Netflix recruiting international language specialists

Netflix is looking for a range of language specialists leading market watchers to speculate it will roll out in new territories or launch new local language versions of its existing service.

A job advertisement for specialists that can help Netflix localise its service in Turkish, Dutch, Hindi, German, Italian, Norwegian, Korean, and Japanese has been posted on its website.

It is not clear whether there are plans afoot to launch streaming services in some or all of these markets or whether Netflix plans to offer its service localised into these languages for ex-pat audiences in territories where it already has a presence.

“We are looking for experienced linguists with the ability to translate and customize marketing, UI and content materials for the target market,” the post says. “We are looking for highly motivated individuals with the right mix of technical, organizational and communication skills to provide localization for the Netflix experience.”

The job post originally appeared last year, but was subsequently withdrawn. It has now been posted again and is on the careers section of the Netflix site.

The company launched across Scandinavia last week and has also rolled out in Canada and the UK and Ireland as its refocuses on its international launch plans having returned to growth in its domestic US market.

Netflix announces its third quarter results tomorrow.

The company was keen to temper speculation about the next steps in its international expansion.

A spokesman said that while Netflix wants to operate a global service, there were many other reasons for it to hire language specialists including quality control on translations of movies and TV shows, relationships with content creators and with manufacturers of consumer electronics around the world.

“While we do have global aspirations, drawing any short term conclusions from a job ad is wrong,” said Joris Evers, director of global communications at Netflix. “We have not made further expansion announcements.”

At last count Netflix had 22.7 million paying subs in the US and 3.02 million in international markets.