Restaurateur / Refurbisher

Location: 100% on-site, at our warehouse in Marly-la-Ville (1h north of Paris). This role is not remote or hybrid.

Context

Enky is a multi-vertical scale-up spanning workspace/coworking, hospitality, and furniture-asset-backed financing. We're now launching a new vertical: a B2C e-commerce platform selling vintage and design furniture directly to consumers.

To kick this off, we've acquired 1,000 pieces of vintage furniture, currently stored in our warehouse in Marly-la-Ville, and this is just the beginning. We intend to keep buying vintage furniture at scale, so the volume coming through will only grow. Before any of it can go live on the platform, every piece needs to be brought up to sellable condition: cleaned, repaired, and finished to the standard our brand requires. That's where this role comes in: you're one of the people directly responsible for turning this inventory into a product we can actually sell.

Job Description

The role in one line

You bring the vintage and second-hand pieces we buy back to sellable condition. Cleaning, waxing, finishing, minor repairs: that's your bench, and nothing else. Your focus is refurbishment — that's the priority. Documentation, photography, and formal quality control are owned by others, but we're looking for someone willing to pitch in on those when needed.

Your job is to make every piece look good and hold up.

Responsibilities

Refurbishment — the core of the role

• Clean, wax, polish, touch up, tighten, re-glue, replace fittings: the work that takes a piece from as-bought to sellable, beyond what the warehouse team can do at intake.

• Judge how far to intervene, within the limits agreed with the Quality Specialist and Regisseur. Over-restoration destroys value — stripping an original finish or polishing out patina can cost more than the damage it corrects. Knowing where to stop matters as much as the work itself, and edge cases go to the Regisseur rather than being decided alone at the bench.

• Work from the pieces and instructions handed to you (condition report, priorities)

• Maintain the on-site work area and its consumables.

What this role is not

This role is centered on refurbishment — that's where the bulk of your time and impact will be. Things like documentation and catalogue data, warehouse floor quality control, photography, returns handling, coordination with external restorers, per-piece budget arbitration, and warehouse oversight sit primarily with other functions (Régisseur, Quality Specialist, Ops).

That said, we're not looking for someone who only stays in their lane. If you're curious about the wider operation and want to pitch in on those areas from time to time, that's welcome — it just won't be the core of what you're measured on.

Profile

Essential:

• 5–10 years of hands-on refurbishment of design, vintage or antique furniture, ideally at the higher end of the market: restoration workshop, high-end dealer, design gallery, auction house, or specialist art logistics. We need someone who arrives already working to a premium standard.

• Demonstrable manual skill in cleaning and refurbishment: confident with wood finishes, waxing, repairs and hardware. Can point to pieces they've brought back to sellable condition themselves.

• Sound judgement on how far to intervene — understands that patina and original finish carry value, and knows when to stop before destroying it.

• Solid general knowledge of 20th-century furniture and its materials (solid wood vs veneer, upholstery construction, finishes), enough to tell cosmetic damage from structural damage.

• Comfortable working inside someone else's framework. Applies the Quality Specialist's standards rather than imposing their own, and improves them through evidence rather than override.

• Physically capable of bench and warehouse work.

Welcome:

• Formal training as ébéniste, upholsterer, or in furniture conservation.

• Experience with rotating stock (rental, events) — the same object refurbished through repeated cycles.

• Background in the brocante, flea market or auction trade.

Recruitment Process

• Screening call — Fabien, Head of TA. Filters on the essentials above (refurbishment experience, manual skill, judgement on intervention limits).

• 2nd round — Markus, Head of Product. Assesses technical fit and craft judgement; he will manage the role day-to-day.

• 3rd round — On-site test (paid). A few hours on-site working hands-on with real pieces, to assess skills directly rather than on paper.

• Final round — Shari, Head of Revenue. Business-context and cross-functional fit, ahead of any offer.

Equity & Inclusion Commitment

Enky is committed to building a diverse and inclusive workplace. We welcome applications from all qualified candidates regardless of gender, gender identity or expression, age, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual orientation, marital status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We believe diverse teams make us stronger, more creative, and better equipped to serve our community — and we’re committed to giving everyone an equal opportunity to thrive at Enky.