4Projects is recruiting

SaaS construction collaboration vendor 4Projects has been busy recruiting new people to its UK-based operation over the past 11 months or so, following its acquisition by US ERP provider Viewpoint in February 2013.

Much of the investment to date has been in strengthening the software development team, and the latest changes see Richard Pavey, formerly of Autodesk and, most recently, structural steel fabrication software specialist AceCad, taking on a new role as director of development (EMEA). Former CTO then VP product development Andy Ward now rejoices in the title of global enterprise architect.

Between them, they have strong backgrounds respectively in construction industry-specific software and in enterprise-strength SaaS applications. I talked to interim 4Projects MD Steve Spark (post – right) about the appointments today and he said Andy would be helping Viewpoint make a transition to wider support for SaaS as the product portfolio begins to converge.

Investing in people

However, these appointments are only the tip of the iceberg. 4Projects has just appointed a new HR manager who is tasked with recruiting at least 20 more people over the next year (the business is moving from Sunderland into new premises in central Newcastle later this month).

Steve told me the development team would grow further, and there would also be opportunities for BIM sales people, for ‘sales engineers’ (a brief that includes pre-sales as well as post-sale consulting), for technical support staff and various other roles including specialists in networks and quality assurance. Recent expansion of its partnerships programme (December saw an Indian outpost, for example) will also see appointment of a new territory manager to spearhead growth in a new geography, Steve said.