Walmart to hire 5,000-plus technology workers; open two new tech hubs
Walmart is making a significant commitment to expanding its global technology operation.
The Walmart Global Tech division adding hubs in Toronto and Atlanta, and also plans to hire more than 5,000 technology associates globally during fiscal 2022. According to Walmart, it strategically chose Atlanta and Toronto as its newest tech hubs because of their growing tech presence, connection to Walmart and diverse talent bases.
The company says it plans to make Toronto one of its major global technology hubs and create several hundred new tech jobs there in the next 12 months. In the short term, Walmart will begin with 45 full-time associates, primarily software developers, product managers and technical program managers. In addition to launching the Toronto tech hub, Walmart Canada is also investing $1 billion in technology and other areas, such as refurbishing local stores.
Meanwhile, Walmart’s first hiring phase in Atlanta includes 140 new full-time associate roles such as data scientists and software engineers. The company has posted its roles for its new Atlanta and Toronto teams, and will announce more in the coming months. Both teams will work virtually in the near-term and will eventually transition to a hybrid way of working.
With the addition of Atlanta and Toronto, Walmart Global Tech now has 17 hubs, including Silicon Valley, Northwest Arkansas, Dallas, and India. The company is continuing to build technology teams in two locations it entered in 2021: Seattle and Chennai, India.
According to Walmart, Global Tech is its fastest-growing corporate team. The division develops and manages technologies including cloud, data, enterprise architecture, developmental operations, infrastructure and security; as well as provides enterprise services to other Walmart employees.
Walmart Global Tech currently includes more than 20,000 associates globally.
This year, the company is focused on hiring cybersecurity professionals, architects, developers, software engineers, data scientists, data engineers, technical program managers, and product managers.
One area where Walmart its publicizing its efforts at technology innovation is last-mile delivery. In response to exponential growth in online delivery orders since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Walmart has built an artificial intelligence (AI)-based tech platform that powers its last-mile delivery ecosystem.
Agnostic to supply and demand, and built around its own marketplace, the platform uses automation and machine learning to turn a near-infinite number of factors into usable data. As it learns through AI, the platform is designed to improve.
“Our new platform is doing revolutionary things,” said Srini Venkatesan, executive VP for Walmart Global Tech. “With all these disparate points of delivery in a sense ‘communicating’ with one another, we can plan replenishment at a shorter cycle, gain close-to-real-time insights of inventory and ultimately react to customer demand. All of that adds up to a single stellar shopping experience for Walmart customers.”
“Every new hire is an integral part of our Walmart Global Tech team, and we’re committed to helping new associates find opportunities for personal and professional growth,” said Suresh Kumar, executive VP, CTO and chief development officer, Walmart Inc., in a corporate blog post. “We are looking for talented individuals who bring fresh perspective and a passion for advancing tech innovation to help others.”