Chief Technology Officer at Kaizen Labs

Job description

Government technology has failed the public for decades, and Americans have been conditioned to expect websites from the 90s for essential public services. Kaizen exists to strengthen trust in American public services by building technology that residents and public servants are proud to use. We partner with local, state, and federal agencies to replace legacy systems with modern, AI-native software that is worthy of the people they serve. We started in outdoor recreation, and now we're building toward something much larger — the software layer that powers how Americans access any government service. Our platform reaches 55 million Americans across 50+ agencies. Our goal: build technology that touches the lives of 100 million residents by the end of the year. Founded in 2022 and based in New York City, Kaizen has raised $35 million from NEA, a16z, Accel, 776, and Carpenter Capital. We're builders, designers, and operators who believe that beautifully designed software shouldn't be a luxury in government. It's how you earn trust back. The Role Kaizen is building the constituent services operating system for the American government, and the 2.0 build cycle is the moment that determines whether we become a platform company or stay a vertical one. We have live federal deployments, real pull from USDA, DoW, DHS, and Commerce, and a product thesis proving out in production. What we need now is a technical general to command both Platform and Delivery: two fundamentally different operating modes that must run in parallel without collapsing into each other. Platform builds the reusable, compounding foundation. It is disciplined, architectural, built to last. Delivery wins and executes federal engagements at speed: high-tempo, AI-native, ships-or-dies. The CTO owns both, defines the interface between them, and ensures neither sacrifices what makes it effective. Location This is a hybrid role based out of our New York City HQ. Candidates must reside in New York or be able to commute to New York City to work out of our office at least three times a week (Tuesdays - Thursdays). What You'll Do • Command the Platform and Delivery organizations as distinct operating units (each with its own culture, mandate, and accountability structure) and be the single point of accountability for the output of both • Own the Kaizen 2.0 architecture: sequence the build of 12 core modules in the right order, hold the line on abstraction, and ensure the foundation compounds rather than fractures under delivery pressure • Lead the Blacksmith initiative, which is Kaizen's internal AI configuration harness that transforms agency requirements documents into runnable, pre-configured repositories and eliminates the time-to-first-commit tax on every new federal engagement • Define and enforce the Platform–Delivery interface: module readiness maps, API contracts, and Blacksmith handoff protocols that keep Delivery fast and Platform honest • Drive federal technical strategy: FedRAMP posture, DoD IL4/IL5 readiness, and procurement-aware architecture decisions that keep Kaizen competitive in federal BD conversations • Recruit, develop, and retain builders who operate at the frontier of AI-native government technology, and who understand that shipping for government is different from shipping for anyone else What You'll Bring • Deep federal technology experience. You've built or scaled production software at the intersection of modern engineering and government procurement (backgrounds like Palantir, Anduril, major federal integrators, or defense-adjacent tech companies are a strong signal) • The architectural credibility to make hard calls on platform discipline vs. delivery speed, and enough organizational authority to make those calls stick under pressure • A track record of running parallel technical workstreams across multiple high-stakes engagements without losing accountability on any of them • Native fluency with AI-native development. You build with AI tools yo