Meet the tech team!

What the tech team does

Technology is a major factor of success for Colonies. Our ambition is to create a spotless end-to-end experience, miles away from what renting an apartment currently feels like, and technology is at the center of this endeavour. Our tech products interact with the tenants’ daily life and with their physical and social environment. We make their lives easier without seeking to monopolize their attention. More than anywhere else, technology has a direct impact on the user’s quality of life. To that aim we also have to make operating a coliving a breeze for our team of Experience Managers, automating as much of their work as we can, so that they can focus on building actual relationships with the tenants.

The booking and day-to-day management web app is live, along with the back-office and the marketing websites. Lots of processes have already been automated: lease signature, payments (rent, deposit, invoicing, accounting), check-in etc.

We are currently working on:

• automating more of the work (e.g. tracking wire transfers automatically),
• making the tenants’ arrival smooth by providing the right info at the right time,
• enriching communication with our tenants (announcements and support) with the first blocks of what will eventually become a full-fledged coliving assistant app,
• reporting automatically and efficiently for business intelligence and product analytics.

Some of our next steps are:

• developing social features that are actually useful: events, community, home exchange etc.

• interfacing with connected devices, such as smart locks and thermostats, in order to:

  • craft a seamless experience in our physical spaces,
  • analyze data to better understand, then optimize the use of spaces and utilities,
• making checking in, checking out and filling inventories a delight,
• selling additional services that make life even better,
• uncovering new product opportunities within the company (for our real estate developers, architects etc.) that will give us a decisive competitive edge.

And so much more with your help!

How the tech team does it

We build our web app with Ruby on Rails and a slightly customized Bootstrap. We expect to be working with a broader technology spectrum going forward, especially on the front-end.

We like developers to be involved in the product process, which is why we recently started to use an adapted version of Basecamp’s Shape Up method. The CTO is the owner of the tech product strategy. We also have a product team outside of the tech team that focuses on the coliving product as a whole.

Missions

Your mission is to help the tech team build the right thing at the right time in order to maximize its impact. This means you will:

• gather and question requests, issues and insight about our tech products
• envision solutions (including non-technical ones) and assess the value and cost of each
• discuss and decide what (not) to do and when, conciliating short-term and long-term strategies
• communicate clear specs to the developers
• follow up on progress, assess the quality of the output, measure its impact
• report clearly to all stakeholders: tech team, Colonies team, tenants etc.

You will also be asked to:

• help continuously improve the team’s workflow
• help define the long-term strategic roadmap with your insight
• build prototypes and internal tools with no-code tools
• proactively advocate for the use of tech everywhere it can be useful

You’ll be under the supervision of Simon (CTO, 🇫🇷), and you’ll be interacting constantly with the tech team (Alexandra 🇫🇷, Lionel 🇫🇷, Robert 🇮🇪, and more soon), as well as with the rest of the Colonies team, and our clients and partners.

Culture

Assembling various trades into a single team is a characteristic of Colonies. You will get to work with all teams: real estate development, architecture and design, project management and experience management. This wealth of profiles is a chance, and each one of us is encouraged to participate to discussions about the Colonies product.

The atmosphere is casual and relaxed. Work schedules and personal organization are flexible: we bet on autonomy and trust. Our office is located at 174 quai de Jemmapes, 10th arrondissement: 6th floor, overlooking the canal, with the Sacré-Coeur in plain sight, a huge balcony and quality furniture and decoration carefully chosen by our very own architecture and design team.

Perks

• Competitive package based on your experience,
• New, powerful hardware,
• 50% off your metro card,
• Alan health insurance,
• Swile lunch card,
• Beautiful and comfortable office,
• Remote-friendly policy,
• Awesome offsite retreats every now and then!

You have enough experience working as product person on varied products to show perspective and a critical eye on what the job entails and how to do it best. We think 2 years is a minimum.

You are excellent at:

• understanding the business, user and technical sides and reconciling them,
• making smart decisions fast on complex topics with blurred lines and limited information,
• writing and speaking: you are concise yet exhaustive, and crystal-clear to everyone you talk to.

This means you are:

• analytical: you get to the bottom of things by questioning the why, you understand bias in statistics and communication and you know how to get reliable info,
• pragmatic rather than perfectionist, aware that technology isn’t always the best solution,
• radical: you ruthlessly eliminate the 95% to keep the 5% that truly matter,
• proactive: you make unexpected (good) things happen,
• organized and good at multi-tasking in an ever-changing work environment.

Some things we will like as well:

• knowing how to craft a good UX,
• knowing how to build mockups or even prototypes,
• basic knowledge of web development or data analysis,
• having worked on both B2C and B2B products.

No specific level of education is required. Speaking French isn’t necessary, but speaking fluent English is.

• Apply with your CV and a text that explains:

  • what you’ve achieved so far,
  • why you want this job specifically,
  • why we should hire you specifically,
  • the essential things junior POs and muggles ignore about being a product owner.
• If your profile fits, you’ll have a first chat over the phone with the CTO.
• We’ll follow up with an at-home exercise which we’ll use as a base for a discussion with the tech team.
• If all goes well, you’ll have 2 to 3 more meetings with other members of the Colonies team.
• We’ll also have a quick chat with a few of your former coworkers, bosses or teachers.

NB: we will start looking at applications on the week of the 17th of August.