PROPERTY technology firm Poplar Homes is expanding its workforce in Davao City, where it has a full-scale office with teams for engineering, web development, sales, and customer service.
Rico Mok, chief technology officer and co-founder of the company that used to be called One Rent, said for the engineering team alone, they are looking to double the number within the next quarter.
“Our engineering team is based here in Davao City, we have a team of about 40 people… being web developers, people who create the products and it’s a true testament of what the team can do,” he said in an interview last week.
The company is on the lookout for talents from the city after recently securing $53 million in Series B funding, the second round of capitalization for a company that has passed the startup stage.
Poplar Homes provides technology solutions to property owners and renters in several parts of the United States and is looking to expand its scope of services. It is also eyeing to cover more American states as well as enter the Asian market.
“We started our team here with customer service first and as we developed the team, we found out that the talents here are very diverse, not just concentrated on voice or non-voice,” Mr. Mok said.
“And I came to know a couple of developers, meaning engineers, computer engineers and you know, they were very impressive and I see that they are better in some sense than our team in Silicon Valley, so we decided to create our team here as well.”
The Davao City office, which serves as the company’s Philippine base, was opened in June 2016. It currently employs about 250 people.
For the human resource expansion, Mr. Mok said they are open to hiring fresh graduates as well as those who already have extensive experience in the industry. — Maya M. Padillo