How Lemon helped RealEstateAPI scale – without burning out its CTO

RealEstateAPI is a data architecture that gives developers fast, easy access to property data. Historically, founders trying to build in proptech, lending, or home services only had two options when integrating property data:

1. Get a bulk data license from a big box data aggregator, which is prohibitively expensive and complicated to manage.
2. Use an aggregator’s API. These are cheaper, but they aren’t designed for app development.

Vince Harris, RealEstateAPI’s CEO and cofounder, set out to remove those barriers, designing a big data as a service platform built specifically for developers. Not surprisingly, RealEstateAPI caught on quickly, powering everything from map-based search tools to automated underwriting models, with nationwide coverage of over 157 million properties.

While this was a welcome success, it came at a cost. Vince’s cofounder, the company’s CTO, was struggling to keep up with the rapid growth. After hearing about Lemon on Jason Calacanis’s podcast, This Week in Startups, Vince decided to reach out.

By the time Vince and his cofounder started looking for help, they were already underwater.

The team couldn’t afford to go through a long hiring process. Lemon had a reputation for moving fast – and from the very first interaction, they delivered.

A polished, transparent hiring experience

The portal included a lightly gamified feature that showed which developers had recently received offers and were in high demand.

Global access to talent

Lemon’s deep roots in Eastern Europe were another feather in their cap.

But that’s not the only place Lemon’s developers are from. Clients can choose from talent in virtually every time zone.

Highly vetted candidates

The portal made browsing for candidates easy, but what saved the most time was Lemon’s upfront vetting.

Instead of dozens of resumes, Lemon gave Vince and his cofounder a shortlist of three, very qualified candidates. To confirm fit, they gave each engineer a practicum that mimicked the kind of work they’d be doing at RealEstateAPI. The Lemon engineer they hired outperformed the rest.

Fair pricing

For a fast-growing startup, cost is always top of mind. But Lemon struck the right balance for the RealEstateAPI team.

Lemon’s hire didn’t just ease the CTO’s load, she quickly became an integral part of the team.

Painless onboarding

Originally, RealEstateAPI hoped to bring the engineer on through their HR system. When that didn’t work, Lemon stepped in.

Within days, the new engineer was fully integrated into the RealEstateAPI team, joining morning standups, making suggestions, and contributing to high-priority data projects. 

Not just another contractor

Day to day, she runs the data warehouse and manages all the company’s data pipelines – work that underpins the entire RealEstateAPI platform. 

Proactive support

Lemon isn’t the kind of hiring platform that places an engineer and disappears.

To him, Lemon feels like a partner who actually pays attention.

At one point, RealEstateAPI asked Lemon for a second resource. The engineer they hired was talented but more accustomed to large enterprise environments than a scrappy startup.

That experience didn’t shake their confidence – it built trust.

For RealEstateAPI, Lemon’s engineer wasn’t just a quick fix. She’s become an indispensable team member who handles mission-critical work and gives the CTO room to breathe.

With her help, the company has continued to scale. So much so, they’ve already put in a request for another Lemon engineer who can support their next phase of expansion.

Looking for the kind of talent that feels impossible to find when you’re moving fast? Sign up today and get matched this week.