Amex plans 1,500-person tech hiring spree, with most jobs in U.S.

American Express is on the hunt for software engineers, coders and developers, part of a 1,500-person hiring spree for its sprawling technology arm.

The company, the biggest U.S. card issuer by purchases, has already added more than 3,600 technical workers this year and hopes to fill the remaining openings by the end of the year, Ravi Radhakrishnan, Amex's chief information officer, said in an interview.

Scott Eells/Bloomberg

Roughly 60% of the hires will be in the U.S., with about a third in India and the rest in Europe, he said. Amex, which had 64,000 employees as of the end of last year, is up against a raging war for technology talent. Nearly two-thirds of human-resources professionals cited hiring qualified developers as their biggest recruitment challenge of the year, according to a Deloitte report in February.

"It is without a doubt a challenging environment to recruit technical talent," Radhakrishnan said in an interview. "The war for talent is a true consideration." 

Spending on Amex's network has roared back this year as customers return to traveling and dining out following years of pandemic-related lockdowns. The company now expects revenue for the year to climb as much as 25%, a bigger increase than previous forecasts. As a result, New York-based Amex has said it wants to beef up its investments in technology and talent. 

"We now expect our full-year operating expenses to be around $13 billion as we invest in our talented colleague base, technology and other key underpinnings of our growth given our tremendously high levels of revenue growth," Chief Financial Officer Jeff Campbell said in July. 

Radhakrishnan said teams across the company are looking for data scientists, engineers and analysts for handling everything from fraud management to lifestyle services to the company's venture-capital arm.

Amex has been one of the few banks to embrace remote work even after the pandemic, with 40% of staffers opting to be fully virtual. The majority of the company's staffers have chosen to come into the office two days a week and work remotely the rest of the week.

"There's a lot of talent that wants to understand how we approach flexibility," Radhakrishnan said. "It's not just the flexibility that we offer — the option to be virtual, in-person or hybrid. It's combining it with purpose. We do do that. We ask people to work with their leaders to determine the purpose for coming in."