Apple’s Siri team far behind Amazon’s Alexa employee hiring rates

9to5 Staff | Jan 3 2019 - 9:02 am PT

New data from Thinknum shows how hiring for Amazon’s Alexa platform is currently outpacing Apple’s attempts to grow the Siri team, at a rate of nearly 5:1. As of writing, there were about 750 job openings mentioning “Alexa” from Amazon, with just under 170 from Apple with specific mention of “Siri“.

The report makes note of the scalability differences between the two tech giants, as Amazon hires a significantly greater amount of employees over Apple. It currently has 615,000 versus 80,000 at Apple.

However, when looking at the percentage of voice assistant-related jobs vs. the overall amount of job openings for each company, Amazon is still outpacing Apple. And when Apple is head-to-head with Amazon for domination of digital-assistant lifestyle, that’s a difference worth noting.

When questioned on the sheer number of employees Amazon has in the Alexa department, one member of the team took to Twitter to defend the “absurd” mega-team.

We are working hard, having fun and making history ;)

— David Contreras M. (@davidcontrerasm) December 29, 2018

If you have an Amazon Alexa enabled device, take a look at our 12 features you might not have yet discovered.

What do you think about the hiring discrepancy between the two companies? Does Alexa’s personality speak for itself, or will Siri soon catch up regardless? Tell us what you think in the comments below!