Software Engineer at Aldara in Barcelona, Catalonia, ES

About Aldara (YC S22)

Aldara is ahttps://www.ycombinator.com/[Y Combinator](https://www.ycombinator.com/) backed startup that is disrupting HOA (Homeowner Association) management in Europe, with headquarters in Barcelona.

We build our own technology to deliver a world-class experience to property owners in a massive ($50B), heavily fragmented, and poorly served industry.

We’re backed by top VCs, such as Y Combinator and KFund and have an ambitious plan to reinvent an old traditional industry. We’re starting in Spain by becoming the best community manager around, with the most transparency, fastest incident turnaround and effectiveness.

At Aldara, we're not just about managing homeowners' associations today; we're shaping the future of real estate services by solving complex human interactions within a specific context. Our core strength lies in our exceptional tech talent and our commitment to leveraging the power of AI, which is already transforming how we operate and interact with our communities.

The role

We’re looking for a product-oriented Software Engineer that enjoys taking ownership of complex problems with a big scope, and working with the end customer as well as the rest of the engineering team to design and implement the best solution. We have a lean working environment with few meetings, focused on having a lot of delivery & interaction with the direct users of the product (mainly our internal account managers as well as the end customers). Engineers at Aldara have a lot of freedom to work on multiple challenges end-to-end, while at the same time forming part of a team with high standards for system architecture, code quality and product usability that fosters great work.

Engineering @ Aldara

Here are the core traits that define how the tech team works at Aldara.

Lean engineering. Own the problem end-to-end

We don’t have Product Managers, Agile Coaches or Scrum Masters. We trust our engineers to be able to understand the problems at hand, devise the best solution, share it with others and own the implementation from start to finish. The engineers who excel at Aldara are those that take pleasure in mastering all parts of the stack, from database modeling to UX design, to bring together a fully functional feature. The only big meetings we really have are the biweekly Demos, where engineers come together to share & showcase the latest changes to the rest of the company.

Horizontal structure with few but high quality contributors

You’ll be reporting directly to the CTO, while interacting heavily with Operations and Account Management to get the feedback cycle working. We don’t have teams in engineering, and we want to keep it that way as long as we can by hiring few but very high quality individual contributors. As an engineer, you’ll be deeply integrated with the rest of the team, working often with the internal stakeholders as well as the end customer. You will also be working closely with our providers, from local ones to big corps, as we develop our relationships with them as an additional player in our ecosystem. We believe a horizontal structure with a high motivation for debate brings forward the best product choices.

Focus on building great, scalable software, with rock-solid architecture to deploy it

Our stack is simple: Postgres, Django, React, Terraform, and AWS are the main pieces, with Datadog to keep track of it all. We care a lot about our developer UX and setup to make developers have the easiest time adding a new feature, testing it thoroughly and deploying it in the same beat. We’ve got 95% testing coverage checked on every PR, one-click deployments happening constantly and a carefully thought out code structure that focuses on modular software that can be easily reused. Our local setup replicates the production environment to a tee. Develop locally and instantly debug your traces using Datadog, comparing against production traces.

Freedom to explore and have fun, creativity is our best tool to engineer the future we want

We don’t shy away from investing time in trying out new approaches to problems we need to solve. There’s offsite weeks when we go hack on something for a few days in an amazing venue with full focus. Regular hackathons where the whole team reconfigures into small pods that build something fun for a day or two. We want to foster your curiosity, allow you to explore and find new and better ways to solve problems. We believe the future of our space includes way more automation, AI, and inference than it does now, and we’ll only get there by allowing you to be as creative as possible.

The product you’ll work on

Our current product has three parts: the internal software we use to manage properties, the consumer experience we offer to property owners, and the provider management platform.

Our internal software is the operating system of property management, used by our team of account managers to deliver anhttps://reid.medium.com/how-to-scale-a-magical-experience-4-lessons-from-airbnbs-brian-chesky-eca0a182f3e3[11-star experience](https://reid.medium.com/how-to-scale-a-magical-experience-4-lessons-from-airbnbs-brian-chesky-eca0a182f3e3) to our customers. This includes the streamlining of all aspects of building management: accounting, incident management, customer communications, taxes, utility management, insurance claims, etc.

This is coupled with an intuitive consumer experience, catering to a very diverse set of property owners. From the old grandparents to the star-eyed couple who just bought a flat. Our product has to be inclusive to all walks of life and offer the best service possible. It includes a digital application as well as traditional communication methods (in-person and over the phone).

Our provider platform allows our collaborators to interact with us in an easy and scalable way, and be motivated to work with us as much as possible. It will also give us an easy and structured way to have access to and discoverability of the best providers that can cover each of our customer’s needs.

Preferred Skills and experience

• Working experience across the stack. Ideally you’re someone familiar with our specific stack already (Postgres, Django, React) but this is not a hard requirement. We prioritize people who are good across the board rather than having deep experience with specific libraries.
• Strong ownership culture, you’re someone that enjoys owning big parts of the product and caring for them in all their facets.
• A hands-on attitude and willingness to spend the necessary time researching, analyzing, and identifying the problem to make decisions with as much data as possible to back them up.
• An open-minded approach to software development, with the ability to debate different trade-offs with strong yet highly rational arguments that prioritize what’s best for the project.
• A high level of proactivity and curiosity, we are looking for developers who are excited about problem-solving, thinking creatively comes to them naturally.
• Ability to work from our Barcelona office daily, with the option to work remotely occasionally if the need arises. We’re at the stage of the company where most of the interactions happen in-person, and we plan to keep it that way for the short and medium term.
• Proficiency in Spanish is highly desirable, though not a requirement.

Perks

📜 Have a go at changing an antiquated industry - opportunities to combine technology and operations to improve old, massive industries don’t happen every day. Be on the team tackling the challenges head-on, challenging the status quo and inventing ways to solve old problems.

📈 Stock Options - we would only imagine you joining us if you have skin in the game. For us, this means owning a piece of the company and sharing in the upside if we succeed.

⭐️ Work with a small team of bright people - we are strong believers in small but high impact teams. Expect to work with really talented colleagues with experience in top tech companies and multiple time founders. We keep a high quality bar and pride ourselves for our good work.

🤝 Company culture built on trust and transparency - we expect you to speak up and share your feedback openly, in turn we are completely open about our feedback and company direction.

🏢 In-person - we believe nothing beats being in the same room and spending time together. From deep working sessions to spending quality time off-work.

🤩 Beautiful office - our office is in one of the prime locations in Barcelona (Passeig de Gràcia), with direct view’s to Gaudi’s La Pedrera, and a large terrace where we organize events for our family, friends, and colleagues. Expect beautiful sunsets and easy access to the whole city.

👩‍🎨 Shape the culture - by joining so early in the team, we expect you to have a say in the future of the company, including ways of working, culture and direction. You’ll not only have a front row seat, but actively participate in developing the playbook that gets us to succeed.