Aerial view of Belfast city in Northern Ireland.
Belfast city. Image: © Alexey Fedorenko/Stock.adobe.com

US tech firm Harness opening engineering base in Belfast

26 May 2021

The company, valued at more than $1bn, is expanding its presence in Europe with engineering teams in Belfast and Belgrade.

Harness, a software developer platform recently valued at $1.7bn, is opening an engineering office in Belfast as part of a doubling down in the European market.

The plans are part of an expansion of the company’s engineering teams as it tries to boost its presence in Europe.

Along with the Belfast, the company is opening another engineering base in Belgrade. The two offices will employ 30 engineers and will complement its commercial base in London.

“The Belfast office was chosen because it has been recognised as one of the hottest tech hubs in Europe and will provide Harness with the talent needed to build our next-generation platform for software delivery,” the company said in a statement.

Nick Smyth, previously head of engineering at Puppet, will be joining Harness as VP of engineering to oversee the Belfast office. Meanwhile the company has appointed Stephen Line, a former Cloudera executive, as VP and general manager of EMEA.

Harness raised $85m in a Series C round earlier this year that valued the company at $1.7bn, with backers including Alkeon Capital and Citi Ventures.

The company builds a software delivery platform for developers that helps manage and streamline projects. It has amassed a solid customer base in the US and is now putting more focus on the European market where it has clients including Openbank and the UK Home Office.

According to the company, it is well placed to serve a market of European companies that are investing increasingly in software research and development.

“In our latest funding round we knew one of our biggest investments would be the European market. Our mission is to deliver next-generation software faster than ever, regardless of location or company size,” Jyoti Bansal, CEO of Harness, said.

“We’re delivering on that promise, welcoming both Stephen and Nick as experienced leaders with local expertise on how to get our platform into the hands of developers who critically need it, and building them a global team of R&D engineers to make it possible.”

Harness is currently hiring for a number of engineering roles in Belfast.

Jonathan Keane
By Jonathan Keane

Jonathan Keane is a freelance business and technology journalist based in Dublin, covering VC funding, start-ups, fintech and the gig economy. He was previously a reporter at business news outlet Fora.

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