Amazon currently has 40 permanent job openings in South Africa, predominantly in software development, operations, IT, and support engineering for its cloud business, Amazon Web Services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The US tech giant has retrenched over 30,000 people in several rounds over the last year, including cuts in its e-commerce, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and human resources divisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The reduction is a cost-cutting measure helping to mitigate against its investments in data centres and artificial intelligence (AI). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The AI ramp-up was anticipated to help offset the impact of these retrenchments. In South Africa, Amazon has continuously advertised vacant positions throughout periods of retrenchments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While that does not mean it was not cutting jobs in the country, it signalled that South Africa remained a key market for its business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
AWS’ history in South Africa dates back to the early 2000s, when a team led by Chris Pinkham in Cape Town developed its Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The system was key to making AWS the world’s top cloud hosting service. Its core capability is enabling users to rent secure, scalable compute capacity in the cloud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since its success with EC2, Amazon has maintained a strong presence in Cape Town for more than two decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition to its AWS offices, the city houses the headquarters of Amazon’s African operations and of Amazon.co.za’s e-commerce marketplace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Globally, AWS accounted for about 60% of Amazon’s operating profit, despite representing only about a fifth of its total revenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
MyBroadband checked Amazon’s careers page for positions available in May 2026 and found 40 positions open, an increase from the 37 on offer at the start of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The most in-demand positions were in software development, where Amazon was also seeking several engineers and managers. Operations, IT, and support services also had six positions open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Among the senior roles available were two chief engineer positions in AWS’s cloud data centre engineering operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To be considered for these positions, applicants must have a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a related field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They must also possess 5 years of project management experience in data centres or comparable critical infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n