A side of Walmart rarely seen by shoppers is quietly growing into a massive operation in NoVa.
Walmart Labs, the technology arm of the world’s largest private employer, plans to double its workforce at its Reston office, VP of Associate Technology Kevin O’Riordan confirmed.
The office currently totals 180 employees. It’s looking for software engineers and data scientists to build new platforms for the company as demand for automation, especially for online grocery shopping, increases.
“The size and scale of our operations – with tons of goods coming to the store every day, tons of things to sell every day, workforce management and metrics – creates huge demand for rebuilding platforms,” O’Riordan said.
Walmart Labs, which is spread through a handful of offices in the U.S. and a couple internationally, comprises mostly software engineers who build technology that improves the retailer’s services.
Examples of Walmart Labs projects are trucking efficiency apps, in-store robots and automated e-commerce catalogs. Its pilot program on crowdsourced delivery turned into Spark Delivery, which launched Wednesday as a last-mile solution.
The company's Reston outpost focuses on technology supporting store associates, with initiatives including:
- Mapping a path through the store for associates to efficiently fill online grocery orders.
- A robot (Bossa Nova) that scans shelves and alerts associates for restocking and removing items.
- Automated freight unloading systems that receive and scan shipments to and from stores.
Those platforms and others, O’Riordan said, all contribute to the local office’s mission of saving store associates time on mechanical tasks, giving them more time to help customers in the aisles.
Walmart Labs is planning to take over additional space in its NoVa digs as it expands its staff, he said. There are 26 software-related positions available in Reston on its website.
That’s a big leap from what O’Riordan called “the gang of 30” that started there.
O’Riordan helped launch Walmart Labs’ Reston office five years ago after his previous company, cellphone tech firm Simplexity, filed for bankruptcy. Within a week, he was in the room with Walmart executives, and within a month he had re-hired Simplexity’s 25 engineers as Walmart Labs employees to launch the office.
After a great 2013 holiday season, he said, it was clear the right talent was in place to expand. And it did.
“Walmart solidified that D.C. was a good place for talent and had a good office culture,” O’Riordan said. “Now we just need more people to build more new platforms as fast as possible.”
