Twitter is Opening a ‘Global Centre of Excellence’ in Vancouver

Twitter plans to open a “global centre of excellence” in Canada.

The social networking company plans to house the centre in Vancouver, according to job ads on its site, which suggest Twitter is seeking computer science graduates “to work on some of the most interesting technical challenges in the industry today.”

“We are looking to recruit a handful of new graduates with boundless potential so that we can build a world-competitive software engineering centre around them,” Twitter says in its job ad. “Not only will you make a visible and immediate impact on our dynamic ecosystem, you will fit right in alongside some of the brightest minds in the industry.”

Among the company’s minimum requirements for grad hires is a “bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from a global Top 100 university.”

Facebook is also opening up shop in Vancouver, specifically Coal Harbour. The world’s largest social network is recruiting up to 150 staff, mostly software engineers, to fill the office.

According to Facebook, the office will serve as a training ground for recent software engineering graduates seeking full-time employment within the company. Techvibes last month confirmed that Facebook has signed a three-year lease on a 20,000 square foot space at 1555 West Pender (Pender & Georgia) in Coal Harbour. The location was previously occupied by Kasian Architecture.

According to Colliers’ Matthew Carlson, “This is fantastic news for Vancouver. When major companies from San Francisco like Salesforce, Lucasfilm, and Facebook set up offices, it confirms that our technology community is doing all the right things.”

While Facebook has deemed this Vancouver office as “temporary” with a one year life span, the three-year lease may indicate otherwise.

Twitter is also going to be active in Toronto. CBC vice president Kirstine Stewart left the public broadcaster unexpectedly in April to head up Twitter Canada, which does not exist yet but will soon.

Photo: Stephen Hui