Mortgage tech firm plans to bring 635 jobs to city

Snapdocs positions will pay nearly double the average wage in Denver

Denver beat out Salt Lake City to snag another technology firm looking to escape the Bay Area’s escalating costs.

Snapdocs, a young tech firm specializing in real estate loan closings, said Tuesday it plans to hire 635 people in downtown Denver over the next eight years.

“We’ve nearly doubled the size of our team in the last year to support the growth of our business. The culture of Denver aligns with many of our own operating principles, like empathy, innovation and pragmatism,” Snapdocs founder and CEO Aaron King said in a statement.

The San Francisco company is looking to hire engineers, customer support staff, and workers in sales and operations. The jobs will pay an average wage of $132,000 a year, which is nearly double the annual median wage in Denver County.

“We’re currently in a WeWork at the Wells Fargo Center, and we’re working on finding a more permanent space that we can move into early 2020,” said Greg Russell, the company’s head of talent.

Russell said the company has 13 people on the ground in Denver and is looking to make another 60 to 80 local hires through the end of 2020.

Snapdocs is involved in about 10% of all residential mortgage transactions, or about 72,000 a month, according to its website. It specializes in remote closings, those where a notary fills in for a title or loan agent.

The company plans to expand its share of the market as it brings on more digital tools to smooth out the closing process. It is part of the larger push to use technology to simplify and speed up the homebuying process.

In August, the Colorado Economic Development Commission approved $150,000 in cash for the company from the state’s Strategic Fund, matching $150,000 in cash offered by Denver Economic Development and Opportunity.

Normally, the state would have offered

job growth incentive tax credits, which would offset state tax obligations depending on the amount of payroll taxes paid.

But as a startup, Snapdocs doesn’t have a profit, which makes the tax credits of little value.

Based on the number of jobs it is looking to create, Snapdocs was eligible for $2.6 million from the Strategic Fund.

But those cash incentives must be matched by local governments.

Colorado and Denver are effectively paying $472 per job, which is cheap compared with the typical incentiveaward.

“Snapdocs is exactly the type of company we strive to bring to Denver. Above and beyond the jobs they will create, they are a community-minded company and bring a true collaborative and innovative spirit to the city,” Eric Hiraga, executive director of Denver Economic Development and Opportunity, said in a news release.