The plan was unveiled at Facebook's Madison Avenue offices during an event attended by Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New York Senator Charles Schumer and other top officials.
"Facebook is capitalizing on what more and more tech companies are realizing: that New York City is the best place in the world to recruit and retain a talented workforce," Bloomberg said. California-based venture companies have set up offices in New York, Google, LinkedIn, Facebook and others have opened offices," Bowles said. Mike Schroepfer, Facebook's vice president of engineering, said New York will become an increasingly attractive destination as the high-tech scene here grows. As part of his plan to expand New York's tech industry, Bloomberg has offered unused land belonging to the city to a university that pledges to build an engineering and applied sciences campus. Facebook is expanding its engineering operations to the East Coast of the U.S. with a new engineering office in New York City, the company announced Friday.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who was part of the press event announcing the new office, proudly noted that this is Facebook’s first engineering operation outside of the West Coast. Serkan Piantino, a longtime Facebook engineer, will head the company’s engineering efforts in New York. Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, was joined at the press conference, which was held in the company’s Manhattan headquarters, by Mike Schroepfer, Facebook’s head of engineering, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer and Mayor Bloomberg. Bloomberg urged other tech companies to move to New York City. Sandberg said Facebook did not know how many engineers they would hire next year. In a follow-up interview, Mashable asked Sandberg why Facebook was hiring engineers in a city where engineering talent is already scarce.
Facebook will open an engineering center in New York City early next year, its first such office outside the West Coast, the social network giant announced Friday. Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg joined elected officials for the announcement at Facebook’s existing New York office on Madison Avenue.--Sandberg would not say how many people Facebook would hire in New York, only that the company plans to add “thousands” worldwide in coming years. Facebook’s New York office currently focuses on advertising sales and employs about 100 people. After arriving at Facebook’s office, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and New York’s U.S. Sen.
Charles Schumer wrote messages in magic marker on a wall, the real-world equivalent of Facebook’s “Wall” messaging area. “Facebook loves New York,” the senator wrote. Schumer said the city has been striving to bring in computer engineering jobs. “New York is pleased to call Facebook a friend.” Bloomberg said West Coast tech companies “are finding that New York is the place they need to be.” Facebook joins Google Inc. and a trove of smaller tech startups with offices in New York City. Facebook, though, could change that.
Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter, who follows social networking companies, said Facebook’s reason for opening an engineering office in the city might have to do with wanting to be close to New York industries like finance or music. It’s certainly not an economic decision — Facebook will have to pay its New York workers for the city’s high cost of living. Facebook’s move to expand its presence mirrors that of Google, which opened an office in New York to tap into Manhattan’s advertising, media and finance industries. The Facebook engineering office will be led by Piantino, who previously managed the team behind Facebook’s News Feed and built the infrastructure behind Timeline.
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