Plaid is a company that powers apps you've probably heard of - Venmo, Coinbase, or Acorns sound familiar? The transactions and tracking you do on these apps are made possible by Plaid. They allow consumers to connect their bank accounts to digital financial services applications regardless of where they bank. They just announced their plans to open an engineering hub in downtown Salt Lake City, hoping to attract the talent available in Utah.
Headquartered in San Francisco, Plaid has raised $310 million to-date with investors such as Goldman Sachs, NEA, and Spark Capital. The company was also awarded a spot on The Forbes Fintech 50 list and received recognition as a Most Innovative Company by Fast Company. This expansion follows a $250 million Series C funding round that the company announced in December last year. While they already have 300 employees across San Francisco, New York, and Salt Lake City, they are growing quickly and cannot achieve their hiring goals out of their existing office.
Plaid is in the process of securing an office in the heart of downtown Salt Lake City, with a formal launch anticipated this summer. They plan to hire 50 engineers to begin working in this space by the end of this year.
Plaid's Software Engineering Manager, Kira Booth, described her excitement about Plaid's expansion to Utah. An alumni of the University of Utah, she knows the growth and talent available here. “As the Utah Computer Science Grant Act (HB227) heads to Governor Gary Herbert’s desk for his signature, Plaid is focused on laying the foundation for fintech for decades to come, and is excited to lay down roots in a location that is equally as invested in the future of engineering and innovation,” Booth explained.
Booth's biggest push though is diverse talent. She said, "We are trying to build a truly inclusive financial world, and in order to do that we need to represent a lot of different perspectives in our engineering team. We need the diverse set of talent that Utah has to offer to achieve our mission."
Interested engineering candidates can learn more about Plaid's Salt Lake City openings here: https://plaid.com/careers/.
