Porsche Digital GmbH, a subsidiary of the German car manufacturer focused on bringing the company’s online customer experience up to the standards of its performance automobiles, is setting up an office in Atlanta.
The outpost within the Porsche Cars North America headquarters near Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is to hire up to 15 people over the 12 months, mostly drawing from the local pool of tech talent, according to a company spokesman. Porsche Digital will employ about 45 people in the U.S. by the end of that period.
Atlanta hires will work with five other Porsche Digital offices worldwide — Berlin, Tel Aviv, Shanghai, Silicon Valley and the headquarters in Ludwigsburg, Germany — on the My Porsche online portal for existing customers, along with a new digital sales platform to address the changing methods consumers use to shop for cars.
“The digital Porsche customer experience has to be as superb as the car itself, which is why we are continuing to speed up our transformation from purely a ‘hardware’ maker to a software company as well,” said Klaus Zellmer, President and CEO of PCNA, in a news release. “The Atlanta team will collaborate with the global project organization from a local market perspective to make sure the best new digital tools are also customized to our users.”
Porsche Digital’s second in the U.S. was inspired by the Atlanta area’s emergence as a growing tech hub, and partnerships with the local ecosystem could emerge, the company said.
“It’s too early yet for specific plans, but one reason for the Atlanta office location is to be close to the thriving startup and tech sector here,” spokesman Marcus Kabel told Global Atlanta in an email.
Already the company has posted a few job openings in Atlanta, including a back-end software developer and a development product owner. See Atlanta and San Jose-based job listings here.
This isn’t the first time that Atlanta has won the software presence of a German auto giant. After moving its U.S. headquarters to Sandy Springs, Mercedes-Benz decided to put its Lab1886 innovation incubator in Buckhead. That center was the fourth Lab1886 globally, including outposts in Berlin, Stuttgart and Beijing. Lab1886 has six open positions in Atlanta. Learn more here.
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