Global IT Firm’s Halifax Expansion Could Mean 700 New Jobs
HALIFAX—A massive, global IT firm is expanding to Halifax, where it will establish an “engineering hub” that could create as many as 700 jobs.
Avanade is a professional services company that provides IT consulting and services focused on Microsoft Azure. The company has 56,000 employees spread across 26 countries, with more than 800 employees in Canada.
According to Matt Steinberg, who is heading up Avanade’s Halifax expansion, the company plans to establish what it calls an “engineering hub” in the city. The hub will pull together software engineers who specialize in “modern transformation and building digital products.”
Steinberg tells Huddle Avanade chose to expand to Halifax after commissioning a study on the best up-and-coming tech ecosystems in North America.
The study looked at “quality of life cost of life, level of talent, level of universities—all of those beautiful things.”
“We commissioned the study and Halifax popped up right at the top of that list,” he said. “I don’t think we really understood the depth and growth that Nova Scotia and Halifax has seen in the last two-to-three years.”
Steinberg says Avanade liked that the city produces lots of talent. But it was also “blown away” by the level of data analytics and data engineering happening here, especially around the ocean tech scene.
“Is there an appeal to the quantitative amount of talent? Absolutely. I’d be lying if I said otherwise. But because there is such a close alignment [with] the type of work that we do, and want to do, in Nova Scotia, it just felt like a really amazing partnership.”
The company was also lured to Halifax by the generous rebate programs offered by Nova Scotia Business Incorporated.
Through an agreement with NSBI, the company could earn payroll rebates worth as much as $12,264,210 over five years.
The agreement lays out a maximum growth forecast that would see Avanade spend as much as $169,950,000 on salaries and benefits at its Halifax operation, with new employees contributing as much as $23,101,000 to provincial tax revenues.
“We are delighted to be working with Avanade as its growth will create employment opportunities for young graduates and help Nova Scotia attract and retain new talent from across the country,” said NSBI CEO Laurel Broten said in a statement.
NSBI claims Avanade has the potential to create as many as 700 ICT jobs over the next five years. Avanade says the number is reachable, however Steinberg suggested it might be anywhere from 200 to 500.
Many of those jobs will also be remote hires, which means employees won’t necessarily be located in Halifax.
Right now, Avanade’s Halifax presence consists of Steinberg and a small team working out of a shared space with Accenture, at the Port of Halifax’s PIER Innovation Hub.
“We have a space that is going to grow with us,” Steinberg says. “Were already hiring and growing and people want to come in right now… We take a lot of pride in being flexible but we want to provide the type of space that excites people.”
He says the company is looking to hire mostly in tech-related positions, including in data engineering and data science. It’s also looking to hire DevOps and anyone who’s familiar with cloud applications, especially Azure.
Trevor Nichols is the Associate Editor of Huddle based in Halifax. Send him your feedback and story ideas: [email protected].