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Kaizen Labs is a government technology company founded in 2022 and based in New York City, backed by NEA, a16z, Accel, and other top-tier investors. The company has raised $35 million and is on a mission to modernize American public services by replacing legacy government systems with AI-native, beautifully designed software. Kaizen's platform already reaches 55 million Americans across 50+ agencies, with ambitions to serve 100 million residents by year-end.
You'll be hired as the Founding Filmmaker & Video Lead to build and run Kaizen Studio—the creative function that tells Kaizen's story to customers, candidates, and investors. This is a hands-on individual contributor role (with potential to grow into a team lead) focused entirely on video and visual storytelling, not marketing generalist work.
Key responsibilities include: producing cinematic customer films that capture real-world deployments (veterans filing claims, park rangers at gates, families relocating); shooting documentary-style behind-the-scenes footage of the team in the field; running a recurring recruiting film series; producing founder pieces and launch content tied to federal contracts; and owning production end-to-end on lean shoots (filming, editing, delivery). You'll also direct and brief external contractors (editors, camera operators) on larger productions, ensuring quality and creative consistency.
You'll work directly with founders to shape how Kaizen's story gets told, set creative direction and visual identity across all audiences, and travel periodically to embed with the team on-site, including federal sites. The role requires comfort with AI tooling for pre-visualization, assembly, and cleanup, and the ability to eventually lead and grow an in-house production team.
Ideal candidates have demonstrated experience producing and directing video solo or with small crews from concept through final edit; a clear point of view on visual storytelling beyond technical execution; a portfolio showing range across cinematic, documentary, and audience-specific content; comfort working directly with founders without needing detailed briefs; experience directing contractors and holding them to creative standards; good judgment on shoot scoping; and willingness to travel. Experience in sensitive or access-limited environments (government, healthcare, defense), motion design, graphic design in video, or having built an in-house creative studio from scratch is a plus. You should be comfortable stepping in front of the camera for scrappier content and want to embed with a team long-term, not pursue one-off freelance gigs.
