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.

The Role

Kaizen's platform reaches 40M residents across 50+ agencies in 17 states. We've already signed multiple federal customers with many more in the pipeline, and the work of making Kaizen federal-ready is currently spread across a handful of engineers. That doesn't scale. We're hiring our first dedicated security engineer to sit on the platform team and own this end to end: architect the controls, write the SSPs, and partner with engineering to embed compliance into how we ship rather than bolt it on after.

Location

This is a hybrid role based out of our New York or DC. 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 - Thursday).

What You'll Do

Architect and operationalize security across infrastructure, platform, CI/CD, and application layers, with a focus on AWS (including GovCloud) and Terraform

Lead readiness across federal compliance frameworks (FedRAMP, CMMC, and DoD Impact Levels), translating NIST 800-53 and related controls into real engineering implementations, and owning the SSPs, POA&Ms, and technical policy documentation

Build continuous compliance and audit-readiness workflows that make accreditation a byproduct of how we ship, not a separate workstream

Be smart about AI and tooling. Use automated AI-driven security scanning, modern hardened-image platforms like Chainguard, and other leverage points to multiply the impact of a small security team

Establish secure software supply chain practices: SBOMs, image signing, workload identity, and hardened deployment pipelines

Own the technical relationship with assessors, auditors, and federal security stakeholders. You are the credible technical voice in those rooms

Drive a secure-by-default engineering culture so residents and public servants can trust the systems we put in front of them

What You'll Bring

5+ years of hands-on experience building and securing cloud-native platforms in AWS and Terraform. You can architect controls and also implement them yourself

Direct experience with federal authorization work in FedRAMP, CMMC, DoD IL, or comparable regulated environments. You don't need to have shepherded a full authorization across the finish line, but you've done enough of the real work to know what it takes

Deep familiarity with NIST 800-53 and the ability to translate controls into pragmatic engineering work rather than checkbox compliance

Strong working knowledge of modern supply chain security: SBOMs, image signing, workload identity, secure CI/CD

Track record operating effectively in early-stage or fast-moving environments where you set the bar rather than inherit it

Strong Candidates May Also...

Have supported federal SaaS, defense tech, or regulated infrastructure companies through accreditation

Have led a company through its first federal authorization rather than maintaining an existing one

Have hands-on experience with Chainguard, AI-powered security tooling, or similar leverage-multiplying platforms

Have worked with platforms like Second Front or similar federal compliance accelerators

Don't Apply If...

You want to own policy and hand the implementation to someone else. This role lives in the code and the infrastructure