We all know Amazon has an army of coders working away in offices behind that reflective glass around its Seattle headquarters, but now it turns out there’s a new job description in town: a full-time horticulturalist.
Amazon’s vice president in charge of the company’s massive consumer business, Jeff Wilke, revealed the position while speaking at the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce annual meeting on Monday.
He was talking about the company’s highly anticipated biodomes, which are set to open in 2017. The structures will be a centerpiece of the company’s massive headquarters expansion at the northern edge of downtown Seattle.
Not only will the spheres look impressive from the outside, Wilke said they will house more than 300 plants from 30 different countries inside.
“I never could have imagined when I joined the company in 1999 that we would employ a full time horticulturalist to oversee the diverse plant life that we will have in the spheres,” Wilke said. “It will be a place where new possibilities are explored and ideas are formed.”
The structures are part of a broader vision by the company to build a top-tier urban campus that is more welcoming to the public and blends into the city. The biodomes will be a focal point of the expansion, surrounded by the company’s many office towers.
We’ve reached out to Amazon for more information about its new horticulturalist, but haven’t heard back yet. We will update this post if the company offers more details.
