Get to Know: Kazu Omatsu, Software Engineer
After close to a decade in the San Francisco startup scene, Kazu Omatsu says he could tell right away that Thumbtack was special. In this interview, he explains how the company’s empathetic culture, unique technical challenges, and potential for growth convinced him to join the team.
What does Thumbtack do, and what do you do at Thumbtack?
We connect people with local service professionals, for everything from personal training to DJs. Our platform has two sides — one where customers can request bids and select the pros they want to work with, and another for the pros themselves, where they can manage requests and find new customers. I joined this summer as a software engineer, primarily working on frontend code for our Pro Tools team.
What’s unique about working here?
Culture is such a vague term, but there really is a special energy at Thumbtack. And it’s not the chaotic, stressful energy you feel at some startups. It’s that everyone is happy and excited to be here. The leadership has done a great job of bringing on people who are friendly and work well with others. There are no egos, which is relatively rare.
“Leadership has done a great job of bringing on people who are friendly and work well with others. There are no egos.”
In Engineering specifically, the culture is fairly bottom-up. We have input on the direction of what we’re building, and there’s a definite sense of ownership. We have a lot of technical discussions about how things should be written and designed. So I think it’s a good place both for experienced people who want to see their ideas realized, and for newer engineers who want to contribute as they learn.
We also have a lot of input on timelines, which is awesome. Some companies waste time on things that won’t make a difference, and end up releasing products very slowly. Other places try to ship things so quickly that the code base gets messy and almost impossible to work on. I feel like all the engineers here have a good sense of how to strike the right balance.
Tell us about the technical problems you’re solving.
Right now, I’m working on a tool that will make it easier for pros to specify where they want to work. A simple radius isn’t always enough — in the Bay Area, for example, you might only want to bid on jobs within the city limits of San Francisco, or on the peninsula, or in the East Bay. But if you have to click or un-click each individual zip code within 30 miles, that gets tedious quickly. So we’re looking at ways to group zip codes by region, and designing a new API that sets up multiple tiers for locations. The trick is coming up with a good interface and a way to structure the data so it can be used across our apps.
Why did you decide to join Thumbtack?
I had a few offers to consider, and it came down to the people at Thumbtack, as well as the interesting problems they were solving. I’d used the app myself, and I’d checked out the website, but that just shows you the customer side. Once I’d seen the scope of the projects the team was working on, that got me excited about how I could contribute.
“It came down to the people at Thumbtack, as well as the interesting problems they were solving.”
And when I interviewed here, I just clicked with everyone I talked to. They were all smart and super-friendly, but it was more than that. There was a level of empathy with the user that you don’t see from a lot of engineers. It was almost a gut instinct that I would enjoy working here, and I’ve had no regrets. Everyone is awesome, and it makes such a difference in your day-to-day happiness when your teammates are people you genuinely like. I’ve worked at several startups in the Bay Area, and this is the first one I’ve been excited about in a long time.
What were your first few weeks like?
I got to work on real stuff within a couple of weeks. I had a mentor who walked me through the code base and helped me get set up, then I started with some small tasks, to learn the ropes. We also have Thumbtack University, which is a three-day boot camp that helps you understand how the company is structured and what each team is trying to accomplish. I like that you start out seeing that big picture.
Do you use Thumbtack yourself?
I actually used it before I even joined. I got married about a year ago, and my wife and I found several vendors on Thumbtack, including our photo booth, our florist, and our videographer. Now that I’m on the team, I have “Thumbtack Bucks” that I can use — we all get them every quarter. I just spent mine last week to hire a handyman. He repaired a few doors on our house, and it went great.
What’s most exciting about joining Thumbtack right now?
Local services is a huge market, and we have the potential to own it. So there are a lot of exciting opportunities here. This space has so many interesting challenges. With Instant Match, we’re now matching customers and pros in real-time, and there are all sorts of things we can add to make Thumbtack the go-to platform for professionals and the people who need to hire them. There are a lot of pieces to the puzzle, and I’m excited about every project in our pipeline right now.
Interested in learning more?
Check out open roles or get in touch at recruiting@thumbtack.com
