About the role

Government technology has failed citizens, 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 for counter-drone procurement 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 and months, 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. CLEARANCE AND ELIGIBILITY This role requires an active Top Secret or TS/SCI clearance. United States citizenship is required, because it is a condition of eligibility for the clearance the role depends on. THE ROLE Most government software was built for compliance, not for the people who use it. Kaizen is changing that, and the engineers who work here are the reason it's possible. At the senior level, this role carries more than code: you're shaping how AI-native features get designed, scoped, and shipped across a platform that millions of Americans touch when they need something from their government. You'll be one of a small number of engineers with direct influence over what gets built and how: setting technical direction, mentoring teammates, and driving decisions that stick. LOCATION This is a hybrid role based out of our New York City HQ or DC office. Candidates must reside in New York or DC or be able to commute to New York City or DC to work out of our office at least three times a week (Tuesdays - Thursdays). WHAT YOU'LL DO - Architect and ship full-stack features end-to-end, from scoping and technical design through build, iteration, and production - Build and integrate against the Palantir stack: Foundry ontologies and pipelines, AIP agents, and Maven Smart System workflows - Build inside classification and data-handling constraints rather than around them - Lead the development of AI-powered product surfaces: intelligent intake flows, real-time constituent assistants, automated case routing, agency operator dashboards - Set technical direction and raise the bar on code quality. Your decisions become the patterns the rest of the team builds on - Engage directly with federal agency stakeholders to translate messy real-world requirements into clean, shippable product - Own platform reliability and performance at government scale: real SLAs, real users, no abstraction layer between you and accountability - Mentor earlier-career engineers through code review, pairing, and direct technical feedback WHAT YOU'LL BRING - 5+ years of professional engineering experience, with a track record of owning complex features and systems, not just executing on them - Hands-on development experience with Palantir Foundry, AIP, or Maven Smart System. You have modeled against the ontology, shipped pipelines or AIP agents, and can say what the platform does well and where you had to work around it - Deep fluency in React / Next.js and Node.js / TypeScript / Postgres. Fast, not just functional - AI coding tools (Cursor, Copilot, Claude) are already baked into how you work. You've shipped with them, and you move measurably faster because of it - You've built something real: a product, an open source project, a system you designed and stood behind - Proven ability to operate in ambiguity: you define the problem as often as you solve it, and you don't stall waiting for the answer to come to you - A genuine orientation toward the end user, the person on the other side of the screen isn't an abstraction to you STRONG CANDIDATES MAY ALSO...