Comings & Goings: Square Adds Amazon Veteran to Engineering Team

Square, a mobile payment services provider, has added Alyssa Henry to its engineering team. A veteran of Amazon, Henry previously sat in the position of vice president for the company’s Amazon Web Services (News - Alert) (AWS) Storage System. TechCrunch reports that Henry will now move to Square and lead the mobile company's engineering department.

Square is a fairly young company; it began operations in just 2009. But its age has not kept it from advancing its mission to bring mobile credit card payments to smartphone users everywhere. NBC said this year that the company acquired $200 million in capital from primary lender Goldman Sachs, along with Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan (News - Alert) Chase, Barclays, and Silicon Valley Bank as additional lending partners.

This financial deal is reportedly what made it possible for Square to add Henry to its list of notable faces. In total, it is now worth approximately $5 billion, drawing the interest of Wall Street and Silicon Valley and driving talks of the company launching an initial public offering (IPO), thrusting Square out of the private and into the public space. In the past couple years, Square has added employees who previously worked at the likes of Google, Facebook, Salesforce, Apple (News - Alert), and Tesla to manage various aspects of the company’s operations.

Square's primary device is the Square Reader. It is a small, portable box that plugs into the audio jack of a smartphone or tablet. It works both with iOS and Android (News - Alert) devices and can accept mobile payments from major credit cards. Businesses select the items they would like to sell, from lists on their mobile devices, and then swipe customers' credit cards. Money is transferred to businesses' bank accounts and customers receive digital receipts.

The Square Stand, a larger point-of-sale system compatible with iOS devices, made its debut in 2013. The company also has created several software products aimed at working with their devices, acting as point-of-sale interfaces and allowing for transfers of money through email.