PBA ReporterPerhaps you’ve always been highly qualified and seek a gig with one of the biggest tech giants in the world, Amazon.
Your dream is about to be actualized as Amazon has finally berthed in Nigeria.
The company has joined Nigeria’s data revolution wagon and set to launch more Amazon Web Services (AWS).
AWS launched its first African data centers in Cape Town in 2020 and later announced it would hire 3,000 people in South Africa, bringing its total workforce in the country to 7,000.
You would note that changing data protection regulations and rising demand for cloud services at businesses has driven a flurry of investments into data centers in Nigeria. A number of data centers have been set up on the Lagos coast. In March 2020, Actis, a U.K.-based private equity firm, invested $250 million in RackCentre, a Nigerian data center company focused on West Africa, and, in December 2021, Equinix paid $320 million for MainOne, a cloud infrastructure company and operator of West Africa’s first privately owned undersea fiber cable. Big tech companies, including Meta and Google, have supported large undersea cable projects, to increase internet services in Africa.
Does this say anything?
Indeed, Amazon’s Africa expansion means a hiring drive in Nigeria too.
Just recently, AWS was advertising for 10 roles based in Lagos over the previous two weeks, including entry-level engineers and senior sales managers for Nigerian clients. Amazon lists credit companies Carbon and Aella Credit as clients and published a case study about how AWS helped optimize the processes at Flutterwave, the unicorn payments startup. Now, it seems AWS is looking to bring more local startups into its fold by hiring dedicated account managers for startups in Nigeria. It is also hiring a sales manager to snap up enterprise clients, like banks and oil companies, which have typically preferred to keep data in-house.
Amazon said, the vacant positions included associate solutions architect, Europe, Middle East, Africa (EMEA) startup scaling team; startup segment leader, sub-Saharan Africa, Amazon web services (AWS) startups; senior partner sales manager, Nigeria, and Kenya.
Others are a startup account manager, sub-Saharan Africa, AWS; solutions architect, startups, AWS (sub-Saharan Africa); senior solutions architect, West Africa, WWPS; and enterprise account manager, Nigeria.
Amazon made an exception for the location of the role of enterprise account manager, saying it would “be based in the UAE to start, with a view on it relocating to Nigeria”.
According to Amazon, the enterprise account manager would “help promote the growth and shape the future of an emerging technology.”
Also, the company said the senior solutions architect would be responsible for owning the technical engagement and ultimate success around specific implementation projects, working cross-organisationally to facilitate widespread use and adoption of the AWS platform, among others.
Meanwhile, the e-commerce platform said the preferred candidate for the solutions architect role must, (among other qualifications) have experience “designing, building, refactoring or operating IT systems – either on-premises or in the cloud.”
“Candidates for the startup account manager, sub-Saharan Africa, AWS, must have ten years of technology-related sales, business development, or sales engineering/consulting experience in areas such as Cloud, SaaS, Analytics, Mobile, eCommerce,” Amazon said.
“The ideal candidate for the senior partner sales manager role would possess a business background that enables them to engage at the CxO level and to easily interact with Partners, Customers, and sales/field reps”.
Amazon said the startup segment leader, sub-Saharan Africa, AWS Startups, would help drive revenue and market share of startups in Africa; meet or exceed quarterly revenue targets, among others.
It also said the preferred candidate for the associate solutions architect must have experience in implementing cloud-based technology solutions, adding that startup work experience is a plus.
Follow Us