Minneapolis, MN, 07.19.2019 /PRNEWS/ — Minneapolis-based custom software development firm MentorMate has grown its Bulgarian technical team to over 500 members. The increase in personnel allows the company to offer its clients an even broader range of software services and capabilities.

“For our current and future clients, having 500 technologists provides an affirmation of our abilities to deliver quality work as well as a sense of stability that MentorMate is able to grow alongside their business. This is especially important to larger, more mature clients that might have concerns about the stability of working with a ‘small company’,” says MentorMate President Jamie Bolseth.

MentorMate was founded in 2001 with a team of a few people developing an app for foreign language learning. Eighteen years later, it has 500 technologists across five offices in Bulgaria — where it’s become the country’s third-largest service software firm, according to both dev.bg and jobs.bg.

When asked what stands behind this steady upward curve, Bolseth named three key factors:

First, a strong vision by the Bulgarian leadership team to make the company a premium employer in the country has attracted exceptional technical talent. Second, excellent business development in both the US and Europe has brought the clients needed to fuel MentorMate’s growth. The third major factor is the clients themselves. According to Bolseth, “they provide a broad range of technical and business challenges that help keep our skills sharp, and our work engaging and interesting”.

MentorMate’s Director of Quality and Process Jeni Kyuchukova added that keeping the seniority mix at MentorMate is also essential for the smooth growth of the business. Currently, senior-level technologists account for nearly half of the company’s staff in Bulgaria, while mid-level and junior-level represent 33.2% and 18.9%, respectively.

Another key factor of MentorMate’s continued growth is the recent expansion of its User Experience (UX) offering. Globally, UX is one of the fastest-growing sectors of the technology sphere, but the talent pool has struggled to satisfy the high demand for such services, particularly in the U.S. market. With this in mind, MentorMate’s UX team, located in both Bulgaria and the U.S., continues to add new talent and is committed to growing firmly. According to VP of Sales and Marketing Jay Miller, the first step was organizing Elevate Design, a UX-focused conference in Sofia this past May, “Step two is hiring a Creative Director in Bulgaria to work alongside our Creative Director in the U.S. as well as a VP of Design to oversee our entire global design team,” he added.