Facebook to open mobile engineering hub in London

The social networking company Facebook is to hire an engineering team for a new technology hub in central London, the first to be based outside the US.

In a blogpost, Facebook software engineer Philip Su, who will lead the new engineering office, said that London was a "perfect fit" as it is a "global hub with a vibrant local start-up community with lots of great technical talent".

Based in Covent Garden, the new hub will focus on building products for mobile platforms, Su said.

On its job postings, Facebook has vacancies for a software engineering manager and engineers that focus on Android, developer platforms, mobile and building systems.

The social networking company is also looking to hire a data mining specialist for custom market insights to "measure the value and effectiveness of brand advertising on Facebook".

Other positions in its "monetization" category include an audience researcher and a creative strategist.

Before Facebook's IPO, Computing questioned the firm's strategy to focus on mobile given the severe challenges it was already experiencing with its desktop advertising model.

The opportunity for advertising on mobile is widely thought to be significantly lower than on desktop, but many of Facebook's 900 million members prefer to access its services through smartphones and tablets.

Facebook's announcement comes a day after Amazon revealed plans of a new technology hub to be based near London's Silicon Roundabout.

Paula Byrne, who will head up the new centre next to the Barbican, said that Amazon chose London as it is a "hotbed of tech talent".