Facebook Plans Engineering Hub in New York, Its First Outside West Coast

Facebook announced on Friday that it planned to open an engineering office in New York City in early 2012, establishing the company’s first such outpost beyond the West Coast.

At a gathering in Facebook’s sales office on Madison Avenue, MayorMichael R. Bloomberg and SenatorCharles E. Schumer joined Facebook’s chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, in hailing the move as a testament to the city’s growing technological profile.

“We want the next Facebook to start here,” Mr. Bloomberg said. High-tech jobs in the city have grown by more than a third over the past five years, the mayor added, noting his goal to make New York “the world’s No. 1 hub for information technology and social media.”

Several companies in Silicon Valley have established a presence in Manhattan in recent years, and this year, Twitter and Yelp opened local offices.

Ms. Sandberg would not estimate how many workers the new Facebook engineering office might employ, but said the company as a whole planned to add thousands of jobs in the next year. The new office will be led by Serkan Piantino, an engineering manager who previously oversaw the team behind the company’s News Feed.

“This isn’t a satellite office,” Mr. Piantino said. “This is going to be a core part of our engineering stack.”

On appearances alone, the Madison Avenue office, which Ms. Sandberg said employed 100 people, could have been airlifted from the set of “The Social Network.” Employees’ fingers moved between laptop and desktop computers, stationed within inches of each other at their tables. One man zipped through a hallway on a two-wheeled skateboard (“a Facebook tradition,” he said). And on a video screen near the entrance to the 17th-floor office, the company’s co-founder, Mark Zuckerberg, greeted passers-by via a taped message.

Mr. Schumer, whose daughter attended college with Mr. Zuckerberg, said, “Mayor Bloomberg and I actually met one employee here who was over 40.”

Before delivering their remarks, Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Schumer each signed the office’s “Facebook Wall” of handwritten inscriptions with a marker. The mayor kept it brief: only a signature.

When Mr. Schumer approached the wall, he said, “Can we say something?”

He leaned in, sketching a small heart. “Facebook loves New York,” he narrated, as the man on the skateboard rolled out of view.