Bigcommerce co-founder Mitchell Harper said the company has been “quietly laying the foundations for an accelerated period of growth” and, as well as opening the San Francisco office would be hiring “40 engineers in 60 days.”

The company now has offices in Sydney, Austin Texas and San Francisco.

“2013 was a very strong year for us in terms of growth. We grew at over 100% and, most importantly, helped thousands of businesses around the world grow faster. This year we’re ramping up our engineering efforts and expecting to accelerate even faster -- we’re hiring a killer leadership team, opening an office in downtown San Francisco and filling it with amazing local talent.

“This is the start of something big and incredibly exciting. We are building a platform for millions of businesses and doing for commerce, what Salesforce did for CRM.”

Harper said Silicon Valley veteran West Stringfellow has taken up the role of Bigcommerce’s Chief Product Officer. He joins Bigcommerce after working with a number of tech companies including PayPal, Amazon, VISA ad Rosetta Stone.

“In the short time he has been with us, West has been ruthlessly focused on accelerating our product development and growing the product and engineering teams, starting with the opening of our San Francisco office and appointing our new VP of Engineering,” Harper said.

“He is one of those rare finds that has led acceleration and transformation at technology companies of all sizes, including Amazon and PayPal. He understands what it takes to build and reward the best product and engineering teams in the world.”

Harper also announced the appointment of Ron Pragides as Bigcommerce’s new VP of Engineering to be based in the San Francisco office.

Pragides previously worked for Twitter and Salesforce.

Stringfellow said engineers hired in San Francisco will collaborate closely with Bigcommerce’s existing engineering teams in Sydney and Austin and will also be offered the chance to work between offices.

“Bigcommerce’s potential is only constrained by the technical boundaries of commerce,” Stringfellow said.

“To capture this potential we are being extremely aggressive in our hiring, sparing nothing to find and win the team of all-stars intent on solving tough commerce problems.

“Each area, from database to software engineering, front-end to quality engineering, site-reliability and operations, architecture, and product management demands exceptional talent to revolutionise ecommerce and truly empower entrepreneurs worldwide.”