Costco didn’t become the third-largest retailer in the world by rushing into things.
The warehouse club has instead taken a conservative approach to growing its business over the last four decades.
That has served the retailer well, but a robust digital strategy is no longer optional for companies that wish to remain competitive in 2025.
“We continue to make progress with technology,” CFO Gary Millerchip said during Costco’s earnings call in May. “One of our key focus areas is building capabilities to deliver more personal, relevant experiences for our members, helping them save time and money.”
Costco is still well behind Walmart in adopting and developing tech and hiring and training a workforce to support it, but the store is by no means sitting on its hands.
Last month, Reuters reported that Costco plans to open a brand new tech hub in India, staffed with 1,000 workers to start — the company’s first such facility.
It’s also continuing to hire for tech roles in the US, according to Department of Labor filings.
The disclosures show Costco sought to hire 69 workers through the H-1B visa program during the first half of this reporting year, largely in software development, data science, and information security. Costco’s IT jobs board had 53 open positions as of August 7.
This year’s work visa figure is consistent with last year’s at this time. It is up from the 55, 49, and 26 filings in the corresponding periods for each of the years going back to 2021.
That’s still a far cry from Walmart’s visa requests for 1,750 workers and below Target’s 94 filings for this reporting year so far.
Pay rates in the data are compared to industry standards for US workers, and salaries for foreign-born workers in the report typically match or exceed the average compensation for a particular position. The compensation data only represents base salary and does not account for other benefits and perks.
Here’s a deeper look at some of the roles Costco disclosed for tech workers:
Software developers can make up to $215,000
Software Engineer: $130,000 to $215,000
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Solution Architect: $166,300 to $181,800
Data Engineer: $155,000 to $176,500
Information security analysts start at $165,000
Security Engineer: $165,000 to $179,900
Security Analyst: $168,200
Compliance Engineer: $175,000
Security Architect: $193,800
Data scientists and database administrators can make up to $225,000
BI Engineer: $163,100 to $188,100
Database Administrator: $134,600
Platform Engineer: $175,400
Data Engineer: $155,000 to $171,400
Data Scientist: $191,500 to $225,000
