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.
LOCATION
This is a hybrid role based out of our New York City HQ or our Washington, DC office. Candidates must reside in or be able to commute to one of those cities. In New York, you'll work from the office four days a week. In DC, you'll work from the office three days a week (Tuesdays through Thursdays).
THE ROLE
Kaizen is scaling to 100 people next year, and right now we have more open roles than recruiting horsepower to fill them. Every person we hire shapes the software that residents and public servants rely on to reach their government, so we can't afford to fill seats with whoever applies first. This role owns the top of the funnel: finding people who aren't looking, getting them on the phone, and carrying them all the way to a signed offer. You'll work directly with our co-founders and hiring managers across the company, and you'll have real room to get creative about how we find talent. The more unconventional the approach, the better, as long as it lands the right person.
WHAT YOU'LL DO
- Proactively source and engage passive candidates for a variety of technical positions by utilizing creative search strategies, conducting thorough market mapping, leveraging professional networks, and reaching out directly on platforms such as LinkedIn and GitHub. -
- Manage all stages of the full-cycle recruiting process for technical roles, from identifying and attracting talent through to screening applicants, conducting interviews, facilitating feedback discussion with hiring managers, and supporting candidates through the offer and onboarding process.
- Take an active role in go-to-market (GTM) position searches as needed, based on evolving business priorities. This includes stepping in to conduct candidate sourcing, screening, and recruiting for GTM teams such as sales, marketing, customer success, or partnerships, ensuring that the company is able to meet goals and timelines for building out these strategic business functions as demand arises.
- Build your own AI tooling (agents, Claude, Claude Code workflows) to map markets and surface people standard sourcing tools miss.
- Write outreach people actually answer, and find new ways to grow inbound from the candidates we most want.
- Own candidates from first touch through close: run your own screens, sell the role, and close offers, with senior recruiting and leadership behind you on the hardest ones.
- Partner with hiring managers across Kaizen to scope roles, design interview loops, and hold the bar.
- Hire people who are excellent at their craft and care about the mission, because they build the tools residents depend on.
- Bring ideas to improve how we recruit as Kaizen scales to 100 people next year.
WHAT YOU'LL BRING
- 3+ years of recruiting experience, in-house at a high-bar company or at an agency, with a track record of closing candidates who weren't looking.
- Outbound instincts. You go find people rather than waiting for the right one to apply, and you can map a market from scratch.
- Hands-on AI tooling. You've built your own workflows or agents to source, beyond the tools that came with your last seat.
- An eye for…