It's been a relatively rough year to land a job in tech, or in many other industries for that matter.
Austin's year-over-year job growth has been slowing. In fact, Austin's rate of job growth has lagged the statewide figure for the last three months, the first time that's happened since the dot-com bust of the early 2000s, according to Opportunity Austin.
But there are, of course, many exceptions to that trend line. That includes fast-rising tech companies that have recently raised funding rounds, as well as several larger tech companies that have recently found new traction in their markets.
In our monthly hiring roundup, we detail about a dozen top local tech hires, including a new CEO at Firefly Aerospace and two new executives at publicly traded egg company Vital Farms. Let's dive in.
Austin-based behavioral health company Iris Telehealth said Aug. 1 that it appointed Glenn Wada as its chief growth officer. He was most recently chief commercial officer at Cue Health Inc. Before that, he was a general manager and senior VP at Salesforce.
Iris Telehelath, founded in 2013, has raised about $40 million, according to Crunchbase.
Austin-based ID security company SailPoint Technologies Inc. said Aug. 12 that it appointed Gary Nafus to the newly formed role of chief sales officer and promoted Matt Mills to president. Nafus was most recently VP of U.S. manufacturing at Microsoft. Before that, he was a senior VP at Salesforce. Mills, meanwhile, has been with SailPoint since 2019 as chief revenue officer and global head of field operations. He is also a managing partner at Michigan-based Tappan Hill Ventures.
SailPoint, founded in 2005 by CEO Mark McClain, was taken private by PE firm Thoma Bravo in a $6.9 billion deal in 2022. The company had 574 Austin-area employees as of July this year.
Austin-based software consulting and development firm Upstart 13 said Aug. 16 it has added Mitch Comardo as its new CTO. He's previously held similar roles at Sleep Doctor, HigherEducation.com and PROS. Upstart 13, led by CEO Steve Russell, doesn't appear to have raised venture funding, according to Crunchbase.
Austin-based defense tech company Ultra Intelligence & Communications said Aug. 19 that it has added Jeff Wrobel as its VP of business development for the company's communications division. He was most recently director of L3Harris Technologies' Navy business development team.
Real estate tech and asset management company Accruent said Aug. 20 that it has promoted its chief product and technology officer, Richard Leurig, to president. He joined the company in 2022. Before that, he was co-founder and owner of Safe House Distilling Co. and co-founder of Route7. Earlier in his career, he was senior VP and general manager of CoreLogic's rental property solutions and mortgage tech units.
Meanwhile, the Austin-based company said it promoted Brooke Huling to chief product officer and Kristi Jurecka to CTO.
Vital Farms (Nasdaq: VITL), a pasture-raised eggs company based in Austin, said Aug. 20 that it has named Joe Holland as its chief supply chain officer. He'll start in the newly created role Sept. 1.
Holland was most recently VP of operations and supply chain at Curaleaf. Before that, he held similar VP roles at Wheels Up, Ventura Foods, Dean Foods and Cadbury Schweppes.
In addition, the company said on Aug. 26 that it has named Reena Van Hoven as chief people officer, a newly created role. Van Hoven was most recently senior VP of talent and rewards at Danone North America.
Vital Farms, led by CEO Russell Diez-Canseco, said Senior VP of People and Strategy Stephanie Coon will remain with the company as senior VP of strategy.
Back in April, we wrote about Outpost's $12.5 million in series A. On Aug. 21, we were back with news that the semi-truck parking and fleet yard startup has named Josh Neill as its president and chief investment officer. He was most recently managing director at Keystone National Group and worked on its real estate development team. Before that, he was a development manager with Scannell Properties.
Neill will play a primary role in Outpost's plans to deploy $500 million in capital through its joint venture with GreenPoint Partners.
Austin-based ID security company TrustGrid said Aug. 20 that it appointed Brett Kelsey as COO. He was most recently CEO and COO at cyber defense company Reveald Inc. He's also held senior roles at Forescout, Optiv, HP, McAfee, Intel and Lucent.
TrustGrid was started in 2016 by founder and CEO Santosh Devaraj. The company said it is poised to expand its U.S. operations.
SolarWinds Inc., an Austin-based technology management company, named Andre Cuenin as its new chief revenue officer, effective Sept. 3. He’ll be in charge of “all aspects of revenue generation efforts for SolarWinds and its world-class observability, database, and service management solutions,” according to SolarWinds.
Cuenin, described as a seasoned IT and software sales executive with over 20 years of experience enacting strategies for revenue growth, worked most recently as CRO of application security firm Veracode.
AI cybersecurity startup HiddenLayer said today it has named Mike Bruchanski as chief product officer. He was previously VP of product at AI-powered quality assurance company Elementary. Before that, he was VP of product management at Cylance Inc.
HiddenLayer, led by co-founder and CEO Chris Sestito, emerged from stealth in 2022. It has raised about $56 million from investors including M12, Microsoft's Venture Fund, Moore Strategic Ventures, Booz Allen Ventures, IBM Ventures and Capital One Ventures.
Austin-based BOXX Technologies, which makes high-performance workstations, said today that its founder is becoming its CTO.
Tim Lawrence founded Cooperative PCs in 1996 in Phoenix before the company became BOXX and relocated to Austin. The company started by building stations for film and gaming industries with high-level visual effects and animation hardware. It later transitioned to high-performance computing for 3D software in other industries.
Lawrence, meanwhile, was VP of engineering and operations for over a decade and is now taking on this new role. The company is led by CEO Kirk Schell.
A little over a month after Firefly Aerospace's former CEO abruptly departed, the Cedar Park-based company named a new leader.
Jason Kim, who was CEO of Boeing-owned Millennium Space Systems from 2020 until this month, will take over starting Oct. 1, the company said in an Aug. 29 announcement.
Before leading Millennium, Kim was a business development executive at Raytheon's intelligence and space division. And before that, he was vice president of strategic planning with California-based Millennium from 2009 until about a year after it was acquired by Boeing. Earlier in his career, he was the space program manager for Northrop Grumman and an air and space program manager with the U.S. Air Force.
