Amex Looks to Hire 1,500 to Beef Up Tech Arm

American Express wants to expand its technology department by hiring 1,500 coders, developers and software engineers.

In an interview Monday (Sept. 19) with Bloomberg News, American Express Chief Information Officer Ravi Radhakrishnan said the company has already added 3,600 people to its tech staff this year and hopes to fill the remaining jobs before year’s end.

About 60% of these roles will be based in the U.S., with another third in India and the remainder in Europe, Radhakrishnan added.

The report notes that the company is making this move at a time where there’s a shortage of tech workers.

“It is without a doubt a challenging environment to recruit technical talent,” Radhakrishnan said. “The war for talent is a true consideration.”

He told Bloomberg that teams across the company are seeking data scientists, engineers and analysts to handle areas that include fraud management, lifestyle services and the company’s venture capital arm.

See also: Data Brief: 64% of All Firms Use Private Agencies to Hire From Worldwide Talent Pool

As PYMNTS noted recently, the tech worker shortage has led a growing number of companies to cast a wider net to fill key roles with international hires. That means using private agencies — contracted firms that deal with the recruitment and management of these workers.

According to “Meeting the Demand for Cross-Border Hiring: The Role of Private Agencies,” a PYMNTS and Nium collaboration, two-thirds of companies surveyed report they are tapping the worldwide talent pool and managing those employees effectively.

Sixty-four percent of companies said they used private agencies to recruit international workers in 2021, and 38% said agencies were their most important channel.

“This share matches that of all firms that use their business networks to find international talent but significantly exceeds the share of other hiring channels firms said they used to recruit international workers,” the study said. “While 53% used online job search engines, 39% used social media and 26% contacted prospective employees directly.”