Open Book: Qiang Zhu, Head of Data Science & Analytics

Open Book is a series of interviews for you to get to know the incredible people of Opendoor. Led by a passion to solve consumer problems, Qiang Zhu came to Opendoor to help lead the Data Science and Analytics organization. He explains why data, rather than instinct, is critical for making key decisions, and shares how his team is helping create the best possible experience for customers who use Opendoor.

Hi Qiang, we’re looking forward to going behind the scenes of the Data and Analytics organization with you today! Will you begin by sharing a bit about your path to Data Science and Opendoor?

Data Science is still a relatively new field, and I was fortunate to gain experience with Data while completing my PhD. My first job as a Data Scientist was at StumbleUpon, a content discovery engine recommending web pages personalized to users’ interests. I followed that experience with four years at LinkedIn, where I focused on data projects that enabled Sales and Marketing teams to understand how a social network could help improve efficiency while connecting with potential customers. After LinkedIn, I spent time at Airbnb and Intuit. In both roles, I was able to dive deeper into different industries and work on data science projects of varying scope and scale. Each of these experiences furthered my passion for solving consumer problems, which ultimately led me to Opendoor.

“Having bought and sold a home before, Opendoor’s mission really resonated with me.”

I knew about Opendoor for some time, and I loved the concept of digitizing one of life’s most important transactions. A conversation with Kushal Chakrabarti, Opendoor’s VP of Research and Data Science, further opened my eyes to the power of data in housing. I saw how I could leverage my interest and experience to drive meaningful impact, and I was delighted to join the team in 2021.

We’re so glad you’re here too. What did you see as the biggest opportunity when you first joined the team?

Most of the time data scientists, data analysts and engineers just deal with data, but at Opendoor, we have a variety of operators, such as customer service partners, agents, tour assistants, property managers, who deeply understand our customers’ needs. The small details and nuances of the service they provide to meet customer needs requires us to understand those interactions in order to find creative ways to delight our customers.

I also saw tremendous opportunity to help build and develop a world-class Data Science and Analytics organization here, collaborating closely with Product, Trust & Safety, Marketing, Ops, and other cross-functional teams. This is incredibly exciting and serves as a constant source of motivation for me.

Can you tell us about how data empowers teams across Opendoor, helping us create the best possible experience for our customers?

Data, rather than instinct, drives all of our key decisions at Opendoor — even if our learnings aren’t what we hoped they would be. While we have a team of people who collect feedback and can share more qualitative learnings, our team helps tell the bigger story by sharing the numbers behind what’s happening with our customers and the impact on our business. We drive strategic learning agendas to help teams ask better questions, and we have established a process to scale the evidence-based learning practice across the company.

Within Data Science, we look at the entire customer journey. We think about what the experience is like, and what people do at different stages of the home buying and selling process. It’s our job to understand any blockers they face (and when they encounter them) so we can work with teams to create a smooth and seamless customer experience.

What skills make someone successful on the Data Science team?

While we are looking for experts in predictive modeling, numerical optimization, causal inference, and natural language processing, “soft” skills are incredibly important. We move fast, operate with urgency, and bias towards action without sacrificing quality.

We value team members who have the ability to build a 1day/1week/1month/6month roadmap, prioritize throughput over latency, and ship end-to-end integration early. We’re a results-driven team, so it’s critical we know when to change course or double-down so we can communicate it with a sense of urgency.

“Immersing yourself into the business to think beyond Data Science and showing a strong product sense goes a long way.”

Real estate is complex and we often need to take off the Data Scientist hat to see the problem through our partner teams’ eyes. For example, we look at the entire customer journey like a product manager. We think about the experience and what people do at different stages of the home buying and selling process. It’s our job to understand any blockers they face and when so we can focus on those areas to create a smooth and seamless customer experience.

We’re building relationships across teams, have a large and unique data set to work with, and are fortunate to have strong support from leadership and partners. And despite doubling in size last year, we’ve maintained a startup mentality. Everyone brings passion, curiosity, and a willingness to learn to our efforts each day.

Which characteristics do people on cross-functional teams have in common? How do people exhibit company values?

Across the company, there’s a real emphasis on openness and honesty. Feedback is central to our culture, which makes it easy to ask questions. This is important, because real estate is complex. People who do well at Opendoor have an ability to receive feedback with good intention, and they embrace every opportunity to listen, learn, and grow.

Leadership encourages everyone to think like an owner and take intelligent risks. We celebrate different perspectives, share ideas, and learn from failures together. Diversity of thought empowers us to think differently, experiment, and drive innovation.

How do you cultivate an inclusive, empowering environment?

A number of years ago, Google conducted a survey to learn more about employee engagement and found that psychological safety is the most important factor at work. The importance in ensuring people feel comfortable to speak up and be their authentic selves in a professional setting really stuck with me, and it has inspired my approach to leadership.

“I’ve found the flexibility, autonomy, and growth opportunities for leadership at Opendoor to be tremendous. We have the rare freedom to truly define a vision and play that out.”

To create and foster a positive environment within the Data Science and Analytics organization, I encourage people to share their opinions and engage in healthy debate. It’s then my job to step back and listen, and I often ask “why” questions to help guide and teach our team. I’m also intentional about creating opportunities for people across the team to have a strong voice. From 1:1s and smaller groups to brainstorming sessions and larger, cross-functional efforts, we collaborate in a variety of ways so everyone has a chance to share their expertise and drive equal impact.

Why do you think now is an exciting time to join Opendoor?

Our mission to empower everyone with the freedom to move quickly, easily and with certainty is clear and there’s so much we still need to do to achieve our vision. While we began by helping people sell their homes to Opendoor, we’ve since introduced Buy with Opendoor, and added services such as Opendoor Home Loans and Opendoor Backed Offers to help buyers win the home of their dreams. Last November we introduced Opendoor Complete, which also brings us a big step closer to enabling the entire transaction with the click of a button.

When you think about how two-thirds of sellers are also buyers, and 98% of first-time homebuyers lost a home they were interested in, it’s clear that we’re in an exciting position to solve a major consumer problem. There’s limitless opportunity to make an impact here and tons of exciting challenges to solve, whether with logistics, data, building, figuring out how to introduce the benefits for each feature, or working with customers. If this sounds interesting to you, we’d love to meet you!

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

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