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Kaizen Labs is a government technology company founded in 2022 that replaces legacy federal systems with modern, AI-native software. The company has raised $35M from top-tier VCs (NEA, a16z, Accel) and is headquartered in NYC and DC. This year revenue grew 35x, and next year the platform will serve over 100 million Americans across dozens of federal agencies.
You will architect and ship full-stack features end-to-end for systems that millions of Americans use to interact with their government. This is a senior individual contributor role with significant technical leadership scope: you'll set technical direction, mentor earlier-career engineers, and drive decisions that shape how AI-native features get designed and shipped across the platform.
Key responsibilities include:
- Architect and ship full-stack features from scoping through production
- Build and integrate against the Palantir stack (Foundry ontologies, pipelines, AIP agents, Maven Smart System workflows)
- Develop AI-powered product surfaces: intelligent intake flows, constituent assistants, automated case routing, operator dashboards
- Set technical direction and raise code quality standards across the team
- Engage directly with federal agency stakeholders to translate requirements into shippable product
- Own platform reliability and performance at government scale with real SLAs and real users
- Mentor earlier-career engineers through code review, pairing, and technical feedback
The role is hybrid based in New York or DC, requiring in-office presence at least three days per week (Tuesdays–Thursdays).
REQUIREMENTS:
- Active Top Secret or TS/SCI clearance (required)
- United States citizenship (required for clearance eligibility)
- 3+ years of professional engineering experience with a track record of owning complex features and systems
- Hands-on development experience with Palantir Foundry, AIP, or Maven Smart System (modeled against ontology, shipped pipelines or AIP agents)
- Deep fluency in React/Next.js and Node.js/TypeScript/Postgres
- Proficiency with AI coding tools (Cursor, Copilot, Claude) integrated into your workflow
- Demonstrated ability to build something real (product, open source project, designed system)
- Proven ability to operate in ambiguity and define problems, not just solve them
- Genuine orientation toward end users
STRONG CANDIDATES MAY ALSO HAVE:
- Experience shipping software in classified or accredited environments
- Forward Deployed Engineer background or Palantir prime program experience
- Federal, state, or local government tech experience, or work in other regulated, high-stakes environments
- Cloud deployment depth (AWS, Vercel, GitHub Actions, ECS/Fargate)
- Design systems and component library experience
- Technical leadership in early-stage environments
