The company opened the office in Cluj in a space previously occupied by an about ten-employee company, which it acquired in full as part of an international merger last year, corporate sources say.
Although quite discreet about its hiring plans, IBM has been one of the top employers over the past few years, mainly recruiting technological university graduates, as it has mostly technical positions available such as technical team leader, software client leader for telco&utilities or infrastructure specialist.
Romanian programmers remain inexpensive compared with Western Europe, United States and Canada, where salaries may reach as much as EUR4,000-EUR5,000 per month. An experienced software developer may make EUR2,000-EUR2,500 in net amount per month working for a multinational in Romania, while a junior programmer starts from a net salary of EUR700-EUR800.
IBM Romania was established in November 1995 and it has operations in Bucharest, Timisoara (since 2007) and Brasov (since 2009).
It was the top provider of integrated IT&C solutions on the Romanian market in 2009 (followed by Hewlett-Packard), with EUR51.1 million revenue. Although Trade Registry data show the company to have had only 554 employees in 2009, IBM officials last year said the number of employees was much higher, 1,400 or 1,500, and that they used various means to fill their human resources needs, such as temporary employment.
IBM posted $100 billion revenue worldwide last year.