All workCase study
OwnAmerica.Built, then bought.
A marketplace for buying and selling rental houses as investments. I was the full-stack engineer and the UX lead.
- The product
- Marketplace for single-family rental investments
- My job
- Full-stack engineer and UX lead
- The team
- Me, another engineer and a QA person
- How it ended
- Acquired by Renters Warehouse, 2019
What it was
A single-family rental is an ordinary house that somebody rents out. OwnAmerica was the marketplace where investors went to buy and sell them.
What I did
Two jobs at once. I wrote the code on both ends, what you click and what happens behind it, and I designed how the thing looked and worked.
I also ran the software projects for a team of three: me, another engineer, and a QA person, whose whole job is to break the thing before a customer does.
Holding both jobs matters more than it sounds. When the person who draws the screen is the person who has to build it, nobody draws something that can't be built, and nobody builds something that's miserable to use.
Renters Warehouse bought it.
The acquisition made the trade press in 2018, and the deal closed on January 1, 2019. That part is public record. Look it up.
Why it's here
When a company gets bought, the buyer's people open the product up and look hard at it. Mine has been through that.
That's the bar I build to now. Every build I do ships with the folder a buyer asks for: who owns what, how it's put together, what's been tested, and how to run it without me.
This page is short on purpose. It was a while ago, and the details belong to the people who bought the company. What I can give you is the job, the team and how it ended.
Got something like this on your plate? The first half hour is free, and I'll tell you straight whether you need me.