Amazon, Microsoft, and Google hiring in South Africa — including IT internships

International tech giants Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are advertising jobs in South Africa, including several internships and remote working opportunities.

Together the three tech giants employ nearly two million people worldwide, with Amazon being the most significant contributor with a workforce of 1.6 million.

Microsoft and Google have 221,000 and 156,500 employees around the world, respectively.

Positions available in South Africa include software developers, solutions architects, data centre technicians, cloud solutions architects, and security engineers.

Amazon’s hiring operations in South Africa appear to be slowing down, with the e-commerce and tech giant currently advertising 175 jobs in the country.

For reference, Amazon was advertising over 300 positions in South Africa in August 2022. Microsoft and Google are both currently advertising two jobs in the country.

Amazon in South Africa

Amazon has had a team in Cape Town since 2004, and the International online retail giant launched its customer service operations in the city six years later.

It expanded its South African presence further by opening an Amazon Web Services (AWS) office in Johannesburg in 2015.

In June 2022, leaked documents revealed that the e-commerce giant could also have plans to launch a marketplace in South Africa.

In August 2022, Prebo Digital CEO Timo Dinkelman shared further evidence of Amazon’s plans to launch the marketplace.

Dinkelman shared a screenshot showing “Amazon.co.za” and “Amazon.com.ng” options in an Amazon support drop-down menu.

Amazon has yet to confirm its plans to launch a marketplace in the country. However, it is still advertising several marketplace-related managerial positions in South Africa.

Other notable roles currently available include security and software development engineers, solution architects, and four internships.

Three of the internship positions are data centre-related and include technician, operational security, and engineering operations roles.

Several roles listed by Amazon offer remote working opportunities.

Google’s South African operations

Google has had a presence in South Africa since 2007, when the software giant established an office under then-country manager Stafford Masie in Bryanston, Johannesburg.

Luke McKend took over from Masie in October 2020, serving as country manager until October 2018.

Having initially only supported a small team in shared office space, Google’s South African offices expanded in 2015 to a new location, also in Bryanston.

The move provided more space for a larger team and included new employee perks, including a canteen, games room, and chill zone.

It also meant that the South African team now had its own dedicated office space.

Google appointed Alistair Mokoena as its new South African country manager in January 2020.

The software giant is currently advertising two positions at its South African offices — a data centre technician and an industry manager for its financial services.

Microsoft in South Africa

Microsoft was founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen after they saw the potential to develop an implementation of BASIC for microcomputers.

The software giant got a considerable boost when it partnered with IBM in 1980 to bundle an operating system, dubbed the Microsoft Disk Operating System (MS-DOS), with IBM computers.

It received a royalty for every sale.

Microsoft launched an early version of its Office suite of productivity applications in 1989 and released Windows 3.0 in 1990.

Over the next ten years, Microsoft grew its market share in the home and business computing market through its Windows and Office products.

Today the company has many top-selling products and services, including Windows, Office, Xbox, and its Azure cloud services platform.

Microsoft entered South Africa when it set up an office in Bryanston, Johannesburg, in 1997. The offices house around 500 employees and provides access to a gym, game rooms, and other amenities.

The company is currently advertising two positions in South Africa — down from 14 in August 2022. Microsoft is looking for cloud solutions architects and CE field services engineers.

Jobs available at Amazon, Google, and Microsoft in South Africa and links to their descriptions are listed in the table below.

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