Cart.com arrived in the Texas capital with a bang. On the same day it announced it moved its headquarters to Austin from Houston, it won Capital Factory's startup of the year award.
Now it's on a hiring spree, with plans to add 150 people in 2022. That will add to roughly 150 people already working in Austin.
Like many tech startups, the rapidly growing e-commerce platform is hoping to improve its chances of landing top talent by providing an attractive office and flexibility to work from home. In fact, since the company launched around the outset of the pandemic, it hasn't really operated in any other way.
"We're a remote-first company, and the offices are predominantly there for people to come in and collaborate and if they want to get away from home and work out of the office," said Omair Tariq, Cart.com co-founder and CEO.
Inside Cart.com's new Austin headquarters office
The new HQ is located at the corner of Brazos and Sixth streets. The startup found the spot largely by chance, after Tariq kept asking his real estate team for more options after viewing several spaces in Austin in 2020. In the end, he was shown a standalone building that happened to be owned by a Cart.com investor, though Tariq didn't realize it until he was in the process of trying to secure the location.
Since opening the office in 2020, the Cart.com team has worked to build out a space that provides for collaboration and spacing between work stations.
The Austin HQ is home to most of Cart.com's sales, human resources, product and tech teams. Cart's chief innovation officer, chief financial officer and head of marketing will be based in the Austin office. The company also has a fulfillment center in Austin. Tariq and several other employees, meanwhile, will remain at the original Houston office.
"We became a remote-first company and honestly learned that it is a better way work," he said.
Still, employees are strongly encouraged to be in the office for key meetings and projects.
"There are periods of time where we encourage people to be there, but you know, we're a pretty remote company," he said.
