It's tough times all around, just not at Amazon's new headquarters in the South Lake Union area of Seattle.

Young workers dressed in jeans and T-shirts type away on laptops in small conference rooms named after products sold on Amazon's website. Vending machines serve up pricey gluten-free cookies and dry-roasted edamame. And for their pooches, doggy biscuits are handed out at the main reception desk.

Amid a sluggish job market and shaky economic recovery, the world's biggest Internet retailer is hiring like crazy at its headquarters complex. Consider Amazon's online jobs board: It lists about 1,900 openings in Seattle, at least twice as many as a year ago. More than 900 call for techies.

"We're looking for very talented software developers," said Susan Harker, director of global talent acquisition at Amazon.

Other openings call for recruiters, product managers, salespeople, graphic designers and supply-chain analysts....