Kiwi.com’s new Barcelona office
Our CTO Jozef Képesi answers questions about Kiwi.com’s new Development office in Barcelona, Spain.
- Why are you opening an office in Spain?
The launch of Kiwi.com in Spain is part of our global expansion process. We actually want to make Barcelona one of our most trusted international destinations because of its enormous potential for business innovation and the presence of lots of tech startups. It’s the sixth city that we’ve opened an office in and we’re convinced that we’ll find extremely talented local professionals there.
2. Why Barcelona and not Madrid?
It’s well known that there are lots of talented engineers in Barcelona and we hope to hire some of them.
We chose Barcelona because it’s a city that’s clearly positioning itself as the Spanish Silicon Valley. A huge number of startups and tech companies are opening their offices there. Barcelona has a worldwide reputation as a startup-friendly city and we’ve always found it to be a very favourable climate for our business.
3. Where will the offices be located exactly?
At the moment we’re looking at DISTRICT22@ because it’s important for us to be in an area where there are other tech companies and startups.
4. What sort of employees are you looking for?
We want to establish a strong tech team, specialising in Big Data and IT. It’s also important for us to find marketing guys who know the Spanish market. Obviously, as soon as the team grows, we’ll also need office managers and HR professionals.
5. How many people do you plan to hire in Barcelona?
We’ll start with around 20 employees in the short term but from our experience in other countries, we expect rapid growth.
6. What are your expectations for the Spanish market?
Our goal is to become the leading online travel agency in Spain and worldwide — offering cheaper flights and unique routes, services, and guarantees that aren’t available elsewhere.
Mobile is becoming the key platform for travel in general. We’ve invested heavily in our mobile app because it’s the tool of choice for most travellers these days. We’ve found that in some countries, users have totally bypassed the desktop and gone straight to mobile — they are more happy to transact on a hand-held device.
On the other hand, Spaniards are keen travellers and always have been. We want to show them the best value and most user-friendly way of booking their trips. We’re mainly talking about flights at the moment but there will soon be so much more. I'll let you know about those new developments when we launch them. We really are challenging the norms of the travel industry and we’re truly putting the power back in the consumer’s hands.
You can find more information about our available job positions in Barcelona here.
Around ten Kiwi.com developers, HR, and community representatives will be at the PyData conference in Barcelona from May 19–21. If you plan on attending, make sure you stop by our booth for a chat and to enter our quiz to win flights! If you’re not at the conference, but you still want to meet us in Barcelona, send us an email to pydata@kiwi.com or meet us on Friday evening, May 19 in the CocoVail Beer Hall for a couple of Czech beers — on us of course!
