A West Coast information technology company announced today that it will dramatically expand its Northwest Arkansas location in the coming years, adding up to 100 new employees with expertise in software engineering.

Affirma, which is based in Bellevue, Washington, has six locations worldwide and it will be gradually expanding its location on Dickson Street in Fayetteville. Company co-founder Mark Mason said he cancelled a site selection visit to Austin, Texas after falling in love with the possibility of expanding in Northwest Arkansas.

The Fayetteville location, where six Affirma employees are already on the job, is the company’s U.S. Engineering Center of Excellence. The 100 new employees, who will be experts in software engineering, Salesforce consulting, NetSuite consulting and SharePoint development, will be added over five to seven years, the company said.

Affirma has achieved significant year-over-year revenue growth as new and repeat customers have benefited from Affirma’s obsession with customer satisfaction which has been measured at or above a 98 percent rating by customers over the last five years. The high-quality customer service is founded on investments in the growth and satisfaction of employees who are intensely focused on delivering value to customers, the company said in a press release.

“I couldn’t be more pleased to welcome Affirma to the growing tech community in Northwest Arkansas,” said Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson. “They will bring more high-quality jobs for Arkansans and others who continue to move here. It is exciting to have this Washington-based company find a new home in Arkansas.”

Affirma is excited to bring its growth and client satisfaction to Fayetteville and build tech jobs in a place that is bursting with motivated talent, the company said. Within a three-minute drive from the Bell Engineering Center on the University of Arkansas campus, Affirma intends to recruit the university’s graduates. Mason at today’s press conference praised university leaders for being accessible, something that would have been much more difficult at other schools.

Mason led the initiative to determine when, where and how to establish the next Affirma location with support from the Innovate Arkansas team.

“We were seeking a central location to serve the entire U.S., and our search kept bringing our focus back to Arkansas,” Mason said. “The thriving business climate, abundant technology talent, quality graduates from the University of Arkansas and solid support for business and technology from Governor Hutchinson made the decision simple.”

In addition to Bellevue and Fayetteville, Affirma has locations in Reno, Nev.; Los Angeles; Dublin, Ireland; and Ahmedabad, India.

Pictured at the top: Mark Mason, the co-founder of software engineering company Affirma, explained to press conference attendees how expanding to Northwest Arkansas just made more and more sense as he considered locations across the central U.S.