Home Evaluation Specialist

The team

Birdwatch is a homeowner’s best friend: your own personal home manager and service team for repairs, maintenance, enhancements and much more. No longer do busy homeowners need to stress about finding one-off fixes and managing work: we do all of that on their behalf.

Birdwatch is on a mission to revolutionize home maintenance. We’re a venture-backed public benefit corporation, blending deep care for people with cutting-edge technology to redefine what homeowners expect from service providers. We are committed to taking exceptional care of our members, their properties, our community, and – most importantly – our team members.

The role

One of the key roles at Birdwatch is our Home Evaluation Specialist. These team members are broadly versed in all systems of the modern home – think home experienced inspectors, former general contractors, super handy-persons. As one piece of a robust onboarding process, these specialists go on-site with our members to document the property, the systems, deferred maintenance issues, and more.

But beyond these basics, it’s about what is holding our members back from being in a home they love, what’s working and what’s not. It’s equal parts technical knowledge and relationship-building. This role is also key because you interact with a member early in our relationship, setting the tone for our professionalism and service, and first impressions truly do matter: our goal is to have members for a decade, not for one project like many contractors these days.

The opportunity

Our membership is growing fast, and we need to add more of these team members for episodic, part-time work in both the DMV and Philadelphia metro areas. Schedules are flexible, and career opportunities are available.

We are fanatical about customer service and building a terrific place to work. We’re eager to meet highly talented candidates who want to make a difference in our members’ lives, who want to be valued in doing valuable work, and who want to be part of expanding our company culture. Our team is our greatest resource and we do everything we can to take great care of them, the same way we do our members’ homes.

Salary: $50-60 per hour

Work Hours: Including travel time, any accepted Home Evaluation visit will take up 3-4 hours of time in prep, data collection, and submission. Appointments would be scheduled generally in normal business hours, Monday to Friday 8:30 - 5:30 (unless you had other preferred times that we make available to members). Aside from some light visit prep work on computer that you can do anywhere, the work is in the field at residential homes.

Requirements: Legally authorized to work in the US

Are you excited? Then please read on for more details…

Work Description + Responsibilities

We want and need amazing customer experiences. So what is success in this role?

People Skills: Technical knowledge is the baseline, but as a great candidate you would have strong communication skills (verbal and written), easy-going confidence, and the ability to build rapport. The ability to “read the room” is key, so EQ is a must.

Contracting Specialization: Many great candidates are past/current home inspectors or general contractors, but the fundamental need is a broad-based understanding of residential housing. Having a wide breadth of experience in the trades gives our evaluation experts the ability to speak generally and confidently about the many parts of a home. For actual home inspectors, the challenge is often limiting the traditional home inspection scope significantly: this isn't designed to be a 100-page risk assessment, but a practical assessment of the property as an on-going home.

A Perfect Flight Route for Birdwatch: As we always say in interviews, this team is great. Servant leadership from the top along with an empathetic group of technicians (while the work is always challenging) keeps everyone motivated to be their best selves.

Examples of a successful Home Evaluation specialist would include:

• Curiosity
• Being a good listener and being patient
• Detail-oriented and able to use technology to accurately and quickly collect lots of data during the visit (including multitasking while possibly needing to engage the member)
• Comfort breaking the ice, building rapport, sharing relevant real-time information and findings in a professional, non-alarmist manner
• Well prepared, i.e. using information documented from the member’s virtual onboarding session to add personalization to a seamless, frictionless member experience (displaying we are “tuned into” the property and how/what to look for).
• Empathy towards one's colleagues and always going the extra mile to see if folks need support especially when there is time in the calendar.
• Over-communicating and always asking questions. A step further, identifying an issue and offering a solution for the team to consider.
• Ability to identify safety concerns (gas issue, smoke/CO detector concern, handrail issues, etc.)
• Identify and explain routine and preventive maintenance options that apply to each individual property.

Qualifications Education and Experience

• Broad property and (hands on) maintenance knowledge a must!
• Experience in home evaluation/inspection a strong indicator (2+ years)
• Experience with training and mentoring is a plus!
• Trade certifications are a plus!

Required Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Strong attention to detail
• Superior customer service skills, including the ability to manage the full range of member personalities with clear, empathetic, patient communication
• Independent operator: superior organization, time management, and problem-solving skills
• Ability to recognize systemic problems and, when relevant, offer solutions to enhance and improve current systems
• Ability to work indoors and outdoors, sometimes get into tight spaces, able to lift 50+ lbs
• Knowledge of the geographic area (either Philly or DMV)
• Your own transportation and ability to navigate the city