Brickell-based Kaseya gets incentive to add 3,400 IT jobs

Information technology and security management software company Kaseya has announced it will create 3,400 new tech jobs in three years, the largest tech job creation project in the county, along with a $16 million capital investment.

Supported by the Miami-Dade Beacon Council, the county’s official public-private economic development partnership, under its Miami-Dade Relocation and Expansion Incentive Program (REIP), Kaseya moved its US headquarters from Boston to Miami at 701 Brickell Ave. in 2018, making it its global headquarters, and in 2021 the company opened a security operation center in Miami.

“We’re finding better engineering talent in Miami than we did in Boston, San Francisco and the Bay area, Austin, and New York City,” said Fred Voccola, Kaseya’s CEO. “We’ve been growing consistently since 2015. We’ve invested a ton of money in software engineering, cyber security research and development.”

The commitment to create 3,400 new jobs in technology over the next three years would increase its Miami staff to 4,000, making the company one of the largest employers in the area. These jobs would have an average salary of $107,000, according to the company. The company is committing more $16 million in capital investments that would create an additional 1,593 indirect jobs and generate about $326 million in new disposal income, and a $450 million annual net economic impact for the community.

“Since first establishing their headquarters here in 2018, they’ve been able to expand twice, using their success to advance our efforts in effectively growing our technology ecosystem,” said Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava.

The Beacon Council was instrumental in relocating Kaseya to Miami. With its REIP program, companies relocating to Miami and hiring a minimum of 50 new employees in the county within a five-year period, paying at least 150% of the county or state average annual wage, can get a tax credit of $1,000 per new job, an additional credit of $125 per new job if any new hires received a degree from a university or technical school within the Miami-Dade, and another $125 credit per new job if any new hires graduated within three years of the hire date.

“With tech layoffs recently impacting thousands of people and their organizations across the US, our longstanding partnership with Kaseya to bolster job creation has never been more important,” said Miami-Dade Beacon Council President & CEO Rodrick T. Miller.

As Miami Today reported Feb. 16, Miami-Dade county commissioners voted on a total of $4.5 million in targeted performance-based incentives for Kaseya to be paid over the next five to 10 years. The money was approved for the company under the code name Xray, a pseudonym used pending the company’s formal announcement of its expansion.

“We’ve been working with the Beacon Council since 2014,” said Mr. Voccola. “[Starting up] we only had about 30 or 40 people in Miami and we wanted to make Miami a tech center. The REIP program is as close to a perfectly designed, mutually beneficial, incentive-aligned government program that I’ve ever seen. It truly benefits the constituents in Miami and not a very, very small sector of the community.”

Kaseya has also partnered with Florida International University, and other local universities and technical schools, for its “Grow your Own” Program, an educational program to develop the talent pipeline needed through classes with curricula that are designed to teach the skillset needed by the company.

“FIU has been unbelievable at working with us,” said Mr. Voccola. “I’ve never seen a university around the world, in my experience, that actually listens to the companies in what they are looking for and takes their input. FIU looks at the real world.”

In addition, the company has partnered with technical schools for a Remote IT and security management program that offers 40-hour training for a certification. “Most IT and security management that is being done for small to mid-sized businesses is remote,” he said. “We’re providing all of the technology for free. We expect upwards of 40,000 to 50,000 techs to be certified in RITSM in the next few years.”