Three men standing on a rooftop in Cork city.
From left: Tigera’s Peter Kelly and TJ Leahy with IDA regional manager Ray O'Connor. Image: Darragh Kane

Tigera bringing 35 jobs to Cork with new European base

12 May 2021

The US company will be hiring developers and software engineers as it looks to expand further into the European market.

Tigera, a US tech start-up, is opening a new base in Cork where it will create 35 jobs.

The Cork city office will serve as the San Francisco company’s EMEA headquarters as it seeks to push deeper into the market.

Tigera builds solutions to help developers manage and scale their work using the open-source system Kubernetes. It has developed its own cloud platform for Kubernetes security called Calico.

The company is recruiting developers and software engineers in Cork as well as roles in business development and marketing.

Tigera chief executive Ratan Tipirneni said access to talent was a major driver in its decision to set up in Cork.

“Some of the key factors that attracted Tigera to Cork include the high standard of talent, the city’s impressive technology hub, access to the EU market and languages, IDA support and, most importantly of all, a great cultural alignment with what Tigera is looking for,” Tipirneni said.

The Cork base will be headed up by director of engineering and site leader Peter Kelly.

“As a Cork native, I am very proud that such a high-potential, high-growth company as Tigera has chosen this location for their EMEA HQ,” Kelly said.

“Tigera is at the cutting-edge of cloud computing, supporting a huge community of open-source users of Project Calico in addition to working with some of the largest enterprises in the world. It is incredibly exciting to be building a team here that will be a core part of the future success of Tigera.”

Headquartered in San Francisco, Tigera was founded in 2016 and has raised more than $53m in funding from investors, including Insight Partners. It also has offices in Vancouver and Toronto.

“I am delighted Tigera has chosen Cork to host its new EMEA headquarters, creating 35 new high-quality jobs,” said Taoiseach Micheál Martin, TD. “Today’s announcement is good news for Cork and the south-west, and speaks to the strength, skills and talent of our workforce. I look forward to a long and fruitful relationship between Cork and Tigera in the years come.”

IDA Ireland CEO Martin Shanahan added that Tigera’s presence in Cork will bolster “the region’s growing cybersecurity cluster”.

Other infosec companies expanding in Cork include Smarttech247 and OpenText.

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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