A social network for real people
Nextdoor is a neighborhood-based social network. It is the best way to stay informed about what’s going on in your neighborhood—whether it’s finding a last-minute babysitter, planning a local event, or sharing safety tips. There are so many ways our neighbours can help us, Nextdoor provides an easier way to connect with them.
Even a skilled team benefits from specialists
The web and infrastructure engineering team at Nextdoor is talented and adept. Through their collective efforts, they built a social network that affords users great value.
In spite of this expertise, their team faced an obstacle. They simply didn’t have internal geospatial expertise to solve problems around scale and ETL (extract, transform, and load) routines.
Additionally, the company was expanding internationally. However, it lacked the GIS resources required to evaluate foreign open data.
We add elasticity to established tech teams
On Nextdoor’s request, we stepped in to lend a hand. We provided advice on spatial database design and added capacity to the development of their spatial database and custom API.
Since then, we continue to act as a reliable elastic geospatial team that assists with map-related tasks. This included helping with Nextdoor’s international expansion. We did so by sourcing GIS data suitable for ingestion from different countries’ open data.
No one has ever not hired us again
We take special pride in the fact that every one of our clients has tapped us for additional projects. This is the same with Nextdoor. Our two companies have collaborated for over 5 years. In that time, we have grown close—and enjoy the benefits of working together.
Today, we support Nextdoor with GIS data expertise. We also provide advice on spatial data and database design. They use these to help with their data growth and expansion to new markets.
“Sparkgeo has been critical for us as we have undertaken the large project of re-thinking, re-designing and rebuilding the geospatial databases and infrastructure that power Nextdoor.
Their deep understanding of geospatial data, database technologies, and software development in general has been an invaluable asset to us. Though working remotely, communication with Sparkgeo has been frequent and open.
As we continue to build out our core geo infrastructure, we are poised to grow and expand to other datasets and other markets, including international ones. Sparkgeo’s expertise and hard work has helped put us in this position.”
—David Wiesen, Co-founder and Director of Engineering at Nextdoor.com