About Cedar
Cedar is creating the most significant innovation in home affordability since the 30-year mortgage. By reimagining the land lease as a consumer-first model, Cedar makes homeownership more accessible and sustainable for a wider range of buyers. Cedar is solving home affordability at scale and is fixing a pressing problem in our country today. Our structure reduces both upfront costs and monthly costs, expands the path to ownership, and helps homeowners access their equity at cost below existing solutions. Cedar is backed by top investors and is building a fast-growing, high-performing team to change how people buy homes and create a new institutional asset class.
The Role As
Product Lead
at Cedar, you will own the product vision and direction end-to-end. You are the single accountable leader for defining what we build, why we build it, and how it delivers value to homeowners, real estate professionals, and lending partners.
This is a high-agency, senior role in an early-stage company. You will work directly with the CEO, partner closely with the Founding Senior Software Engineer (CTO-track), and collaborate day-to-day with Product Engineers. You will operate close to the code and close to customers, combining deep domain understanding with strong product judgment.
The ideal candidate brings firsthand experience with
mortgage, home equity, or residential real estate brokerage products , and understands how consumers evaluate affordability, trust financial products, and make high-stakes housing decisions.
What You’ll Do
Product Vision & Ownership
Own Cedar’s product vision across consumer, partner, and internal platforms
Define and continuously refine product strategy and sequencing
Make final prioritization decisions, balancing user value, risk, regulatory constraints, and speed
User & Domain Leadership
Serve as the voice of the customer: homeowners, buyers, agents, loan officers, and distribution partners
Apply prior experience with mortgage, HELOC, home equity, reverse mortgage, or real estate brokerage platforms to product decisions
Deeply understand real estate acquisition funnels, agent workflows, and borrower decision-making
Conduct user research and field work to uncover friction, confusion, and unmet needs
Translate complex financial and real estate concepts into simple, intuitive product experiences
Execution & Delivery
Write clear, opinionated product requirements and success metrics
Partner tightly with engineers to shape solutions and resolve tradeoffs
Stay close to implementation—reviewing flows, validating logic, and iterating quickly
Work with marketing on customer-facing messaging, education, and product launches
Cross-Functional Leadership
Act as the connective tissue between engineering, design, marketing, and leadership
Ensure product decisions align with Cedar’s mission, business model, and risk posture
Maintain a high bar for clarity, quality, and real-world usability
What We Need We are looking for a Product Lead with strong judgment, high agency, and deep domain experience in residential real estate and/or mortgage-related products. You should understand how consumers discover homes, think about leverage and monthly payments, evaluate risk, and decide whom to trust in complex transactions. Experience building
mortgage, HELOC, home equity, reverse mortgage, or real estate brokerage products —particularly on the customer acquisition, transaction, or agent-facing side (e.g., Compass or Zillow-like platforms)—is highly valued. You are technically fluent and comfortable working closely with engineers, but your core strength is product leadership: knowing what to build, what not to build, and how to sequence work to maximize trust, adoption, and impact. This role is not about managing process or maintaining a backlog. It is about owning outcomes.
Qualifications
5+ years of product leadership or senior product management experience
Direct experience with mortgage, HELOC, home equity, reverse mortgage, and/or residential real estate brokerage platforms
Experience with consumer acquisition funnels, agent tools, or transaction workflows strongly preferred
Strong technical fluency; comfortable operating close to engineering and codebases
Proven track record of defining product direction and shipping meaningful products
Why Choose Cedar?
Take real ownership early — the work is not theoretical
Grow through direct feedback, rigorous debate, and steep responsibility
Be pushed to develop judgment, not just skills
Build a track record that compounds — responsibility scales with performance
Cedar is built for people who want to operate at a very high level on work that matters. We run a true owner’s culture: high standards, direct feedback, fast iteration, and accountability to outcomes. You’ll have real responsibility early, you’ll be expected to think—not just execute—and you’ll be surrounded by teammates who push hard and care deeply about excellence.
This is not a company for people who need perfect clarity, gentle consensus, or predictable routines. The pace is fast, the problems are complex, and the bar is high. But the upside is rare: steep growth, meaningful autonomy, and the chance to do career-defining work with a team that treats the mission seriously and rewards success well.
If you want comfort, you won’t like it here. If you want to build, learn, and win—Cedar is the place.
Compensation Range: $125K - $225K
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The Role As
Product Lead
at Cedar, you will own the product vision and direction end-to-end. You are the single accountable leader for defining what we build, why we build it, and how it delivers value to homeowners, real estate professionals, and lending partners.
This is a high-agency, senior role in an early-stage company. You will work directly with the CEO, partner closely with the Founding Senior Software Engineer (CTO-track), and collaborate day-to-day with Product Engineers. You will operate close to the code and close to customers, combining deep domain understanding with strong product judgment.
The ideal candidate brings firsthand experience with
mortgage, home equity, or residential real estate brokerage products , and understands how consumers evaluate affordability, trust financial products, and make high-stakes housing decisions.
What You’ll Do
Product Vision & Ownership
Own Cedar’s product vision across consumer, partner, and internal platforms
Define and continuously refine product strategy and sequencing
Make final prioritization decisions, balancing user value, risk, regulatory constraints, and speed
User & Domain Leadership
Serve as the voice of the customer: homeowners, buyers, agents, loan officers, and distribution partners
Apply prior experience with mortgage, HELOC, home equity, reverse mortgage, or real estate brokerage platforms to product decisions
Deeply understand real estate acquisition funnels, agent workflows, and borrower decision-making
Conduct user research and field work to uncover friction, confusion, and unmet needs
Translate complex financial and real estate concepts into simple, intuitive product experiences
Execution & Delivery
Write clear, opinionated product requirements and success metrics
Partner tightly with engineers to shape solutions and resolve tradeoffs
Stay close to implementation—reviewing flows, validating logic, and iterating quickly
Work with marketing on customer-facing messaging, education, and product launches
Cross-Functional Leadership
Act as the connective tissue between engineering, design, marketing, and leadership
Ensure product decisions align with Cedar’s mission, business model, and risk posture
Maintain a high bar for clarity, quality, and real-world usability
What We Need We are looking for a Product Lead with strong judgment, high agency, and deep domain experience in residential real estate and/or mortgage-related products. You should understand how consumers discover homes, think about leverage and monthly payments, evaluate risk, and decide whom to trust in complex transactions. Experience building
mortgage, HELOC, home equity, reverse mortgage, or real estate brokerage products —particularly on the customer acquisition, transaction, or agent-facing side (e.g., Compass or Zillow-like platforms)—is highly valued. You are technically fluent and comfortable working closely with engineers, but your core strength is product leadership: knowing what to build, what not to build, and how to sequence work to maximize trust, adoption, and impact. This role is not about managing process or maintaining a backlog. It is about owning outcomes.
Qualifications
5+ years of product leadership or senior product management experience
Direct experience with mortgage, HELOC, home equity, reverse mortgage, and/or residential real estate brokerage platforms
Experience with consumer acquisition funnels, agent tools, or transaction workflows strongly preferred
Strong technical fluency; comfortable operating close to engineering and codebases
Proven track record of defining product direction and shipping meaningful products
Why Choose Cedar?
Take real ownership early — the work is not theoretical
Grow through direct feedback, rigorous debate, and steep responsibility
Be pushed to develop judgment, not just skills
Build a track record that compounds — responsibility scales with performance
Cedar is built for people who want to operate at a very high level on work that matters. We run a true owner’s culture: high standards, direct feedback, fast iteration, and accountability to outcomes. You’ll have real responsibility early, you’ll be expected to think—not just execute—and you’ll be surrounded by teammates who push hard and care deeply about excellence.
This is not a company for people who need perfect clarity, gentle consensus, or predictable routines. The pace is fast, the problems are complex, and the bar is high. But the upside is rare: steep growth, meaningful autonomy, and the chance to do career-defining work with a team that treats the mission seriously and rewards success well.
If you want comfort, you won’t like it here. If you want to build, learn, and win—Cedar is the place.
Compensation Range: $125K - $225K
#J-18808-Ljbffr