Engineering Team at Sibi

Sibi is extremely collaborative and we have teammates of all skill levels.

We’re transforming the way technology enables smart buying and smarter supply chain logistics for the real estate industry. As a new hire, you’ll be joining both team Sibi and a domain team composed of a mix of engineers, one lead engineer, and one lead product manager. At other companies, you might have experienced how one team can take over the culture of the entire office or company simply because they’re a bit louder – but you won’t find that here. We have a high degree of respect and trust among each other and strive to cultivate an open environment where everyone can ask questions, and more importantly, question decisions.

One of our core values is “design together.” We place a huge emphasis on designing and exploring solutions together, and then breaking out into smaller groups to execute. You’ll always find someone willing to pair with you (if that’s something you enjoy), since we believe touching each other’s code helps us learn and improve. Prefer to have heads-down time to execute? That’s fine too. We want to help all at Sibi succeed and believe the best way to do so is to work with folks who not only have different perspectives and expertise, but who are also eager to share knowledge and problem-solve together.

While tech debt normally has a very negative connotation, we embrace it.

We know we have a strong product-market fit, so rather than throwing many things at the wall to see what sticks, we focus on well-architected solutions at the cost of limiting functionality. This means we’re very intentional about our practices. The team doesn’t shy away from tech debt. In fact, we believe that if we’re prioritizing effectively and iterating, there’s going to be debt. We keep an eye on it and actively pay it down strategically.

To ensure a high-quality codebase, we have regular code reviews that focus on functionality as a starting point and architecture. We also invest heavily into shortening our feedback loops with a focus on observability and domain ownership.

We believe in getting in the boxing ring and learning by doing.

In order to innovate and move quickly, Sibi is willing to take risks. Knowing it takes a few misses to land a winning swing, we are more than happy to hop into the metaphorical boxing ring. To us, the best way to learn is by recognizing that no mistake is the fault of any one person. Rather, we view each misstep as a learning opportunity to make ourselves better. For example, when a team member recently broke production, we gathered together, shared a few cupcakes and made the experience fun while introducing an opportunity to learn. In general, there are very few safeguards because we celebrate learning from our mistakes. While there’s a pull request in order to push to master, we view it as more of a communication tool. It’s primarily a way to radiate community and intent, not to judge if you’re writing flawless code.

On average we ship to production tens of times a day – and sometimes double that.

It’s safe to say that at Sibi, shipping is our heartbeat. We love quick iterations that refine our assumptions based on our learnings. That said, it’s not a madhouse. We lean heavily on feature flags and testing in production. If something goes wrong, we’re able to simply turn it off. We view everything we write as a hypothesis, and the goal is always to validate our assumptions in tiny bits and learn from each iteration. At the end of the day, if something goes wrong, recovery time is always more important to us than perfection. We work hard to create an environment where it’s safe to fail (see above).

Life is short, so it should be fun and fulfilling.

Sibi encourages a healthy work life balance by striving to maintain a traditional 40-hour work week. We never ask you to work on weekends or holidays. On-call pager duty rotations are scheduled and fairly divided by team so that no one is overwhelmed by off-hour emergencies. As we are a growing start-up, all Sibi employees maintain some flexibility to meet overall company needs and deliverables, but luckily our practices and processes limit any excessive asks.

You are responsible for managing your own time, in and out of the office; therefore, as long as your work is complete, your department covered, and your supervisor in agreement, full-time salaried employees have the flexibility to take time off when needed to simply recharge, spend time with family or recover from an illness.

Sibi team members don’t just strive for balance outside of the office, but we actively strive for balance throughout the workday, too. Whether it’s jamming to office tunes, pausing for a game of ping pong, or joining the team table for lunch, we understand the importance of having a healthy ebb and flow in your workday.

We also support your ability to grow and improve through self-development and education. Basically, we love our team and want them to kill it, so we are going to help you be the best you can be. If you want to go to a conference that makes you a badass, then we will pay for it. If you find a book that you think will make you a better salesman or better the organization, we will buy it. If you find something awesome that you think would benefit yourself and/or your team, simply outline your request and we will run it up the ladder for approval, with the stipulation that if you learn something amazing…you share it!

It may be cliché, but we genuinely feel lucky to work with people who feel like family.

Going to work is that much better when there are genuine friendships and camaraderie among co-workers – that’s why we invest so heavily in building relationships. Our office in Gilbert, Arizona (just outside of Phoenix) was recently renovated and transformed from a vacant building into an open, modern space, designed specifically for collaboration and cross-team functioning.

Sibi employees often arrive early to make their morning coffee and chat about the latest and greatest before work. At lunch time, you will find the team gathered around the big dining table. In the afternoon, many like to take a break to grab a quick game of ping pong before jumping into the next task. Whether you’re on the same team or not, you’ll always find someone who is happy to chat and share what they’re working on.

After hours, the Sibi crew can often be found grabbing drinks for happy hour together, having game nights at the office, gathering for a round of fight nights, collaborating on hot crypto buys, long-boarding down quiet streets, hiking local trails or just hanging out together. We’ve even attended each other’s weddings!

As a remote employee based in Austin, Charlie knew he was walking into something special the first time he set foot in the Arizona office. “I could tell I was walking into a family – it felt natural and organic,” he says. “It’s evident that people have invested a great deal of their time, energy, and resources into Sibi and are proud to work here.” There’s a lot of fun going on, but also a strong emphasis on working and getting things done the right way.

Several Sibi team members attended Rye’s wedding (one of our designers).

While many of us have deep experience in the real estate industry, we also welcome people who are entirely new to the space.

Our CEO, Barrie, was a founding member of a successful business (that is actually one of Sibi’s customers today) buying and managing over tens of thousands of homes in 18+ markets. In his role there, he wanted to more easily manage assets by ensuring that each home was identical (i.e. same tile flooring, appliances, etc.). However, he quickly realized that big-box suppliers carry regional inventory, and there wasn’t an effective route to buy directly from manufacturers. Thus, Sibi was born, a direct-to-manufacturer tech platform.

Our technology eliminates gatekeepers and enables direct-to-manufacturing relationships. Sibi views the property address as its true customer and understands the importance of the data that is attached to a specific address (warranties, building materials, appliances, paint, etc.) and makes that data accessible to help inform smarter decision-making.

Everything we do here is intentional and we have a strong vision for what we’re building and how we’re executing – down to every new hire we make. For example, Barrie wasn’t going to settle for just any CTO. After two years of courting, he finally convinced Olu to join the team. “What impresses me most about this team is we’re great at hiring people whose strengths complement the existing team’s skills, experiences, and backgrounds.”

Sibi is 100% self-funded and it’s safe to say we all have a voice and seat at the table. We’re very conscious about not creating an echo chamber. We look for folks who have different backgrounds, experiences, and viewpoints, following the example of David Goggins to “Be uncommon amongst uncommon people.”

Sibi’s work life is a hybrid one, encompassing both remote and in-office options.

Our success is dependent on a culture of aligned values and expectations surrounding availability, communication, teamwork, and transparency.

While most of our team works from the office in Arizona, we are open to hiring people across the country and believe in working as if everyone’s remote. All team huddles are done via Zoom and teams make a conscious effort to incorporate every individual on the call, regardless of location. If the entire team can’t meet, or if the audio quality is bad and one person can’t hear, we won’t have the meeting.

Outside of team meetings, we are extremely flexible with our schedules and want you to get your work done in a way that suits you best. For scheduling and cross-team efficiency, Sibi has core work hours of 10:00 am to 3:00 pm PST, but outside of that, team members have flexibility on how they complete the rest of their workday. For example, Charlie plays tennis around 8:30 am a couple days a week, heads home, showers (hopefully), and jumps on his morning standup meeting. Whatever your passions and hobbies are outside of the office, we want you to lead full lives and have the flexibility to manage your own schedule.

While we emphasize asynchronous work as much as possible, we also realize it’s beneficial (and fun) to spend time together in person. We welcome remote employees to spend a week in the office once a quarter (or on a cadence that works best for them). Ultimately, whether you work in the office or remotely, you are part of the Sibi family.