BENGALURU (TIP): US-based e-commerce major eBay Inc on September 19 inaugurated a new global development centre in India. The development centre, the company’s 16th such centre globally, is spread across 1,50,000 sq ft. “We have continued to expand our footprint across strategic areas,” said Ken Moss, vice-president (technology and science), eBay Marketplaces. “We are looking to tap into the large pool of software engineering talent in Bangalore…We are committed to India as a technology hub and see India’s software engineering talent as a critical driver for our long-term success.” In 2007, the company had set up a 2,50,000-sq-ft development centre in Chennai. That centre currently employs around 2,000 people. As is the case with the Chennai centre, the Bangalore facility would house eBay employees, as well as those of its wholly-owned subsidiary PayPal.

Through the next three years, the company plans to hire 700 employees for its Bangalore facility. This would raise the company’s Bangalore staff strength to 1,000. Ram Narayanan, general manager, eBay Product Development Centre, said both fresh graduates and experienced professionals would be hired for the new date centre, which would undertake jobs across functions, including product management and analytics. eBay said it had invested “significantly” into the development centre. It however, did not disclose the exact investment. “We invest heavily in the career development of our people. We are hiring technologists with strong product development experience across functions, including platform and application development, architecture, quality engineering, product management, marketing and product analytics, user experience and design and information security,” Moss said. Meanwhile, Karnataka Information Technology and Biotechnology Minister S R Patil said the government expected the first phase of the Bangalore information technology investment region to be commissioned by 2020. The Karnataka government is setting up a 10,500-acre ITIR near the Bangalore international airport, with an estimated investment of about Rs 1 lakh crore. The ITIR is expected to generate direct employment for 12,00,000 and indirect jobs for 28,00,000 people. “It (the ITIR) would be commissioned in two phases. The first phase would be commissioned in 2020 and the second by 2032,” Patil said.