Where to work

The ATG-Cognizant offices in Missoula's Old Sawmill District housed most of the company's nearly 200 employees in Montana in 2019. The company is building a new facility to accomodate employees. TOM BAUER, Missoulian

Tech jobs in Missoula

DAVID ERICKSON david.erickson@missoulian.com

Missoula’s thriving high-tech and service industries have a diverse array of companies that hire applicants of all backgrounds.

Whether you’re interested in software engineering or digital marketing or mapping technology, the Garden City has become a hot spot in Montana for those seeking to land wellpaying jobs.

And in a complete reversal from the depths of the Great Recession just a decade ago, the

city of Missoula is overflowing with jobs and wage increases but there are few workers willing to take the offers. “The job market in Missoula did take a big hit early on in the pandemic, but now it seems to be rebounding,” explained Christina Quick Henderson, the executive director of the Montana High Tech Business Alliance, an organization headquartered in Missoula. “A number of the businesses we saw that had to cut jobs when they abruptly lost revenues in the beginning of the pandemic have pivoted and have been able to pick up and rehire. In 6 Missoula NewcoMers’ Guide 2022

that sense the job market is good.”

For everything from whitewater rafting camp counselors to lifeguards and police officers, city managers just can’t get enough qualified applicants even though they’ve boosted wages and offer highly competitive benefits.

Other companies just sailed right along through the pandemic, Quick Henderson noted.

“Some companies have done well all along and never really had to make job cuts,” she said. “They’re really going full steam ahead and those companies have been continuously posting jobs and their products have been in

demand.”

OnX, a company founded in Missoula in 2009 that developed multiple apps for hunting and backcountry GPS navigation, is also looking to create scores of good-paying jobs in the coming years.

“We have experienced some significant growth the past few years with the conversion of the chip Hunt product to an app and the release of two new products, onX Offroad and onX Backcountry, focusing on getting a better foothold in the outdoor community for backcountry navigation,” said Chris Weber, OnX comptroller.

He noted the company had roughly 100 employees in 2018 and may have roughly three times that many by the end of next year.

“So it’s been pretty rapid growth and our plans are still continuing the same.”

There’s Submittable, a submission management software company located in the historic Florence building in downtown Missoula. They’re often hiring positions like software testers, marketing operations and analytics managers and outbound sales representatives.

Cognizant Advanced Technology Group is a fast-growing company that recently broke ground on a new building that could accommodate 350 more employees than the roughly 200 it already has. The company manages complex revenue and customer interaction processes for companies all over the world.

The company started the All-In Missoula program, a partnership with Missoula College and the University of Montana, which is focused on “preparing Montana-based college graduates for technology consulting roles, and has contributed significantly to the Cognizant ATG’s expansion this past year,” said Cognizant corporate communications manager Becky McKelvey.

By early 2021, Cognizant ATG had hired 75 graduates of the program since its start in 2019. The Missoula Solutions Center is led by Tom Stergios, the senior vice president of strategy and corporate development at Cognizant ATG. He’s also a longtime Missoulian and knows the value of hiring University of Montana graduates or people who want to live and work in Missoula.

“I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to continue to grow Cognizant ATG here in Missoula,” Stergios told the Missoulian.

Lumenad, a digital advertising company in Missoula, is almost always hiring such positions as analysts and product managers.

Blackfoot Communications in Missoula was named one of the top 25 tech employers in Montana in 2018 by the Montana High Tech Business Alliance. The firm is hiring in Missoula for an IT tech apprentice and a customer care consultant.

For those interested in a career in bioscience technology, Missoula-based Inimmune announced in 2020 that they had secured $22 million in venture capital, the largest Series A investment in Montana history.

President and CEO Jay Evans is also the director for the Center for Translational Medicine at the University of Montana.

“The Center gives us a great training opportunity for students,” Evans told the Montana High Tech Business Alliance. “We hire a lot of undergraduates in our labs at the University and a lot of our new hires at Inimmune come from our staff there, and then we backfill it and hire more students, and graduate students, and post-docs to fill those positions. We’re our own recruiting agency by having such a strong connection with University.” N