SoFi, a San Francisco-based provider of personal finance products, is advertising for jobs for what appears to be a Jacksonville operations center.
At SoFi.com, the company is posting for job titles that include senior director of DevOps and its team that “works on challenging product and infrastructure-focused problems”; technical support analyst; consumer loan reviewer; executive assistant; financial crimes investigator; associate manager of financial crimes, fraud detection and prevention; and trainer.
The Trainer I listing said trainers “facilitate the new hire and skills-based training to the front-line call center agents in all the product lines SoFi offers,” it said.
The Executive Assistant listing said it would support executives “in our Jacksonville, FL site.”
SoFi did not immediately return emails for comment Tuesday morning and afternoon.
The company matches the description of Project Quail, an economic development project approved Tuesday night by Jacksonville City Council in a 19-0 vote.
A city representative said Tuesday afternoon he was unable to comment because the project’s confidentiality request remains in effect.
SoFi already appears to have a connection with Jacksonville.
Its leadership includes Richard Garside as global head of operations.
Garside is known in Jacksonville as the former co-head of global operations and technology at Citi.
His bio says he served as the Global Head of Operations & Technology for the consumer group of Citigroup from 2008-13, responsible for supporting Citi Cards, the commercial group, the consumer lending group, and the retail distribution banking group in 40 countries.
St. Johns County property records show he and his wife own a residence in St. Augustine.
SoFi says it has more than 700,000 members that use its products “for borrowing, saving, spending, investing, and protecting.”
It says its lending businesses have originated more than $42 billion among personal loan, student loan and home loan products.
The site shows it is hiring at eight locations: the San Francisco headquarters; Healdsburg, California; two sites in Utah; Seattle; Helena, Montana; Claymont, Delaware; and Jacksonville.
SoFi is part of the fintech industry – technology that enables and supports financial banking and technology services.
SoFi matches the description of Project Quail, “an international web-based financial services company” that offers “various personal loan products,” according to a city legislative fact sheet.
Quail is considering Jacksonville along with a few other cities for a Southeast Operations Center that would create at least 300 full-time jobs by the end of 2021.
The average annual wage is $54,941 plus benefits. It seeks a Qualified Target Industry Tax Refund of $5,000 per job, totaling $1.5 million. The city would refund $300,000, or 20 percent, and the state would provide the remainder, $1.2 million.
Quail would invest an estimated $5.5 million into real estate improvements, IT equipment, furniture and fixtures.
Legislation did not specify a location. An operation that size would need at least about 45,000 square feet of space.