Up to 160 jobs as US technology firm launches new Belfast office

The Chicago-headquartered company is establishing a centre of excellence in Belfast, with a target of creating 160 jobs over the next four years.

PEAK6 is a private technology and investment firm that uses technology to find a better way of doing things, notably seeking transformational opportunities that provide capital and strategic support to entrepreneurs and forward-thinking businesses.

Announcing the company’s investment, the Minister said: “This major investment by PEAK6 is welcome news as we work to rebuild our economy. Northern Ireland is a leading location for international technology investment. Our strength in financial technology, cloud solutions and emerging areas such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, continues to attract businesses to invest here and capitalise on our growing expertise to help them grow their businesses.

“A core part of my Department’s ‘Rebuilding a Stronger Economy’ framework is to develop highly-skilled workforces with higher paying jobs. The quality of talent our tech sector has to offer is reflected in the company’s competitive salaries and I am delighted to see that a number of the roles on offer are open to graduates. Once in place, the jobs will contribute over £8.5million of additional annual salaries, to the Northern Ireland economy.”

Invest Northern Ireland helped to secure the investment for Northern Ireland by facilitating visits to meet with a range of stakeholders and has offered £1.04million of support towards the 160 jobs.

Judi Hart, Chief Operating Officer at PEAK6, said: “Our strategy is to bring world-class technology and operational excellence to PEAK6 businesses to help them prosper. To do this, we need to grow our workforce to increase efficiencies and be able to capitalise on new opportunities. Our Northern Ireland colleagues will play an important part in this. The Belfast team will innovate industry-specific technology solutions that will enable transformation across our companies and focus on the research, development and delivery of new products to help us achieve our ambitious growth plans.

“The support and insight Invest NI has offered us is so important to our forward-thinking business vision. Its understanding of Northern Ireland’s rich talent offering and thriving tech sector, is why we made the decision to invest here. Thanks to the doors that Invest NI has opened for us, we are already engaging with local universities about graduate opportunities and we’re excited for Northern Ireland talent to join the PEAK6 team.”

PEAK6’s core brands include Apex Clearing, PEAK6 Capital Management, Evil Geniuses, and National Flood Services.

Kevin Holland, Invest NI’s CEO, welcomed the company’s investment. He said: “Northern Ireland’s growing reputation as a region of expert skills and knowledge within the tech sector was a key driver in helping to secure this investment. PEAK6 will be joining over 100 global technology leaders who have made Northern Ireland their location of choice. As we move ahead in rebuilding our economy, I very much welcome PEAK6 to Northern Ireland and look forward to supporting it as it grows its presence here.”

Lisa Stevenson, a native of Northern Ireland, has been hired as the Site Lead to grow and direct the Belfast team. Job roles at PEAK6’s Belfast office will span several levels of experience across software engineering, product management, scrum masters and engineering managers. There will be opportunities for computing graduates, along with a small team of support staff and HR professionals. Recruitment is under way and ten roles are already in place. PEAK6 NI is immediately hiring software engineers specialising in Java or React.

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