A Canadian e-commerce company is to set up a customer service base in Galway, leading to the creation of 50 jobs by early next year.
What makes this jobs announcement unique is that those recruited for the company will work from the comfort of their own home or their favourite café but still be part of a team.
Shopify offers a cloud-based commerce platform designed for small and medium-sized businesses to design, set up and manage multiple stores through the internet, mobile phone, social media, built shops as well as pop-up shops.
It is headquartered in Canada and has over 600 employees providing services for more than 165,000 merchants across 150 countries, including Budweiser, Google and Wikipedia and the LA Lakers.
Company recruiters will be in Galway all next week to meet with and interview potential candidates, 50 of whom will be trained to become customer service agents, which are known in the company as “remote gurus”.
Positions include “squad lead”, “Customer success guru” and “theme support”. The employees will work from home but will be in touch with their team online.
Director of Customer Support in Shopify Roy Sunstrum said the company has round-the-clock customer support which has become one of the most valuable services that they offer to clients.
The high-tech talent pool in Galway was the reason the location was picked.
“By hiring remote gurus in Ireland, we can ensure that merchants around the globe, in any time zone, will have access to one-on-one support from one of our commerce experts. Ireland has become a major tech hub and the level of talent is what really drew us to the region,” he said.
The company received financial report from IDA Ireland, which jointly made the announcement this morning.
Martin Shanahan, head of IDA Ireland, said this announcement was particularly welcome for a regional development perspective as the company was coming to Ireland with a home-working model.
“Home working offers an opportunity to provide an additional source of untapped skills for our client companies as well as providing regional employment opportunities in locations which find it challenging to attract investment.”
The Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton said the creation of 50 jobs by 2016 was a great boost for the west.
“This is a further great example of what is possible right across the country in this sector. I wish the team every success with this investment.
“We have specifically targeted online industries as part of our Action Plan for Jobs, and over the past four years we have seen major growth in this area. We can now justifiably call Ireland the internet capital of Europe.”
Among the benefits offered by the company to employees overseas are a gym allowance, parental leave, childcare benefits, flexible work hours, and catered meals.
Candidates looking for further information on the positions can apply at Shopify.com/remote-gurus.