Help reinvent how housing gets designed, permitted, and built in America.

Cedar is building the operating system for urban housing delivery. We combine architectural expertise with software, automation, and data systems to dramatically accelerate how projects move from land acquisition to approved designs and construction. The result: faster timelines, higher quality, lower risk, and more housing in the cities that need it most.

Our team blends architects, engineers, and product builders. We design beautiful, responsive housing — and we build the software systems that make great architecture scalable.

The Role

We're hiring our first Director of Engineering to partner directly with the founder and operate in a CTO-adjacent capacity: setting technical direction, driving execution on our hardest problems, managing a small team, and continuing to ship code on the systems that define our product. This is a senior role for someone who wants to lead a team without stepping away from the code. You'll report directly to the founder, and your time will split across project leadership, people management, and hands-on technical work — with the mix evolving as the team grows.

What you'll do

• Translate ambitious product goals into clear technical roadmaps and ship against them

• Hire, lead, and grow a small team of high-caliber engineers

• Stay close to the code, contributing directly to core systems and infrastructure

• Take ownership of the technical and operational load currently sitting with the founder

• Shape engineering culture, hiring bar, and architectural direction as we scale

What we're looking for

• 6+ years of engineering experience, with time spent at a senior or staff level

• A track record of operating effectively as both a strong IC and a technical leader

• Domain expertise in one or more of: computational geometry, web graphics, CAD or drawing/editing tools, applied AI for geometry, or tools for architectural design and real estate

• Background at a high-performance, web-based design platform — ideally somewhere like Higharc, Arcol, Rayon, or Figma, or an adjacent company such as Shapr3D, Onshape, Forma, Snaptrude, or Hypar

• Comfort with the ambiguity, pace, and breadth of an early-stage environment

Logistics

• Based in our San Diego office, on-site / hybrid

• Reports directly to the co-founder & CTO

• Senior-level cash compensation and meaningful equity

• Healthcare, dental, and vision