US software company Accela has opened an office in Dublin, establishing a a European research and development hub in Ireland, with plans to create another 20 jobs in the coming months.
The company employs about 30 people at its city centre office, a team it began building in March. It plans to have the new roles, which will be highly skilled engineering positions, filled by the end of the company’s fiscal year in June 2019.
In total the company plans to hire 30 people as part of a three-year R&D project.
Accela builds work-flow automation software to help governments run more efficiently, covering areas such as business licensing, building permitting, land use permitting, health and safety permitting. The company has operations in the US, Australia and New Zealand, and is setting its sights on the European market.
"We wanted to start with a foothold from an engineering perspective and then see how that develops," said Troy Coggiola, chief product officer with Accela.
Resource-strapped
The recruitment is beginning with experienced software, site reliability and QA engineers, and data scientists.
“Specifically in this office, we’re focused on building out data and analytics offerings,” he said. “Everyone is resource strapped. You can expand out and use data analytics to figure out where to concentrate your resources.”
The company is being supported by the Government through IDA Ireland, whose chief executive, Martin Shanahan, said: "Ireland is a serious player and a very attractive location for international software companies, like Accela, setting up in Ireland to internationalise their business and to serve its growing customer base across Europe. "
The news of the expansion was also welcomed by Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation Heather Humphreys, saying it builds on and enhances Ireland's capability in the Software sector.
