Editor's note: A previous version of this story stated "demo" positions would be available at Itential. This is not an actual position. A quote below has been edited to reflect that the operation of the network is a "kludgy process."
Itential, an automated networking software company, has announced it will expand its headcount in Atlanta as the demand for its services increase around the world.
Recent hire Kristen Rachels, vice president of marketing, said the software firm is hoping to expand by 50 or more people within the next 6 to 12 months with a primary focus on growth in Atlanta. The company currently has around 90 employees, 70 percent of whom work in Atlanta.
"I am hiring two people immediately in marketing right now but we’re hiring really across everything from engineering to product management to delivery to sales to marketing," she said.
The firm, located in Midtown, hopes to keep its headquarters and growth in the city, Rachels said. The city, one of the largest hubs for fiber optic networks in the world and home to one of the largest data centers in the world, is the perfect place to focus that growth, she said.
"We’re really passionate and excited about founding and growing the skill sets here in Atlanta and building global awareness and skillsets on automation software and networking," she said.
From the 5G on our phones to streaming Netflix, we generally don't think about how we get our data and how it's maintained, she said, which is actually quite complex compared to other tech such as cloud computing.
"The network, how it’s managed and operated, it’s still a very manual, kludgy process," she said. "They refer to it as 'swivel chairing,' the action of managing the network and it’s moving between multiple complex applications…and steps to create just a single path to ensure the network stays running, and it’s powerful enough to power your life."
Rachels joked that everything from her dogs to her locks are on the network, and if AT&T's network stumbled, it would be a major inconvinence.
"But imagine that on the large scale with the large telcos that have a mass outage, and it causes streets to shut down…on a large scale these problems become very massive," she said. "With Itential, we aim to solve this problem. We exist to help enterprises and service providers simplify and automate their journey toward this modern network, and our software helps the networking and IT operation team automate these manual routine tasks so they can focus on larger, bigger transformative issues and initiatives."
Six out of the 10 largest service providers in the world and three of the top five financial service institutions use the software provided by Itential, Rachels said. Their expansion is due to increased demand for their services as network management becomes more vital in our tech-oriented world. The company has raised a total of $5.5 million in part by Austin VC since being founded in 2014, according to Crunchbase.
"Itential was founded under this thesis that technology really fundamentally transformed the way we live and work," she said.
