Amazon announced its Redmond expansion on June 29, 2021—not in 2026. The plan covered two separate sites: a 137,000-square-foot office intended to support more than 800 AWS roles and a 22,000-square-foot research-and-development lab for Project Kuiper, Amazon’s satellite-internet program, now called Amazon Leo. The announcement described planned roles, not proof that 800 people were hired. Amazon’s announcement and GeekWire’s contemporaneous report document the original plan.
What Amazon announced in Redmond
Amazon said the new sites would support different parts of its business. The AWS office was at 16331 NE 72nd Way in Redmond, Washington. Amazon described it as mixed-use office space and said it expected the space to be completed in 2022. That was a planned completion date; the announcement does not establish when the office opened or its current occupancy.
| Site | Size | Announced purpose |
|---|---|---|
| AWS office at 16331 NE 72nd Way | 137,000 square feet | Support more than 800 planned AWS roles |
| Project Kuiper research-and-development lab | 22,000 square feet | Research, development, and testing for the satellite-internet program |
Amazon named software developers, user-experience designers, and technical program managers among the roles associated with the AWS expansion. The company said those roles were additional to 600 employees previously announced for Redmond Town Center. Its release treats the 16331 NE 72nd Way office and Redmond Town Center as distinct references; it does not establish that the new office was part of that complex.
The 22,000-square-foot lab was not the earlier Kuiper campus
The 2021 lab announcement was separate from Amazon’s earlier Project Kuiper facility in Redmond. In 2019, Amazon announced a 219,000-square-foot research-and-development headquarters and prototype-manufacturing operation across two buildings. The smaller 22,000-square-foot lab announced in 2021 was additional space, not a replacement name or a new announcement of that larger facility. Amazon’s 2019 announcement describes the earlier campus.
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Project Kuiper is now Amazon Leo
Amazon renamed Project Kuiper Amazon Leo on November 13, 2025. The name changed; it did not denote a newly launched program. Amazon’s Amazon Leo careers page continues to list Redmond-area work, and its locations page identifies a Redmond research-and-development facility. These current references establish a continuing Redmond presence for Leo work, but they do not establish that the original 22,000-square-foot lab still operates as a separately identifiable unit.
Redmond research and Kirkland manufacturing are different sites
Amazon later expanded satellite manufacturing at a 172,000-square-foot facility in Kirkland, near its Redmond research-and-development operation. The Kirkland site is associated with satellite production; it is not the 22,000-square-foot Redmond lab. Amazon’s facility announcement and production update describe that manufacturing expansion.
What is known—and unknown—about the jobs today
Amazon’s 2021 figure was a plan to support more than 800 AWS roles, not a confirmed hiring tally. The available company announcements and current career and location pages do not establish how many of those positions were ultimately filled, whether those employees remain assigned to the original address, or the current number of AWS or Amazon Leo employees in Redmond. Current Amazon Leo listings show present recruiting activity; they should not be treated as continuations of the 2021 AWS hiring plan.
- Redmond-area Amazon Leo work can include satellite engineering and technical roles, according to current Amazon career materials.
- The current sources do not verify the final occupancy date for the 137,000-square-foot office or whether Amazon has changed, renewed, or consolidated relevant leases.
- Amazon reported in a 2024 update that more than 1,000 people were working on Project Kuiper across the United States at that time. That is a historical nationwide figure, not a current 2026 headcount or a Redmond total.
How the Redmond plan fit Amazon’s Eastside growth
The Redmond announcement was one part of Amazon’s broader Puget Sound expansion. In 2020, Amazon described a regional Bellevue and Eastside investment plan connected to 25,000 jobs. That figure referred to the wider regional plan, not to Redmond alone or to the 2021 AWS and Kuiper sites. Amazon’s Eastside overview provides that broader context.
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For the local economy, the announcement signaled demand for office space and technology and aerospace talent on the Eastside, alongside Amazon’s existing regional operations. Planned job totals can indicate the scale of an investment, but they do not by themselves show net job growth, completed hiring, or effects on traffic, parking, and nearby development. Those outcomes depend on actual occupancy, hiring, commuting patterns, and other local changes—not just the size of an announced facility.
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