Open Book: Claire Longo, Engineering Manager, Pricing

Open Book is a series of interviews for you to get to know the incredible people of Opendoor. Learn how a passion for solving robust machine learning problems at scale led Claire to the Pricing team at Opendoor. In her Q&A, Claire also discusses the projects she and her team are working on and why she believes now is an exciting time to join Opendoor.

Hi Claire! Can you tell us a bit about your background and what led you to Opendoor?

I’ve built my career around solving the challenges that come from delivering successful data science products. I began my career as a statistician after studying math and science. Data science was a relatively new field at the time. Shortly after starting out, I learned how to program in Python and train Machine Learning (ML) models, and I decided to shape my career around data science. I found that while different companies experienced different pain points, one thing was consistent: They were all able to train great models, but found it difficult to get the business to use them. As a data scientist, I trained some models that didn’t get used, and I became a little frustrated. I started to ask myself, “What kind of problems can I solve around this?”

At one of my previous companies, I worked closely with a talented senior data scientist/engineer who taught me how to scale my models and integrate them into production systems. I learned so many of my software engineering skills from him, and they were all centered on integrating machine learning models into production systems. I took the skills I gained from that experience to become a machine learning engineer.

Opendoor stood out to me because the company is customer-focused and growing quickly. I knew that there would be a wide variety of interesting and robust machine learning problems to solve to help the company scale. And I wanted to be a part of it.

We’re so glad you’re here! What surprised you when you first joined the team?

I was surprised to find that despite its rapid-growth, Opendoor still feels like a startup in many ways. Especially at the management-level, we still wear many hats. On any given day, I could be a program manager, principal engineer, or engineering manager — It’s all about what the team and business need at the time. No two days are the same, and that keeps things interesting.

I joined Opendoor remotely and while I have worked from home with other companies, I always started a new role physically in the office with my team. With this new experience, I was inspired to find new ways to get to know my new teammates on a personal level, build strong stakeholder relationships, and help establish a foundation across the team. I found that to succeed in a fully remote role, I needed to be very purposeful about remote collaboration. I encourage my team and push myself to meet people from other teams. We also participate in training outside of our team’s direct responsibility to help us build a strong understanding of what people are working on across the company.

“On the Pricing team, we often work together to design projects that can be more collaborative. This way, even when we break projects into separate parts, we’re working toward a shared goal.”

Can you tell us a bit about what you’re working on now, and what types of problems the Pricing team is solving?

Our team is helping drive how Opendoor values homes. Pricing analysts also play a critical part in this work, and their feedback helps us improve models over time. Together, we’re optimizing pricing for both home acquisition and resale.

We recently began work on a new Machine Learning lifecycle management tooling project that will promote and retrain models that predict home valuations. This is essential to our business, and it will help us maintain the quality of our ML models so we can provide the best possible customer experience for people across the US who are buying or selling a home.

Looking ahead, what are you most excited about? What have you found to be the most rewarding opportunities at Opendoor?

There’s so much opportunity to make an impact here! I often tell people that while engineers can opt to join a well-established, global tech company where you’ll be using state-of-the-art ML systems, Opendoor offers the opportunity to build these systems from the ground up.

“We are future-focused, and you can truly build from the ground up here.”

One of my favorite things about being part of the team is the visibility we have. At Opendoor data science and machine learning is our bottom line. It’s one of the core drivers for the business. This means it is a place where you can deliver results with data science and machine learning and see the tangible impact it’s making on the business. This has been incredibly rewarding, and it drives me every day.

Which skills and characteristics help people succeed on your team? At Opendoor?

Having a mindset that focuses on automation comes to mind first. Anything we can do to automate and generalize our code will improve our product, and give us more work-life balance over time. Someone who is a quick study in finding ways to automate some of our processes, or design and build systems for the long term will do well on our team and at the company.

At Opendoor, having a passion for our business and what we do for our customers spans all teams. Bringing genuine interest and excitement to problem-solving can make a meaningful difference in what we’re able to accomplish.

A manager, how do you foster innovation and creativity across the team?

One of my favorite leadership books — and the one I constantly find myself recommending — is Creativity Inc., a book about Pixar. I’ve taken the lessons I learned about creating a culture that fosters innovation from this book to each team I’ve been a part of throughout my career. I’m a firm believer in “bottoms up” culture and leadership, and I want to hear about different approaches and ideas we can try from everyone on the team. There’s never only one way to do something, and it’s our different perspectives and diverse work experience that empowers our team to innovate.

I’ve learned that employing this leadership approach also means being intentional about balance and how we build on ideas. Part of my job is to guide and teach, which is something I love and learned from great bosses who have helped me during my career. I’m always thinking about how I can empower engineers to work on projects they’re passionate about and how we can encourage one another to think outside of the box.

How do you like to spend your time outside of work? What inspires you?

While I love working remotely, I’ve found that being at home has made getting out of the house more important than ever before. I really look forward to opportunities where I can think about something totally different or have new experiences. I love meeting new people, going to a concert or the orchestra, or trying new things.

I also enjoy podcasts and have been listening to DeepMind every morning. A team of scientists, engineers, ethicists, and others discuss cutting-edge research that is new in data science and the industry. Seeing how the data science and machine learning field continues to change based on innovative research like this is inspiring.

Interested in joining our team? Opendoor is hiring across all teams, including Pricing! Check out our current open positions!

Want to learn more about working at Opendoor? Check out our Design and Engineering and Data Science blogs.