"It's a continuation of some of the inshoring S3 has done for years, but it's a pretty significant expansion in a new area," Nelson said.

Previously, much of the work handled by employees at S3's Detroit headquarters was call center work, he said. The new employees S3 has added are providing high-demand IT services.

S3 is actively seeking to fill a wide range of IT jobs, from Java developers to quality assurance testers, representing a wide range of skill sets, Nelson said.

"We definitely have demand. The question is, will we be able to hire enough people?"

S3 operates offices in 25 cities across the U.S., providing IT services and other business services staff on the ground.

But with a shortage of needed talent in their home markets, two financial services companies in Phoenix, a global private energy company in California, energy utility customers in St. Louis and Tampa and companies in other countries like Lithuania are engaging S3's Detroit employees to work remotely, Nelson said.

Spurring the new business is a dedicated, Detroit-based marketing team promoting S3's Detroit capabilities in areas around the country where it has customer relationships, he said.

One core strength of S3 employees is the ability to adeptly handle incoming billing question calls from customers of utility companies, Nelson said. "The team that's an expert in that is based in Detroit."

"Nobody calls us from around the country to say 'What do you have in Detroit?' So we have to do a professional job of marketing the talent that's available in the Detroit market," he said.

Strategic Staffing was one of several local companies highlighted in a report released last week during the Detroit Regional Chamber's Mackinac Policy Conference.

The report, produced by Endeavor Insight and commissioned by the William Davidson Foundation, pointed to investments in midsized, entrepreneur-driven companies like S3 as a promising strategy for job growth in the region.

S3 is offering services that are needed by companies in other markets, creating new jobs here in Detroit, Endeavor said in the report.

To accommodate its growth, S3 invested $260,000 last summer to outfit new space in the Penobscot Building, giving it offices on four floors of the downtown Detroit skycraper.

"We can definitely keep growing (there)," Nelson said. "We easily have room for another 150-200 people."

S3 recorded $342 million in revenue last year, Nelson said, up from $321 million in 2017.