People Behind Product: Meet Jürgen Schmidt, Senior Software Engineer at ImmoScout24

Hi Jürgen, you've been working at ImmoScout24 for 10 years now. Could you tell us  your personal history with the company ?

Jürgen: My personal history with ImmoScout24 actually started before my first day at work. Before that, I was a consultant with a focus on software quality assurance and almost had the opportunity to work as a temporary external employee in the QA team of IT. It didn't work out, but in the meeting with my future colleagues I already knew that I was going to try my luck again in person later.

And since I was able to make a good impression, I soon became a new "Scoutie." My journey started as a Quality Engineer and my expertise was needed for the development of the Android App. The timing was just right, because it was probably (also in retrospect) the most extensive release in its history. In other words, there were all kinds of bugs to fix. Since then, I have remained loyal to the product and the "mobile apps" domain. In early 2015, I moved into the role of a Software Engineer and for about 3 years now, I have continuously expanded my focus from the Android app to the backends, where I am developing our APIs for the mobile apps, among other things.

You pitched a very special feature as part of Immscout24’s HackWeek:  Travel Time. Can you tell us more about it?

Jürgen: The "Travel Time" feature is a tool for users to help them make decisions. It can display the average expected travel time to their own relevant locations for any exposé.

My assumption was that mobility is becoming more and more important for people and at the same time it is a time-consuming factor in everyday life. And if we give the user the simple opportunity to find between several offers the one that promises them the least loss of time due to mobility, that it will be accepted.

The same database that is used to calculate routes in Google Maps is behind the travel time calculation. Currently, it is possible to calculate the travel time for up to three locations and for four different modes of transport (public transport, car, bicycle or on foot).

What was the process like back then? How much time passed from the pitch to the final development?

Jürgen: As the name suggests, the HackWeek (note: January 2018) took up the entire working week. On Monday morning, I and many others were able to pitch our own ideas in about two minutes on a stage in front of everyone who was interested. The main goal was to get others to participate in the project or to get first feedbacks. Afterwards, there was time until Friday afternoon to implement a prototype, which I finally presented during the results presentation at the same location. I created a screen recording for the presentation, but then also presented the feature live on a smartphone to anyone interested on the sidelines of the event. The best projects were then awarded with a prize. Apart from that, I was able to convince my product manager of my project and nine months later it became a full feature of the Android app. Later on, other platforms followed, as most recently the web.

What has been your biggest professional highlight at ImmoScout24 so far?

Jürgen: Among some of my highlights, I would most likely pick out working on improving the search experience of our apps. We once developed this initiative in collaboration with an agency specializing in Android. Therefore, I was also able to spend four weeks in London at the end of 2015 with another colleague from ImmoScout24 at the agency to get to know their way of working and to advance my skills as an Android developer. The collaboration produced very good results and the search ended up being much more modern in design and better in usability than it was before. I think many of our users have confirmed this in their reviews.

What future projects are in the pipeline?

Jürgen: An exciting project that I was allowed to participate in has just started . It's called "Shared Shortlist." It allows you to share and unite your shortlist with another person, as long as you are logged in as a user. This allows both users to comment on each exposé in the shortlist together. We will certainly continue to develop this feature to further emphasize its usefulness.

Regarding the search, we are working on improvements such as searching for more than just one type of property. For example, many users have requested to search for both apartments for rent and condominiums in the same location.