Amazon has already hired more than 400 employees for HQ2 in NoVa

Amazon has met its first-year hiring goal with more than 400 employees on the payroll already for its second headquarters in Northern Virginia.

The tech giant reported its hiring outlook so far, with more updates on the plans for its second headquarters in NoVa, in a recent blog post. Amazon made a commitment after the HQ2 location was announced to bring 25,000 tech workers to the region over a 12-year period for its second HQ.

Amazon’s HQ2 employees have been working out of a leased office space on Crystal Drive in Arlington. The company started hiring for its first round of second HQ employees last April.

The announcement of these hiring moves come after the company was recently approved by the Arlington County Board for an initial development at Metropolitan Park. Amazon said in the blog post that this site will host about half of its planned 25,000 employees. Construction for the development will begin this year and when completed in 2023, the site will feature “a daycare center, 2.5 acres of new and renovated public open space, over half a mile of new protected bike lanes, and a 700-person meeting center that will be shared with the County and community groups at no charge.”

As part of this development approval, Amazon will also donate $20 million to Arlington County’s Affordable Housing Investment Fund to help create and preserve affordable housing units. (The company was also approved to receive $23 million in incentives from Arlington County in March, in addition to a subsidy package of $750 million from the state over 15 years, per Bloomberg.)

Technical.ly has previously reported on how Amazon’s second headquarters will impact and support local educational institutions, but to add to that, the tech giant said that its “Future Engineer program is funding computer science classes and robotics programs in more than 45 schools across Virginia.”

With all of these construction plans in motion, Amazon said it still has sustainability in mind: Last September, Amazon pledged to be net-zero carbon by 2040 and be fully powered renewable energy by 2030. To align with these plans, Amazon hinted that it is nearing the close of an agreement to bring a large solar project to the Commonwealth that will be part of its electricity system.