New space for new ideas - Made in Berlin

From 0 to (almost) 2000 - that's the increase in the number of people working at Amazon's Berlin offices between 2011 and 2019. Amazon opened its first office, a customer service center, in Berlin in 2011, followed by a research and development center in 2015. Nowadays, Amazon's Audible also has an office in Berlin.

"We are proud to have so many colleagues in Berlin," explains Jonathan Weiss, lead of Amazon's research and development center in Berlin. "Inspirations and ideas often arise through personal exchange and collaboration with others. That's why we are delighted to be moving to a new building where many current employees from different teams will find space under one roof in the near future - and there will be room for new employees too," says Jonathan Weiss.

Amazon will rent 28 out of 35 floors of "EDGE East Side Berlin" office building which is currently being built near the Warschauer Bridge in Berlin. The construction is expected to be completed by 2023. As Jonathan Weiss explains: "Since we will only be tenants and not owners, we have no influence on the construction period. After the completion of the exterior of the building, we will need some time to set up our rented space so that our employees would feel comfortable and could work productively." Amazon has received no public funding for existing or future buildings in Berlin. Parts of the new EDGE East Side Berlin building will be publicly accessible. Until then, Amazonians will continue to work from the current offices in central Berlin.

The demands on the new location were high: Amazon office space was expected to be centrally located so that employees and customers could reach the office as quickly and easily as possible. Amazon encourages its employees to use public transport for their commute to work which also requires good transport accessibility and connectivity. In addition, the new office space should include common areas where colleagues could interact with each other.

Berlin attracts many highly qualified and well-educated people which makes it easier to find the right candidates. The focus in Berlin is on research and development of products and services including AWS, Alexa and Fire TV.

At the Berlin Development Center, employees work on the technologies of tomorrow, e.g. in the field of machine learning. Amazon's customers will later find much of this R&D in products and services. This is one of the reasons why Amazon stresses its long-term commitment for Berlin.

With a total of over 2,800 employees in the offices in Berlin and logistics in Brandenburg, Amazon employs a large number of people in the Berlin-Brandenburg region. In addition, around 7,300 people from small and medium-sized businesses sell their goods via Amazon in Berlin and Brandenburg. There are also hundreds of jobs in the delivery services industry related to Amazon's business in the region.