RED HAT (Waterford)

James Mernin, Director, Cloud Services, Red Hat

Red Hat set up an R&D base in Waterford in 2014 when it acquired FeedHenry, a start-up company founded in Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT) that specialised in mobile and cloud technologies. Since then, the number of Red Hat departments with a footprint in Waterford has grown significantly, largely due to the strong regional talent pool which is supported by a strong graduate pipeline from WIT. People see Red Hat as quite the tech beacon, locally and regionally, and we enjoy a healthy number of quality applications for our open roles. We’ve had a number of people relocate to Waterford also, because they want to work for Red Hat, it being the world’s leader in open source, who are surprised and delighted to find Red Hat has a base here.They are also pleasantly surprised to see the growing number of other tech companies in the region, and the other developments happening, such as the North Quays development and the airport expansion. The cost of living is less here than other parts of the country, commute times are excellent and you can be on a beach within ten minutes. That all adds up. Making decisions based on that, it’s a good time to move to the sunny South East.