Senior Software Engineer (TS/SCI) – AI-Native GovTech

Kaizen Labs; Washington (District of Columbia); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 230,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

401(k) with company match

Parental leave

Unlimited PTO

Home office stipend

Job summary

Kaizen Labs seeks a senior software engineer to shape AI-native features for government-scale applications. You will influence technical direction, mentor teammates, and shepherd end-to-end delivery across platforms used by millions of Americans.

This hybrid role is based in New York or DC with four days on site and requires active TS/SCI clearance. You will partner with federal stakeholders to translate complex requirements into shippable products and ensure reliability at government scale.

Qualifications

• 3+ 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

Responsibilities

• 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

Skills

Full-stack development

Palantir Foundry

AIP

React/Next.js

Node.js/TypeScript

PostgreSQL

AI coding tools

Mentoring

Ambiguity handling

User-centric focus

Tools

Palantir Foundry

AIP

Maven Smart System

Job description

Kaizen Labs seeks a senior software engineer to shape AI-native features for government-scale applications. You will influence technical direction, mentor teammates, and shepherd end-to-end delivery across platforms used by millions of Americans.

This hybrid role is based in New York or DC with four days on site and requires active TS/SCI clearance. You will partner with federal stakeholders to translate complex requirements into shippable products and ensure reliability at government scale.