North Little Rock software branch announces job expansion

A software engineering company with an office in North Little Rock is expanding from four to 45 employees over the next five years, its leadership and Gov. Asa Hutchinson announced Tuesday (Aug. 9).

Boston-based Elyxor Inc. supports clients around the world in finance, health care, eCommerce, industrial products and supply chains.

Mark Carleo, managing partner, and Rob Lentz, local Little Rock partner and chief strategy officer, said the 45 new employees will be added to the company’s workforce of 30 employees, most in the Boston area and North Little Rock, with North Little Rock serving as the company’s core development center.

The company will hire engineers and computer scientists. Pay will average about $60,000, with junior engineers earning $40,000 and senior-level individuals making up to six figures, said Lentz.

The North Little Rock office supports clients from central Arkansas to the European Union and South America. Practice areas include the “internet of things,” which is how machines share information; software construction; and technology strategy, where the company will advise large organizations on their technology approaches, Lentz said.

Carleo said the company has worked several complicated projects in health care, including creating one system that shared data from patient ventilators that can be monitored remotely and accessed worldwide.

The company was founded in 2010 and hired its first employee in Little Rock in 2014. It was first housed at the Arkansas Venture Center, moved to a temporary location in Little Rock and then moved to North Little Rock in April. The company’s executive partners have been working together for all or part of the past 20 years and are all software and systems engineers with experience building software systems, according to a press release from the Arkansas Economic Development Commission. Together, they have built several software firms.

The company benefited from the AEDCs Advantage Arkansas income tax credit for job creation and expects in its first year to hire enough employees to remain qualified, Lentz said.

The two said they chose North Little Rock after also looking at sites in Michigan, Ohio and two places in Tennessee. They said in the Boston area they were competing for talent with Microsoft, Google and many startups. They found talent here and also liked the lifestyle in central Arkansas.

“When we came on the ground, the first day we were here we met people at the Chamber of Commerce,” Carleo told reporters. “Everybody reached out to us to try and help us, convince us to come to Little Rock. We didn’t find that in other locations, so it was important to us to have a community that we feel like we can be part of, that can help us and we can help the community at the same time.”

Hutchinson said the state has a diversified economy but needs a dynamic, sustained technology sector.