Zoom Video Communications, Inc. announced today that it will open a new research and development center in Pittsburgh as well as one in Phoenix.
The video-first unified communications platform provides video meetings, voice, webinars and chat across all devices and has been extremely popular since the pandemic hit.
Zoom will immediately begin recruiting software engineering talent in these two cities, according to their press release. “Employees will work from home until the offices are built and COVID-19-related isolation has abated, expected for fall 2020. While the company has not finalized the office locations, Zoom is looking for space near Arizona State University and Carnegie Mellon University, both of which have exceptional engineering programs. These two centers will add to Zoom’s existing R&D and support Zoom’s engineering leadership, which is based at its San Jose, California headquarters.”
“Both Phoenix and Pittsburgh have incredibly well-educated, skilled and diverse talent pools that are well-positioned to help support Zoom’s ongoing growth and continued success,” said Eric S. Yuan, CEO of Zoom. “We plan to hire up to 500 software engineers between these two cities in the next few years, drawing largely on recent graduates of the many local universities. We look forward to expanding our team and seeing what we accomplish together as we continue to build our world-leading video communications platform with best-in-class reliability, scalability, privacy and security.”
It is great news for Pittsburgh and especially, Carnegie Mellon.
“We are so thrilled that Zoom is planning to establish a research and development center in Pittsburgh, a world-leading hub for engineering, computer science and artificial intelligence,” said Farnam Jahanian, president of Carnegie Mellon University. “With our visionary faculty and exceptionally talented students, Carnegie Mellon is catalyzing revolutionary work to accelerate digital transformation across markets and industries, and we look forward to partnering with Zoom to enhance their remarkable momentum in defining the future of virtual interactions.”
Zoom is working with the Greater Phoenix Economic Council and the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance to make expansion into these cities a success.
“Today’s announcement underscores what we expect will be a remarkable partnership between Zoom and the Pittsburgh community,” said Mark Anthony Thomas, President of the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance, the economic development affiliate of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development. “Being selected by Zoom as one of two U.S. engineering hub expansion sites endorses the region as a top destination to recruit, attract and invest in specialized tech talent and expertise.
“A robust ecosystem of companies in cloud-based and SaaS technologies is on the rise here. With the addition of Zoom, Pittsburgh continues to grow into its reputation as being the place where companies at the edge of what’s next need to be.”