Trip Advisor sets its sights on Dublin

Only a short time ago it seemed that many of the tech companies coming to Irish shores were mainly involved in localisation and customer support. That presented somewhat of a dilemma for the industry; localisation and support is one of the easier parts of the industry to relocate, or so the story goes. However, things seem to be on the turn. The number of international tech firms that are in the process of seeking out engineering talent in Ireland is increasing. The latest firm to do so is travel firm Trip Advisor.

Trip Advisor announced last year that it would set up its office in Dublin. Since then, the company has been in an incubator in the capital until it finds its permanent home. The firm plans to hire about 50 people; so far it’s about 10 into that hiring goal and is “very pleased” with the talent it has managed to find in Ireland to date.

It’s the biggest engineering operation it has located outside the US to date.

Although the company isn’t raising its projected staff figures for the Dublin office just yet, it has hinted that the number of people located here could rise over the next few years. In the meantime, the Dublin-based staff will form an important part of Trip Advisor’s global team, working on the mobile product, which will be the next area of importance for the firm in the coming months, and its personalisation drive.

The company now employs more than 2,000 worldwide – it is hardly still in infancy – but considers itself to have the mentality of a start-up and more importantly the agility of one. Key to this is the team-based structure. Teams are comprised of fewer than 10 people, and work closely with their counterparts in other offices, making them quick to react to potential ideas.

What users may not realise is that the Trip Advisor page is refreshed more than once a day, with new features and tweaks implemented all the time to see how users react to them. That means that new features can be tested on a small number of users regularly before being rolled out to the wider user base if necessary.