25 Austin Software Companies Doing Exciting Work Locally and Nationally

There are a lot of exciting things happening in Austin if you’re in the software and technology industries.

Dozens of startups are eagerly hiring employees to keep up with their rapid growth, while more established firms continue to innovate and do great work in the area. And in addition to their own success, many companies in the area are involved in the community, working to create software that helps local businesses thrive.

Here are 25 reasons why Austin is a great place to work in tech, as told by 25 exciting software companies that are making great strides in their fields.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce was founded in 2009 to offer shopping cart software at an affordable level. Customers can opt for the basic $30/mo fee for the service or upgrade to higher tiers for access to analytics, custom features and payment tools.

There are currently more than 370 employees at their main office in Austin, with more in San Francisco and Sydney. Notably, BigCommerce was named one of Austin’s top workplaces for the fifth year in a row.

Pristine.io

Pristine offers real-time video collaboration for teams to offer advice from the field. This could help a junior field worker get remote assistance from an offsite expert or allow a senior supervisor to check in on an inspection while he’s at another site. Pristine’s tool allow for snapshots, annotations and file sharing, so everyone is on the same page. Keep an eye on this company as the augmented reality world continues to evolve.

SolarWinds

SolarWinds offers IT management tools so companies can monitor their bandwidth and adjust their resources based on customer demand. It recently helped them win Best Incident & Event Management Solution at ASTORS Homeland Security Awards. Also this year, SolarWinds went private when two investment firms bought the company for $4.5 billion.

Enthought

Enthought is a software development company that focuses on the Python programming language to create solutions for its customers. Its team has a “scientists first, developers second” mentality, which allows them to solve complex problems for clients ranging from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory to Airbus. They’re a team of 50 strong in downtown Austin and have been in business since 2001.

Mutual Mobile

Founded in 2009, Mutual Mobile provides software development to create a user-friendly experience for its customers. The company has built more than 200 applications for clients that range from Audi to Cisco, and currently has more than 300 employees on staff.

Photodex

The team at Photodex has almost 30 years of experience in developing digital imaging tools. The company started in 1987 by creating software that transitions photos without human interaction and has continued to update and improve its offerings as various photographic media have taken off. Today, Photodex works with professional photographers and businesses to create quality presentations.

Planview

Planview offers a comprehensive Work and Resource Management (WRM) tool that allows companies to properly allocate their resources. That software can cater exclusively to small teams (or budding startups) and then scale out to large organizations and enterprises. This means the tool grows with you as your company expands. Founded in 1989, the company has more than 700 employees and 3,000 customers.

Spiceworks

Spiceworks is a community of IT professionals who provide help desk support. They have resolved more than 2.3 million tickets (an average of 20,000 per day) with an average close time under four days. The bulk of its revenue is driven through ad sales, which means it’s free for IT professionals. Spiceworks just celebrated its 10th anniversary this year.

Ticketbud

Ticketbud is a small company of about 10 people, but it offers a powerful ticketing and registration platform. The company prides itself on the simplicity of its software, its ability to help event managers, and the discounts it offers to non-profits. This makes Ticketbud an affordable option for SMBs that don’t want to work with mega ticket vendors.

WP Engine

WP Engine offers easy managed WordPress hosting that serves 50,000 customers and more than 2 billion page views per day. While its main office is in Austin, WP engine continues to expand: It opened a London office in 2015 and a Limerick, Ireland, office in 2016. WP Engine was also named one of the best places to work in Austin in 2016.

(Full disclosure: We are big fans of WP Engine ourselves. We use their services and recommend them to clients.)

Zello

Zello is a walkie-talkie app for one-on-one private conversations or group public chats. With ZelloWork, businesses can manage secure push-to-talk services on protected networks. Interestingly, this app has become popular across the globe with protesters as a way to avoid government censorship and monitoring.

MakerSquare (now Hack Reactor Austin)

While not technically a software company, MakerSquare offers a three-month, full-time course in development principles that helps coders think like software engineers. MakerSquare’s original four founders operated out of their homes (or their parents’ homes) and had no investor funding to work with. It merged with Hack Reactor this year.

Civitas Learning

Civitas Learning collects data from specific schools and uses third-party data to provide information on the state of learning institutions. The company brands itself as “going from the defense to the offense in student success” to identify weak areas in learning and opportunities for improvement. With more than 100 employees, it was recently named one of Austin’s hottest startups by Built In Austin.

SpareFoot

SpareFoot is your go-to search engine to find storage space in your area. The marketplace allows customers to find the best storage deals and the closest facilities so they’re not driving around town or paying out the nose to keep their stuff packed away. SpareFoot is also known for its #SparePups program, which helps shelter dogs get adopted.

Main Street Hub

Main Street Hub uses its technology to boost the marketing presences of small local businesses. The company focuses primarily on social media, including Yelp, Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare. The Austin American-Statesman named Main Street Hub a top workplace in 2015 based on survey feedback from employees.

Spredfast

Used by Target, Pepsi and the NBA, Spredfast uses smart social analytics to help brands connect to potential customers. The company believes social media requires buy-in from the entire company along with data analytics to make strategic decisions. Spredfast is a Google Strategic Partner and Twitter Official Partner, which has helped the team work with more than 650 clients to date.

Bazaarvoice

Bazaarvoice offers customer satisfaction analytics and curates reviews for ecommerce sites. The company sends surveys to customers once the product has arrived so brands can see what their audiences value and how to adjust their offerings to meet their needs.

Fun note: Daveed Diggs, who played Thomas Jefferson in the original Hamilton cast on Broadway, is the keynote speaker for the Bazaarvoice annual summit in March, which is reason enough to attend.

HomeAway

HomeAway was founded in 2004 as a vacation marketplace for rentable homes. Today, there are more than one million listings in 190 countries, and the company boasts more than 1,500 employees. As it continued to grow, other travel marketplaces started to noticed HomeAway, and it was acquired by Expedia for $3.9 billion in November 2015 as a way to compete against AirBnb.

Robots and Pencils

The team at Robots and Pencils create apps with user experience in mind. They don’t want to create the next popular fad that fades after a month, but games and tools that people will use on their phones for months and years. After all, 80 percent of users drop apps within three uses. Robots and Pencils was recently featured in Built In Austin’s list of top companies hiring.

Aceable

Few people would believe that defensive driving and smartphone apps go well together, but Aceable has combined the two to create safer drivers on the road. It offers online driver’s ed in an engaging and interactive portal instead of a dull lecture hall.

To date, the company has helped more than 200,000 graduates earn their driver’s licenses. Aceable offers transportation and education stipends to its employees as a way to recruit top talent and incentivize them to further their careers.

Everfest

Austin has become a hub anyone drawn to great food, craft beer and a vibrant music scene. So, it’s no surprise that Everfest would be based there. Branded as “the funnest website in the universe,” Everfest lists festivals and music events from around the world so travelers can find their next great adventures. A bonus perk: Employees who work for Everfest can curl up with their laptops in a hammock or grill on their patio.

Drillinginfo

Drillinginfo’s software allows oil and gas professionals to make smarter drilling decisions in order to preserve the environment and operate more effectively. Recently, Drillinginfo has been acquiring other companies, such as GlobalView, which provides data management to energy and agriculture organizations, further making it an asset to the oil and gas industry.

Mozido

Mozido is a mobile payment app that helps small businesses collect payment, launch loyalty programs and advertise to customers to bring them back again. Its team works with retailers, restaurants, financial institutions, and other businesses to simplify the mobile payment process..

Revionics

Price can be a significant signal for many customers, even if it only means saving a few dollars. Revionics works to optimize your pricing strategies (and your profits) so you’re able to stay competitive without losing money. It has worked with more than 62,000 retail sites globally and will turn 15 next year.

Umbel

Umbel uses customer data to provide clarity on target audiences and helps marketers make better decisions about whom they should reach out to. This segmentation allows for better allocation of marketing dollars and higher conversion rates. In July, Umbel was awarded the TRUSTe Certified Privacy seal, which means it’s fully compliant in data privacy management.

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Amanda Dodge

Amanda has been writing for Epic Presence since 2016.