Compass is launching a West Coast technology campus and looking to nearly double its technical staff to populate the new hub. The goal is to build “real estate’s first-ever end-to-end platform,” according to a Compass statement posted on Facebook.
The New York City-headquartered brokerage, which has long emphasized the technology aspect of its business, has gotten more serious about further developing its in-house technology, most recently bringing in Joseph Sirosh, a former Microsoft executive as its chief technology officer. Sirosh, who is based in Seattle, will oversee the new office.
“Seattle is home to some of the best visionary technology leaders and engineers in the world,” Sirosh, said in a release. “We are hiring hundreds of engineers, program managers, product managers, and AI talent next year at Compass to pursue the incredible opportunity ahead of us. This engineering center in Seattle is a great opportunity to tap into the region’s creative talent and at the same time be close to our agents on the West Coast.”
Compass is initially looking to hire at least 100 engineers to work out of its recently leased space in Industrious Seattle, a co-working space in the heart of the Pacific Northwest city’s downtown area.
It’s the company’s first tech footprint outside of New York City, where it currently employs a technical team of 170 employees, recently bolstered by the acquisition of the technical team behind the e-commerce app Spring and hiring multiple executives from apartment rental startup VeryApt.
The office’s focus will be the acceleration of the Compass technology roadmap and enhancing the company’s current existing agent platform, which includes a customer relationship management tool, in-house marketing center and other agent tools.
Compass will now be in direct competition for talent with real estate technology giant Zillow and the technology-focused brokerage Redfin, both of which are headquartered in Seattle.
Compass has expanded rapidly this year, now boasting north of 7,000 agents across 165 offices, including four in the Seattle area. It first opened in Seattle in April 2018, and then in August, doubled its agent count by taking over Seattle’s Avenue Properties.
The recent growth spurt in technology building was fueled by Compass’ most recent $400 million funding round, which has the company valued at $4.4 billion.