grouponnewGroupon continues to mine Amazon.com for talent, and today the daily deal company picked up a big name from its rival. Groupon, whose stock has risen 150 percent in the past year, announced that it has hired Robbie Schwietzer as vice president of operations.

He comes to Groupon after a decade at Amazon, most recently as VP of Amazon Prime. He’ll be based in Seattle and report to Groupon COO Kal Raman, the former Drugstore.com CEO who also previously worked as a senior VP at Amazon.

Chicago-based Groupon is expanding fast in Seattle, and we’ve heard the company is on the prowl for a bigger office space near Amazon. (Easier to pick off talent).

The Seattle operation is led by Vinayak Hegde, who prior to joining Groupon in 2012 worked at Amazon for 12 years. The company’s offices in Seattle’s International District have swelled to more than 125 people, and Hegde told us in July that they were looking for a much bigger office space to accommodate the growth. (We’ve heard that the company has looked at space in the Metropolitan Park complex near Amazon’s HQ). A spokesman for the company did not have any additional information on the company’s expansion plans in Seattle.

Groupon's
Groupon’s  Vinayak Hegde

“We are still recruiting in this market, and we still want to expand…. Anyone of caliber, we hire,” Paul Taaffe, head of communications at Groupon, in July. “This is a global hotspot, and we started building it out just over a year ago.”

In addition to Schwietzer, Groupon also named Lisa Kennedy as vice president and general manager of Groupon Reserve; David Kerr as vice president and general manager, of Home Services; and Hoke Horne as vice president of Global Commercial Finance. Kennedy previously served as vice president of e-commerce at Quidsi, the e-commerce property owned by Amazon.com. She will report to Raman and be based in New York. Kerr, who will be based in Chicago, is the former General Manager of eCommerce at Angie’s List. Horne previously worked at Juniper Networks and Microsoft, where he served as Chief Financial Officer of Windows Client. He will report to Groupon CFO Jason Child, another former Amazon.com executive.

“We’re thrilled to bring Robbie, Lisa, David and Hoke and their incredible caliber of talent to Groupon,” said Eric Lefkofsky, CEO, Groupon. “All four are well-regarded experts in their fields and will help take Groupon to the next level.”

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