Square Terminal | Photo Courtesy: Fast Company

Business Development

Square Expands In St. Louis

Jack Dorsey launched Square Terminal; will bring 300 engineering jobs to the city.

Square, the startup that revolutionized credit card payments for small businesses, plans to start adding engineers to its workforce in St. Louis. The company this year pledged to create 300 jobs here over the next five years. Founded by St. Louis natives Jack Dorsey and Jim McKelvey in 2009, the San Francisco-based company launched the latest version of its credit card and mobile payment processing system, called Square Terminal, on Thursday. St. Louis was one of three cities, along with New York and San Francisco, selected as a test site for the new technology. Dorsey, who is also co-founder and CEO of Twitter, said Square plans to tap engineering talent for new jobs in St. Louis.

Jesse Dorogusker, head of hardware at Square, said the company does all of its product design in-house. “We’ve done our own design and engineering of hardware and software from the very beginning,” he said. “We think it’s really an essential part of making spectacular integrated products.”

Square’s St. Louis office in Cortex Innovation Community. PHOTO CREDIT | SQUARE, INC.

Square opened its office in St. Louis three years ago in the Cortex Innovation District with customer support and risk operations staff. Square says the company has  455 employees. Dorogusker said they don’t plan to move engineering staff here from San Francisco.