo. image courtesy of Facebook Seattle

For Seattleites, social networking's most inescapable titan is about to get even more ubiquitous. According to a recent announcement by Facebook (fittingly, released on the Facebook profile for the Seattle office), the company's local office is scheduled for a major expansion. This January, Facebook Seattle will be moving into a 27,000 square foot space in a 20-story. The spacious new digs will accommodate a major round of new hires- projected to swell the office to double its current staff of 60 engineers.

The Seattle office has only been around since 2010, but it's already the largest outside of Facebook's Silicon Valley homeland. Seattle engineers were instrumental in developing the company's recent collaboration with Skype (now a Microsoft division), and have also played an important role in adapting Facebook for Apple's iPad.

It may sting one's pride as a Seattleite, but part of the reason Facebook picked our city for expansion is the same reason Ford moves operations to Mexico: cheap labor and cheap real estate. The perception among techies is that Seattle's software engineers demand lower rates than their Bay Area compatriots, and office space here is cheaper here than in Silicon Valley, where the recession barely cooled the commercial real estate market. Still, it's hard to view Facebook's move as anything but a boon for the economy, and a symbolic victory for the overlooked and underestimated Seattle tech industry. Or, if you're one of the Facebook haters- Big Brother Zuckerberg's malign tentacle is plucking up more Seattleite stormtroopers for his evil New Order of Information. Either way, new 60 tech jobs, right?

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By Everett Rummage in News on November 7, 2011 1:30 PM 0 Comments

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Paul Philion

I think the move says more about the *quality* of Seattle software engineers than it does about cost. In my experience, paychecks aren't significantly smaller here but the cost of living is (compared to SF). Further, both Amazon and Microsoft are very good at producing qualified-and-dissatisfied engineers, adding to a rather fluid employment dynamic for Seattle software engineers.

Jhames

To be fair, the city has gobs of open real estate. Not that we need to fill our buildings with even more social media companies, but it's not as if our mayor is doing everything he can to help local businesses grow and thrive.