Despite branding itself as a real estate technology company, Compass has been without a chief technology officer since March — but that’s about to change, as the company announced on Tuesday it’s bringing in Joseph Sirosh, formerly Microsoft’s chief technology officer of artificial intelligence.
“We are thrilled to bring [Sirosh’s] AI, machine learning and cloud computing expertise to Compass as we accelerate our technology roadmap and build out our product stack,” Compass Chairman Ori Allon said in a statement. “[Sirosh’s] leadership at Microsoft and Amazon will galvanize our 170+ member technical team as we build the industry’s first-ever end-to-end platform.”
Prior to joining Compass, Sirosh served as the chief technology officer of artificial intelligence at Microsoft, where he oversaw the development and expansion of the company’s cloud AI and data products. Sirosh also worked at Amazon, where he was the vice president of the company’s global inventory platform and responsible for the science and software behind the technology giant’s supply chain and order fulfillment system.
Joseph Sirosh. (Credit: Joseph Sirosh on Twitter)
In his new role, Sirosh will lead Compass’ engineering team as it builds out new AI-powered products. The release also notes he will, “scale Compass’ technology platform to capture global real estate supply and connect it to worldwide consumer demand,” hinting at a consumer-facing platform, or an update to its already existing offerings, which include its website and app.
He will report to Maëlle Gavet, Compass’ chief operating officer.
“I’m excited to join Compass to transform the real estate experience through technology, ” Sirosh said in a statement. “Compass is a company with a once in a lifetime opportunity and when technologies like artificial intelligence are used to enhance the human experience, it can be a game changer. It will be a privilege leading this organization’s impressive technical team towards this new future.”
Inman asked Compass for more details on the platform and it declined to comment further. A spokesperson also declined to make Sirosh available for an interview.
Keller Williams has publicly announced plans to develop its own consumer-facing real estate platform. The company has said it plans to unveil the first stages of its consumer app in the first quarter of 2019.
Compass has been without a chief technology officer since Liming Zhao left the company in March.
In the wake of Compass’ most recent $400 million funding round, the company has invested more heavily into technology development. It acquired the 20-person technical team behind the e-commerce app Spring and also snagged the leadership behind apartment rental startup VeryApt. With the recent moves, Compass’ technical team is now north of 150 employees.
The company has also spent the year re-shuffling and filling out its executive ranks, most recently hiring Kristen Ankerbrandt as chief financial officer. Earlier this year, the company brought in Khurrum Malik as chief marketing officer and Matt Rosenberg as chief marketing officer.
