Our Tech StartUp’s New Office

SmartRecruiters Office Manager Melinda Johnson explains how our tech startup, SmartRecruiters, is creating its new place of business:

Over the past 6 weeks, our 750 square foot office space in SOMA has become a bit…shall we say…cozy. Desks (and the people to fill them) have doubled and with no end in sight to SmartRecruiters hiring, I expect we’ll soon be hanging desks from the ceiling.

SmartRecruiters Office Manager Melinda Johnson Knocks Down Walls.

This is a not uncommon problem for innovative tech companies in San Francisco at this time. Our products, our people(!), our brilliance booms quickly, unexpectedly, in spurts like fireworks on the Fourth of July… but our office space has yet to boom with us. So, what is one to do?  Look for a new office location, of course. I led the search. However, with so many companies booming simultaneously in such a small geographical area, the search for a new space became a race to get there first.

After two false starts, I am happy to report that SmartRecruiters has found our next home! We were unexpectedly lucky and, as David Smooke has said, “These are big walls.” We have moved north, toward Market Street. Our new office sits where SOMA Meets Downtown, a 5,000 square foot cement blank canvas with 20-foot ceilings (see more pictures below).

We’re half way through the remodeling process.

Walls have been torn down.  New walls have been built elsewhere.  Every day, more decisions need to be made – paint colors, desk layout, Foosball table handle shapes – all important decisions necessary to make our new office space as sleek and user-friendly as the great technology we will develop once we’re there.

Moving day is racing towards us.  Our excitement is tangible as we huddle together in our small office, sharing desks and good-naturedly maneuvering through the daily challenges that arise when you stuff 10 folks into an one room office. Of course we will miss the office that we have called home for the last year and a half.  But we have more brilliance waiting to shine and now we have the space to sparkle.

Melinda Johnson loves to create organization out of chaos.  She is an artistic yet precise tech geek with a degree in Performing Arts.  Master of all things administrative, she’d be happy to build you a web page, a complex travel itinerary, a benefits plan or a piece of furniture.  She enjoys reading post-apocalyptic science fiction novels, coercing yarn into knit and crochet objects and photographing the world around her. Also, she is the Office Manager at SmartRecruiters.

Check out some of our tech office building progress so far: