Amazon ($AMZN) is adding more of consumers' data to its platform - if they're willing to go along with it - and the company is also bulking up its Data Science team to put new insights to work.
Globally, Amazon has grown job postings for its data science group from 141 to 225 across 2019, representing an increase of nearly 60%. That's out of pace for Amazon's jobs growth, which only rose 9% in the second quarter. The data science team is primarily based in the US, which our second chart reflects.
The company also has a few dozen staffers worldwide, in other countries, including Canada, Germany, India, Great Britain, and Japan.
And separately, Amazon also runs a small data infrastructure group, as well as a larger database administration team - our final chart. It, too, has increased job postings in 2019.
This year, during Amazon Prime Day, the company offered a $10 credit to consumers willing to hand over data including what websites they visit. Amazon, in turn, uses all the data it gathers for things including its personalized shopping and Kindle recommendations, pricing and supply chain planning, as well as its Amazon Web Services platform, which provides data to other retailers.
About the Data:
Thinknum tracks companies using information they post online - jobs, social and web traffic, product sales and app ratings - and creates data sets that measure factors like hiring, revenue and foot traffic. Data sets may not be fully comprehensive (they only account for what is available on the web), but they can be used to gauge performance factors like staffing and sales.