Founding Builder, New Ventures

Who We Are At Apartment List, we’re transforming how people rent—making it smarter, easier, and a lot less frustrating. Our platform has already matched over 1.4 million renters with their next home, while helping properties fill units with the right residents. Backed by strong growth and a big vision, we’re building the future of renting—and inviting bold thinkers to help us shape it! About the Role We need a builder who can do what most people do across an entire team: find a pain point worth solving, size it with data, build the product, and take it to market - with AI as the primary tool at every step. This is a role with the mandate and autonomy of a founding team member, backed by Apartment List's distribution, marketplace data, and profitability. The goal is a new business line that contributes meaningfully to revenue within 12 months - and a playbook that makes the next one faster. You'll report to our Head of Product and work alongside - not inside - our core Product, Design, and Engineering organizations. What You'll Do Find the Opportunity Live in the data: interview renters and partners, mine support tickets and search queries, and query the warehouse yourself to size pain points and revenue pools. Build the opportunity map - 3–5 sized candidate business lines, backed by data and ranked by revenue potential, strategic fit, and speed to validation. Kill weak ideas in writing and commit to strong ones with conviction. Build the Product Ship v1s yourself using AI-native development workflows - coding agents, automated testing, rapid iteration across the full stack. Move from prototype to production: instrument everything from day one, ship behind flags, iterate from live usage. Leverage the Apartment List platform where it accelerates you; make the explicit case to diverge where it doesn't. Give feedback on our build processes and AI tooling - you're the guinea pig for what AI-assisted development looks like at scale, and what you learn should make the broader engineering org faster. Craft the Go-to-Market Own positioning, pricing, and the path to first revenue. Design distribution through our existing surface area - millions of renter sessions, established partner relationships - as well as new channels. Build the funnel, measure it honestly, and iterate until the unit economics work. Deliver Business Outcomes Own a revenue target, not a feature roadmap. Report progress in business terms: users, conversion, revenue, margin. Make the scale/staff/kill decision with data, and propose the operating model for what comes next. Document the playbook so the next venture starts faster - and mentor others across Product and Engineering on how to build with AI effectively. What You'll Bring Must-Haves Product + engineering range: you've operated as a product leader and you ship production software yourself. You can point to real products you built solo or near-solo, the tradeoffs you made, and what happened after launch. AI-native builder: you build with AI daily - coding agents, evals, AI-powered product experiences. You can demo your workflow and point to shipped output, not slides. Data self-sufficiency: you write your own SQL, size your own markets, and design your own experiments. You change your mind when the data disagrees with you. GTM craft: you've owned positioning, pricing, and distribution - and you've closed first customers or distribution partners yourself. Founder track record: you've taken a product from zero to first revenue and can talk concretely about what worked and what didn't. Extreme ownership: you ask for context and a goal, not permission and headcount. You treat GTM and analytics as part of your job, not a handoff. Nice-to-Haves Consumer-platform scale experience: shipping at one of the world's largest consumer platforms, where engagement, monetization, and partner ecosystems operated at hundreds of millions of users. Marketplace or two-sided product exposure: you understand how value flows between two sides of a market and where new revenue hides in that flow. Business fluency: unit economics and P&L thinking come naturally; formal business training is a plus. Why Apartment List: Founder-grade canvas without founder-grade risk. Real distribution, proprietary data, and a profitable balance sheet from day one. No fundraising pressure - we operate with the urgency of a company that needs to win the next 24 months. Competitive salary, bonus, and equity aligned to experience and market benchmarks. Here's the Pay Range: At Apartment List, we carefully consider a variety of factors to determine compensation for each position, including the role, level, and work. The US base salary range for this position is: Zone 1: $234,000 - $340,000 TTC (including $192,000 - $282,000 base salary) + equity Zone 2: $216,000 - $315,000 TTC (including $180,000 - $261,000 base salary) + equity Zone 3: $204,000 - $289,000 TTC (including 169,000 - $240,000 base salary) + equity This reflects the compensation target for new hire salaries for the position across all US locations. Please note, the compensation details provided do not include benefits and perks that we offer. We also rely on market indicators along with considering your work location, job related skills, experience and relevant education and training, to determine compensation that is fair and competitive for you. Apartment List will consider paying compensation near the higher of the range in exceptional circumstances, where candidates have the experience, credentials or expertise that would warrant such consideration. It is always our goal to hire exceptional talent and we would be happy to share more about compensation during the hiring process. Here's what's in it for you (full-time US based employees only; does not apply to contract roles): Competitive Compensation: Including annual salary, pre-IPO stock options, and other financial compensation (if applicable) Medical, Dental, and Vision Coverage: 100% of premiums covered for you AND all of your dependents Unlimited Flexible Time Off: Unlimited FTO in addition to 12 company holidays per year, quarterly “recharge” days, and a week-long holiday break Home Office Reimbursement: To cover home office furniture and supplies, monthly home internet, and monthly cell phone (if applicable) Health & Wellness Reimbursement: To cover monthly gym membership or other qualifying expenses Parental Support: Generous parental and family leave, fertility benefits, and employer-sponsored stipends towards family forming services 401k Plan: To support you in your individual retirement goals Team Events: Frequent team-building events, fun team off-sites, and bi-annual company meetups Commitment to DEI: To prioritize Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion within our workplace and to stay true to our values and mission Mentorship and Training: To get you onboard quickly, learn new professional skills, and invest in your career development Impact and Visibility: To expose you to and provide the opportunity to work on highly strategic initiatives that will transform the business Encouragement and Empowerment: To explore and adopt new technologies and drive meaningful decisions and outcomes At Apartment List we believe that everyone deserves a home they love AND a career they love. We strive to build a diverse team that is a reflection of the people we serve; this is made possible through our commitment to fostering a culture of diversity, inclusion, equity, and connectedness. As a proud equal opportunity employer, we celebrate the collection of individual differences, life experiences, ideas, perspectives, knowledge, and talent. We hire candidates of any race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, marital or family status, disability, Veteran status, and any other status. #LIRemote