Zendesk opens Austin offices, goes on hiring spree. 'We're planting a big flag.'

A San Francisco-based sales and customer service technology company has opened new sales offices in Austin and is looking to hire hundreds of employees.

After experiencing the city while working at Oracle Corp. during its transition to the Lone Star State, Zendesk President and Chief Revenue Officer Chris Donato said he had Austin top of mind for his new company’s offices.

"Austin is a very desirable location," he said. "It’s a really good opportunity for us from a talent perspective. We think the talent pool in Austin’s very high."

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Zendesk’s roughly 300 Austin employees have moved into a 33,000-square-foot office in the Foundry II building at 1600 East 4th St. Before that, Zendesk’s Austin staff was occupying space in a WeWork coworking location.

Its new offices are operating as a "go-to market hub," Donato said. When he joined the company about two years ago, one of his goals was to build the hub resembling Oracle’s model to better develop talent and meet customers where they are.

Beyond his personal ties to Austin, Donato said the Central Texas talent pool and universities pulled the company to locate here over places like Denver, Nashville and Salt Lake City.

Zendesk now is looking to hire young professionals and work alongside the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University to develop talent and bring them into the company.

"The view is that we’re bringing in folks that we can develop, enable and they can go in these different areas of the business," Donato said. "(There’s) a lot of growth potential, and it’s a great feeder and funnel for us from a talent perspective. We’re really starting to mold the next stage or next level of our culture and journey."

Zendesk's Austin offices have room for about 350 employees. The company, which has a global staff of roughly 6,000, is aiming to build up its Austin staff to at least 500 in the next couple of years.

The company, which has about $2 billion in revenue, is already looking at expansion in Austin with creation of an innovation hub. The hub, which would be the company’s first outside of its San Francisco headquarters, would be used to show customers the company’s newest artificial intelligence developments and products.

"We’re very excited about the work we’re doing there," Donato said. "It’s not just a sales office. There are sales people there, but we have engineers there, we have marketing folks there, and we have customer support folks there. We see great potential for growth. We’re planting a big flag in Austin, so we will continue to invest."