Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company, announced the opening of its office in San Juan to support the rapid adoption of cloud computing in the country and the rest of the Caribbean.
Local AWS representatives will work to support organizations of all sizes, from startups to some of the island’s oldest and most established firms, including public sector entities, as more Puerto Rican companies transition to the AWS cloud, officials said.
As part of this expansion, AWS also plans to hire professionals for sales, public sector, marketing, engineering, and technical consulting roles based in Puerto Rico.
That hiring process will initially fill 21 positions, which will expand as the company broadens its reach, said Abby Daniell, public sector business development manager for AWS in the region.
The office located in the Miramar sector of San Juan will open in 60 days, she confirmed. The total investment that AWS is making to enter the local market remained undisclosed.
Puerto Rican organizations are making progress in adopting cloud services, and established customers in Puerto Rico can use AWS to run all their technology environments, from development and test environments to Big Data analytics, from mobile applications, web, and social applications to enterprise applications and mission-critical workloads.
“With the pandemic, we saw a faster digital transformation that we ever had expected. We saw customers migrating to cloud and to be able to satisfy working from home, studying from home, etc.,” said Daniell. “So, we saw for instance what would have taken five years of a digital transformation to happen in five months.”
“We see a lot of interest here in Puerto Rico in adopting the cloud and we really see it not just with the private sector, but also with the with the public sector with universities and with the government, so that’s one of the reasons why we decided to open the office here in Puerto Rico,” she said.
AWS is already working with several entities in Puerto Rico, namely the Cooperativa de Seguros Múltiples, Grupo Telemedik, Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, Vaquería Tres Monjitas, and GFR Media, among others.
“Puerto Rico is an important market for AWS in Central America, where companies have been innovating and are using the cloud to accelerate time to market and expand their business to reach customers locally and around the world,” said Marcos Grilanda, head of multi-country organization for commercial sales at AWS.
“The decision to open an AWS office in San Juan speaks to the growing customer demand, the broad talent pool here, and our investment to support cloud adoption in the island. We are excited to work with more Puerto Rican companies to help them drive innovation within their organizations while maintaining industry-leading standards for reliability, privacy, and security,” he said during a press conference to announce AWS’ arrival to Puerto Rico.
In conjunction with the new office, AWS announced the launch of its free Re/Start education program in partnership with the Department of Economic Development and Commerce (DDEC, in Spanish) and Ana G. Mendez University.
The entities will offer unemployed or underemployed Puerto Ricans the opportunity to prepare for careers in the cloud.
In addition, AWS will offer expert advice so that people can successfully conduct job interviews and write their resumes to support their insertion into the labor market.
“The shortage of highly experienced cloud talent is a major concern for our AWS partners and customers. Hiring the necessary talent continues to be a real challenge for the industry,” said Andrés Tahta, regional director for the public sector at AWS.
“Through our cloud training and education programs, we are preparing diverse learners for entry-level, on-demand cloud roles worldwide. With AWS re/Start, we are reinventing how early career talent is cultivated, trained, and retained in the cloud and creating a pipeline for the future,” he said.
