Design Engineer

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 entering its most visible moment. We’re building a new AI harness that will allow us to rapidly scale against government needs, and our platforms are slated to serve hundreds of millions of Americans. Our software is world-class, and we need a phenomenal digital designer to help our brand catch-up. We're looking for someone who can build stunning landing pages that make agency stakeholders lean forward, craft motion and illustration work that brings government software to life, and establish a visual identity that reflects where we're going, not where we've been. This isn't a production role, and it isn't executing someone else's vision. It's setting how the world sees Kaizen, and shipping that work firsthand. WHAT YOU'LL DO - Design and ship landing pages, campaign sites, and entry points for agency platforms that convert both agency stakeholders and mission-driven talent. This is an unbelievably serious responsibility — your work will be the first impression between a constituent and the government meant to serve them, and it will shape whether they trust it enough to continue. - Build the constituent-facing visual system (the typographic voice, the motion language, the illustration style), so that every agency application we ship carries an unmistakable Kaizen signature, and a person moving between two Kaizen-built services feels the same hand at work. - Develop Kaizen's own web presence including the marketing site, launch moments, flyers, and campaign work that convince agency stakeholders and mission-driven talent that we're the team to bet on. - Ship your own work in code. You won't be handing files to an engineer and hoping for the best - Use AI-native creative tools as real leverage. You'll produce at a volume and quality that wouldn't otherwise be possible at our size. - Partner directly with Sales and BD on federal pitch materials, demo environments, and proposal assets where stunning visual quality is part of the close. - Work closely with our Design Lead, CEO, and engineering teams to make sure the product and brand feel like they came from the same mind. You’ll share work early, ship often, and treat feedback as signal. WHAT YOU'LL BRING - A portfolio with real range: web design work that's both beautiful and functional, motion with craft and intention, illustration that doesn't read as stock - A record of shipping independently, start to finish. You build with tools like Claude Code against your most ambitious idea instead of scoping down to what you can hand off - Strong command of web-native design, including how layouts, typography, and interactions actually behave in a browser, and how to design for that - Fluency with motion and animation tools (After Effects, Rive, Lottie, Jitter, or equivalent), used to add clarity rather than noise - Fluency with AI creative tools such as Midjourney, Runway, or Firefly, or whatever's currently best, used as genuine creative leverage - Experience building or significantly evolving a brand system from first principles, and the range to take a set of values and a roadmap and come back with something that surprises people STRONG CANDIDATES MAY ALSO... - Have designed for B2G, B2B, or mission-driven organizations where credibility carries as much weight as aesthetics - Have worked against USWDS or a comparable government design standard, and have opinions about it - Have a point of view on what great government-facing design looks like, and why so little of it exists DON'T APPLY IF... - You don’t believe deeply in our mission to scale design across all government agencies. We want designers focused on mission, purpose, and quality. - You need a detailed brief and finished brand guidelines before you can produce. We're building both, and you're part of how we get there - You treat AI tools as a threat to craft rather than a multiplier of it. This team is AI-native by default. - Your work skews towards visual polish in isolation. We need design that performs, not just design that looks good in a case study - You'd rather iterate inside a system than build one from scratch. - You want to hand off to someone else when it’s time to actually ship. The people using what Kaizen builds are farmers applying for loans, service members finding housing, and immigrants navigating case management. The quality of what you make here is not abstract. 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. - Company-provided laptop of your choice. Wellness - Fully covered gym membership at Grindhouse https://grindhousemhttn.com/ — right across the street from our office at 47 W 17th St (and in Williamsburg). A $225/month value, on us. For remote employees, $100/month dedicated to gym or physical fitness reimbursement. Stipends - $100/month utility stipend. - $500/year professional development. - $250/year recreation. - $300/quarter pet care stipend.