Lead GIS Engineer at Cedar

San Diego, California, United States -

Full Time

Start Date

Immediate

Expiry Date

15 May, 26

Salary

155000.0

Posted On

14 Feb, 26

Experience

5 year(s) or above

Remote Job

Yes

Telecommute

Yes

Sponsor Visa

Skills

GIS Data Infrastructure, Python, GeoPandas, Shapely, Fiona, Data Sourcing, Data Processing, Zoning Information, Parcel Data, Regulatory Data, ESRI REST APIs, Vector Tile Workflows, Git, Command-Line Tools, Spatial Databases, AI Tools

Industry

Architecture and Planning

Description

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 real buildings—and we build the software systems that make great architecture scalable. The Role As Lead GIS Engineer, you'll own Cedar's geospatial data infrastructure end-to-end: sourcing regulatory and land use data from hundreds of municipal systems, processing it into consistent formats, and delivering it across our products. You'll take over an existing Python-based pipeline and extend it to new jurisdictions, improve its reliability, and build out adjacent workflows for parcel data, zoning information, and other regulatory datasets. This is a high-autonomy role. You'll work closely with product and engineering teams to understand what data is needed, then figure out how to source, process, and deliver it. We strongly prefer candidates who can share recent solo-developed projects or meaningful open source contributions. It gives us a clear signal of how you think and build, and lets us skip the usual technical interview gauntlet. What You'll Do Own and extend GIS data pipelines that process regulatory layers (flood zones, overlay districts, planning boundaries) across dozens of jurisdictions Add coverage for new cities and counties by identifying authoritative GIS sources, configuring data transformations, and validating output quality Improve pipeline reliability, monitoring, and error handling for production-grade operation Build new data workflows for adjacent datasets: parcel boundaries, zoning classifications, permit records Leverage AI tools to increase development velocity and iterate quickly on data processing workflows Work with engineering to integrate geospatial data into product features—map visualization, feasibility analysis, constraint detection Evaluate and adopt modern geospatial tools and formats as the stack evolves Document data sources, schemas, and processing logic so the system scales beyond one person Who You Are Deep experience working with municipal and county GIS data from authoritative sources Comfortable navigating government data portals, ESRI REST APIs, and the inconsistencies that come with public-sector data Strong Python skills with hands-on experience in geospatial libraries (GeoPandas, Shapely, Fiona, or equivalents) Familiar with vector tile workflows and web map delivery Self-directed: you can take "we need flood zone data for Phoenix" and figure out the rest High bar for data quality and consistency across jurisdictions Pragmatic about tradeoffs between coverage, accuracy, and speed Qualifications 5+ years working with GIS data in a professional context Production experience with Python geospatial tools Familiarity with ESRI data services and common government GIS formats Experience with vector tile generation and web map delivery Understanding of coordinate reference systems, geometry operations, and spatial data quality issues Comfortable with Git, command-line tools, and scripting data workflows Active use of AI-assisted development tools (Claude, Cursor, Copilot, or similar) in your current workflow Nice to Have Experience with land use, zoning, or regulatory data specifically Familiarity with parcel data sources and assessor records Background in urban planning, real estate development, or AEC industry Experience with PostGIS or other spatial databases Exposure to cloud geospatial workflows (AWS, GCP, or similar) Experience building agentic or automated data processing workflows Interest in how regulatory constraints get encoded in data and applied to real projects Location This role is based out of Cedar's North County San Diego office, with occasional remote flexibility. Our office is in a walkable neighborhood with easy access to the Coaster and Sprinter commuter rail lines—no freeway commute required if you're coming from coastal or inland North County. We believe in the value of working together in person: faster iteration, stronger relationships, and the kind of spontaneous collaboration that's hard to replicate over Zoom. That said, we're not tracking badge swipes—we trust you to manage your time and get your work done. Compensation & Benefits $130,000 - $155,000 base salary, depending on experience Meaningful equity ownership Healthcare, dental, and vision Opportunity to build foundational data infrastructure from early stage

Responsibilities

The Lead GIS Engineer will own and extend Cedar's geospatial data infrastructure end-to-end, including sourcing, processing, and delivering regulatory and land use data across various jurisdictions using existing Python pipelines. This involves improving pipeline reliability, building workflows for adjacent datasets like parcel data, and integrating geospatial data into product features.