Dive Brief:

• The Home Depot is expanding its technology workforce by 1,000 professionals across its Atlanta, Austin and Dallas technology centers, according to an announcement Wednesday. The hiring surge will support online shopping, supply chain, delivery and workforce management investments. 
• Home Depot will hire technology skill sets across the board, with special focus on software and systems engineering, UX design and product management, according to Angie Brown, VP of technology, in an interview with CIO Dive. 
• The company is looking to fill these positions as quickly as possible in 2018 as it enacts a $11.1 billion strategic investment plan, according to Brown. The influx of new positions will create more avenues for leadership and opportunities for employees to take on larger roles.

Dive Insight:

The addition of 1,000 workers is the largest technology hiring wave in company history.

The tech talent market is competitive, but Brown, who spent the last two decades working up from an associate systems engineer to VP of technology, sees avenues for professional development that will be attractive for technology workers.

"We do feel like one of our large advantages is that at Home Depot technology associates can gain a diverse set of experiences without leaving the company. And people have the unique opportunity to build solutions at scale that they can see in the store or [website]."

For example, the company's common order management system created an interconnected retail system where customers could interact with Home Depot on an online platform and pick up their merchandise at a store location, or vice versa. Working on and rolling out the platform was exciting, and Home Depot's IT team continues to build on the system and improve the customer experience, according to Brown. 

Internally, the company has also heavily invested in training its technology workforce to work on these initiatives. 

"We've designed an innovative training curriculum specific to our technology team. We call it "Orange Method" and the instructors are teaching the latest in software engineering and full-stack engineering," said Brown. "The classes are a variety of different lengths based on the skills of the associate and are up to a fully immersive program as well."

Improving talent across areas is important for the company as it moves beyond standard mobile platforms. Home Depot has been introducing more advanced capabilities using augmented and virtual reality, big data analytics and artificial intelligence and machine learning across its business model to improve the shopping experience.