Software Engineer, Full Stack Developer, Backend Developer

Government technology has failed citizens, veterans, public servants, and service members for decades.

Kaizen powers America’s application layer. We replace the legacy systems federal agencies run on with modern software, built with craft. The ticketing platform a resident uses to visit a presidential library. The marketplace DoW uses to procure counter-drone systems to protect lives and critical infrastructure. The system a Veteran uses to access benefits. We build systems of record, of national consequence.

Our AI-native modules and harness allow us to do so in weeks, not years.

This year, our revenue has grown 35x. Next year, our software will serve over 100 million Americans across dozens of federal agencies.

Founded in 2022 and based in New York City and DC, Kaizen has raised $35 million from NEA, a16z, Accel, 776, and Carpenter Capital.

This is not a ticket-grinder role. You're not here to implement Figma specs, collect your JIRA points, and wait for the next sprint planning. You're here to move fast, make real calls, and ship things that matter. You'll be one of a small number of engineers working directly on the highest-leverage features on our platform: intelligent intake flows, AI-powered case routing, constituent-facing portals that replace decade-old government interfaces.

You'll pair with design leadership that cares deeply about craft and won't let you ship something half-baked. You'll engage directly with federal agency stakeholders. You'll translate what government users actually need into a product that delivers it.

And you'll be expected to use AI tooling not as a party trick, but as a force multiplier. Cursor, Claude, Copilot: these should already be embedded in how you think and work. The engineers we're hiring here move 3 to 5x faster because of how deeply they've internalized these tools. That's the bar.

This is a hybrid role based out of our New York or DC office. Candidates must reside or be able to commute to New York City or DC to work out of our office at least four times a week (Monday to Thursday).

We’re unable to sponsor visas for this role.

• Full-stack features from zero to shipped: scoping, architecture, build, iteration

• AI-powered product surfaces: intelligent intake flows, real-time constituent assistants, automated case routing, agency operator dashboards

• Direct engagement with federal agency stakeholders, translating messy real-world requirements into clean, shippable product

• Platform reliability and performance at government scale: real users, real SLAs, no hiding

• Code quality that the next engineer will respect: clean, tested, maintainable

• 2 to 4 years of professional engineering experience, or work that makes the years irrelevant

• Deep fluency in React / Next.js and Node.js / Type Script / Postgres: not just comfortable, but fast

• AI coding tools (Cursor, Copilot, Claude) are already baked into how you work. You're not planning to explore them someday; you've shipped with them

• Something real you've built: a product, an open source project, a thing you couldn't stop working on

• You operate well with ambiguity. You don't wait to be handed the answer.

• You actually care whether the person on the other end of the screen has a good experience

• You've touched federal, state, or local government tech, or you understand the constraints of building for regulated, high-stakes environments

• Hands-on experience with Palantir Foundry or AIP: you've modeled against the ontology or shipped pipelines or AIP agents

• Cloud deployment experience (AWS, Vercel, Git Hub Actions, ECS/Fargate)

• Exposure to design systems and component libraries: you know the difference between a component who's functional and one that's…