Facebook, Inc. Will Open an Austin Office
By CityReader | February 25, 2010
The City of Austin convinced Facebook to bring a sales operations facility to town, with a $200,000 economic development incentive is in the works.
The company says they’ll create nearly 200 jobs with average salary wages of $54,000 a year. Austin is in competition with other cities in the U.S. – but the cities are still a secret, unlike those photos from college you forgot to add privacy settings for.
Here’s what Mayor Lee Leffingwell said in a city press release:
“We are pleased to bring this proposal forward for a Council vote which could lead to an investment of $1.4 million by the state’s Texas Enterprise Fund. My office has been working daily on this opportunity with Facebook and that’s meant some late night phone calls. We’re excited to see Facebook update their profile page and call Austin home.”
(LOL, Mayor Leffingwell.)
Austin’s proposal includes a performance-based grant over a 10-year period, for a total incentive estimated at $200,000. The plan is to expand the Facebook office to 200 jobs within the first 4 years.
"We've been exploring various options around the U.S. to establish an additional online sales and operations office and we're grateful to the assistance we've received from the Governor's office and the state's leadership in discussing the possibilities in Austin," said Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer at Facebook. "Facebook continues to grow and Austin, with its deep talent pool, would allow us to hire the high-caliber employees we need to properly serve the people, advertisers and developers that rely on our service."
The Austin office will be the first major U.S. operations expansion for Facebook, Inc. outside of its headquarters in Palo Alto. Jobs will include sales support, customer service, developer support, inside sales and risk management.
