Senior Deployment Strategist, Cleared (TS/SCI)

Kaizen

Washington (District of Columbia)

Hybrid

USD 140,000 - 180,000

Full time

14 days+

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Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive health coverage

Life insurance $100k

One Medical membership

Fertility support

401(k) with company match

Parental leave (16 weeks)

Unlimited PTO

Winter break

Remote/home office stipend

Commuter benefit

Gym membership

Job summary

Kaizen seeks a seasoned professional to own the full implementation journey for federal customers, from scoping to training and deployment within classified environments.

This role requires active Top Secret/TS-SCI clearance and U.S. citizenship, with a hybrid setup in New York City or Washington, DC, four days in the office.

You will collaborate with engineering on Foundry, AIP, and Maven, and help build playbooks to accelerate future deployments.

Qualifications

Active Top Secret or TS/SCI clearance required.
U.S. citizenship required by clearance rules.
Experience leading multi-stakeholder federal rollouts.

Responsibilities

Own end-to-end federal implementations: discovery, scoping, configuration, data migration, integrations, training, go-live, post-launch support.
Lead onboarding for agency stakeholders and career staff, translating needs into a rollout plan that survives live agency contact.
Work inside classification and data-handling constraints as a design input, coordinating with engineering.
Translate patterns from the field back to Product and Engineering: edge cases and gaps.
Act as the connective tissue between customer-facing implementation and engineers building against Foundry, AIP, and Maven.
Build playbooks, templates, and internal documentation for faster future deployments.
Guide public sector partners through change management of replacing legacy systems.

Skills

SaaS implementation

Technical fluency

Requirements translation

Classification experience

Delivery leadership

Tools

Foundry

AIP

Maven

Job description

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.

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.

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).

The Role

You'll own the full implementation journey for Kaizen's federal customers: scoping the rollout, configuring the platform, training agency staff, and staying in the room until the deployment is actually adopted, not just launched. You'll work inside classified and accredited environments where every integration decision has to account for what data can move where, and you'll partner closely with the engineering team to make sure what gets shipped actually fits how the agency operates.

What You'll Do

Own end-to-end federal implementations: discovery, scoping, configuration, data migration, integrations, training, go-live, and post-launch support.
Lead onboarding for agency stakeholders and career staff, translating what they actually need into a rollout plan that survives contact with a live agency.
Work inside classification and data-handling constraints as a design input, not an obstacle, coordinating closely with engineering on what can be built and how.
Translate patterns from the field back to Product and Engineering: edge cases, workflow gaps, and the things agencies never put in the RFP but need on day one.
Act as the connective tissue between customer-facing implementation and the engineers building against Foundry, AIP, and Maven Smart System, so what ships matches what was promised.
Build the playbooks, templates, and internal documentation that make the next federal deployment faster than this one.
Guide public sector partners through the actual change management of replacing a legacy system, not just the technical cutover.

What You’ll Bring

5+ years in SaaS implementation, onboarding, solutions engineering, or a product-adjacent delivery role (Implementation Consultant, Solutions Architect, Technical Program Manager), with a track record of owning multi-stakeholder rollouts.
Technical fluency: comfortable working with APIs, data models, and system configurations, and able to hold your own in a conversation with engineers about integration tradeoffs.
Experience translating customer requirements into implementation plans and technical workflows, not just a status tracker.
Comfort operating inside classified or otherwise accredited environments, or a clear ability to pick up new compliance and data-handling constraints fast.
A bias toward action: you'd rather build the process while running the deployment than wait for someone to hand you one.

Strong Candidates May Also...

Have deployed software inside a classified or accredited environment before and know where the real friction lives.
Have worked a program where Palantir was prime, or have hands-on exposure to Foundry, AIP, or Maven Smart System.
Have touched federal, state, or local government implementation work specifically, versus enterprise SaaS generally.
Have built implementation playbooks or internal tooling from scratch at an early-stage company.

Don’t Apply If...

You need a mature playbook to follow. Most of what you’ll use here, you’ll be building.
You want to hand off the hard technical questions to engineering and stay on the process side. This role lives at that intersection.
You're looking for a steady-state customer success role. This is deployment under real constraints, with real agencies, and real consequences if it goes wrong.
Government bureaucracy and slow-moving stakeholders would wear you down instead of something you know how to work with.

What Kaizen Offers

Health & Insurance

100% coverage across the board: medical through Oxford/United (Gold and Platinum PPO plans), dental through Guardian PPO, and vision through Beam — all fully covered for employees, with 100% coverage for dependents.
$100,000 in fully paid life insurance. FSA and Dependent Care FSA.
One Medical membership, on us — same-day primary care, 24/7 virtual visits, and offices all over the city.
Fertility and family-building support through Carrot.
401(k) through Guideline, with a 2% company match.

Family & Time Off

16 weeks of fully paid parental leave for birthing parents. 10 weeks fully paid for non-birthing parents.
Unlimited PTO, with a two-week minimum (we mean it when we say take time off!)
Closed for all federal holidays.
Company-wide winter break the week of Christmas.
Company offsites throughout the year.

Office & Remote Setup

Up to $750 one-time home office or desk setup stipend for NYC-based employees. $500 for remote employees.
$50/month commuter benefit (company contribution).
Expensed lunch while in the office.
Dinner and Uber rides home will be expensed if you choose to work in the office past 7pm.
Company-provided laptop of your choice.

Wellness

NYC employees: Fully covered gym membership at Grindhouse — right across the street from our office at 47 W 17th St (and in Williamsburg). A $225/month value, on us.
Non-NYC employees: $100 per month, dedicated to gym / physical fitness reimbursement.

Stipends