Cedar Park–based event producer Engage Digital saw an opportunity to help local companies recruit national and international talent by working with South by Southwest Conferences & Festivals. That collaboration created the Tech Career Expo @ SXSW, an event to be held March 9–10 at the Austin Music Hall.

Engage Digital CEO Chris Sherman said the idea was to try and help remedy a shortage of software and engineering talent in Austin. The Tech Career Expo is open to the 20,000 SXSW Interactive attendees, and non-attendees, who are expected to come to Austin for the conference.

"It's designed so you can roam through the hall and talk to whoever you want to talk with," Sherman said. "So, you can bring a resume, or not bring a resume. It's up to you. Most of these guys are obviously very digitally savvy."

According to Engage Digital, the event has 45 confirmed exhibitors. The employers will be looking for skill sets that have been difficult to find in Austin, such as experience with specific software platforms.

One local startup that will be at the event is MapMyFITNESS Inc. The Austin-based company has a variety of products that empower fitness enthusiasts to map their workouts, log fitness information and network with others.

"SXSW Interactive brings some of the brightest stars in tech to Austin; we're excited to be a part of this opportunity to grow our network and recruit from this talented pool of candidates," MapMyFITNESS co-founder Robin Thurston said.

SXSW Interactive Festival Director Hugh Forrest said the expo will build on the networking and recruiting that has always gone on informally and bring it to a centralized location.

"We know that lots of hiring traditionally takes place at SXSW Interactive, and we think the Tech Career Expo will make that process a lot easier for all parties involved," Forrest said.

Confirmed exhibitors:

• Dice.com
• PulsePoint
• Bazaarvoice
• WhaleShark Media, Inc.
• SailPoint Technologies
• AdRevolution
• All Web Leads
• Athenahealth
• BancVue
• Braintree
• CompassLearning
• Cosential
• Data Foundry
• Dell
• Etsy
• Groupon
• HostGator.com
• Indigo Solutions
• Lab126
• Luna Data Solutions, Inc.
• MapMyFITNESS, Inc.
• NBCUniversal, Inc.
• NetSpend Corp
• Noesis Energy
• Offers.com
• Patient Conversation Media
• Pixykids
• Rackspace Hosting
• Reddwerks
• salesforce.com
• SolarWinds
• Spacetime Studios
• Spredfast
• T3
• TabbedOut
• TEKsystems
• The Advisory Board
• The Nerdery
• Trails.by
• TWIA
• Twilio
• uShip, Inc.
• Volt Technical Resources
• Volusion
• Yodlex