--- title: 'Digital Designer at Kaizen Labs' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/digital-designer-kaizen-labs-new-york-wp26n13897yp' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-09-04' --- # Digital Designer at Kaizen Labs - **Company:** Kaizen Labs - **Location:** New York, NY - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** hybrid - **Posted:** 2026-08-18 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-04 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/kaizenlabs/83db0a38-bda7-4668-a1ad-bc5f0de95e80 ## Job description Government technology has failed citizens, 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 for counter-drone procurement 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 and months, 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 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. ## About Kaizen Labs ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Kaizen Labs provides a modular, AI-native software platform that helps local, state, and federal government agencies modernize public services like recreation management, permitting, parking, transit, and payments. - **Entity Type**: Private (Series A) - **Headquarters**: New York, New York, USA - **Founded**: 2022 - **Founders**: Nikhil Reddy ## Core Business - **Primary industry/industries**: Government Technology (GovTech), Civic Technology, Public Sector Software - **Target customers**: Local, state, and federal government agencies in the United States - **Mission or purpose statement**: To strengthen trust in American public services by building technology that residents and public servants are proud to use. ## Products & Services - **Kaizen Platform**: A modular, AI-native operating system for public services. It replaces legacy systems with a unified platform covering recreation management (reservations, memberships, point of sale), permitting and licensing, parking management, transit and fare management, tolling infrastructure, digital billing and payment collection, and case management. The platform is designed to be adopted in phases. ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed - **Key Metric**: Total Funding of $35M raised across 2 rounds (Seed and Series A) - **Notable Investors/Partners**: NEA, a16z (Andreessen Horowitz), Accel, 776, and Carpenter Capital - **Growth Signals**: The platform already reaches 40 million residents across 50+ agencies in 17 states. The company has grown to 42 employees as of April 2026. It raised a $21M Series A in October 2025, signaling strong investor confidence and growth trajectory. ## Competitive Advantages - **AI-native platform**: Kaizen embeds AI into every interaction (from permit applications to benefits enrollment), differentiating it from legacy government tech vendors. - **Modular, phased adoption**: Agencies can start with one service (e.g., recreation) and expand over time, lowering the barrier to entry for cash-strapped governments. - **Design-first philosophy**: The company believes beautiful, intuitive software is how government technology earns trust, a stark contrast to the clunky, 90s-era systems residents are used to. - **Breadth of coverage**: Already serves 40 million residents across 50+ agencies in 17 states, spanning local, state, and federal levels. ## Strategic Focus - **Expansion across government levels**: Moving from its roots in outdoor recreation to a full-stack platform for local, state, and federal services. - **AI-native development**: Embedding AI into every product interaction to make public services smarter and more efficient. - **Scaling the platform**: Continuing to add modules and agency partners to become the "operating system for America’s public services." ## Why Work Here - **Culture**: Described as a team of "builders, designers, and operators" who are "change-seekers." The company emphasizes "Design is Everyone's Job" and "Collective Ownership" — every employee is accountable for the quality and trustworthiness of the product. - **Work Model**: Hybrid. Employees work from home on Mondays and Fridays, and are in the office 3 days a week (Tuesday–Thursday) for intentional collaboration. - **Location**: HQ in New York, NY. Some roles are listed as remote or hybrid. - **Tech Stack**: TypeScript, JavaScript, Node.js, React, Next.js, GraphQL, PostgreSQL, AWS, Google Cloud, Vercel, GitHub, Linear, Slack, Salesforce, Outreach. - **Notable Perks**: The company is building a culture of collective ownership and high design standards, with a focus on meaningful impact in the public sector. ## Sources 1. [kaizenlabs.co](https://www.kaizenlabs.co/) 2. [kaizenlabs.co/careers](https://www.kaizenlabs.co/careers/) 3. [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/kaizen-labs) 4. [tracxn.com](https://tracxn.com/d/companies/kaizenlabs/__4v0zyP-x3-EA2YdE8qp-2lRpYlAKgenz9fUD8HxFbDY) 5. [jobs.ashbyhq.com](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/kaizenlabs) ## Other roles at Kaizen Labs - [Senior Product Designer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-product-designer-kaizen-labs-new-york-xpt986ddpwdn) — New York, NY - [Head of Talent](https://feeny.ai/job/head-of-talent-kaizen-labs-new-york-hghddqh370wh) — New York, NY - [Senior Recruiter, GTM](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-recruiter-gtm-kaizen-labs-new-york-3jrcrygpsve4) — New York, NY - [Founding Filmmaker & Video Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/founding-filmmaker-video-lead-kaizen-labs-new-york-hgzk6y53d67g) — New York, NY - [People Operations Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/people-operations-manager-kaizen-labs-new-york-8tdwkre5m5sp) — New York, NY - [Forward Deployed Software Engineer, Cleared (TS/SCI)](https://feeny.ai/job/forward-deployed-software-engineer-cleared-ts-sci-kaizen-labs-washington-q5rzmst4hpws) — Washington, DC - [Senior Cleared Software Engineer (TS/SCI)](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-cleared-software-engineer-ts-sci-kaizen-labs-new-york-zejdkq2qr68b) — New York, NY - [Government Contracts Administrator (Contract)](https://feeny.ai/job/government-contracts-administrator-contract-kaizen-labs-washington-gmga41wyywwp) — Washington, DC - [Federal Growth Lead, DoW](https://feeny.ai/job/federal-growth-lead-dow-kaizen-labs-washington-gbvyf8fjk6yw) — Washington, DC - [Federal Growth Lead, FedCiv](https://feeny.ai/job/federal-growth-lead-fedciv-kaizen-labs-washington-edvcaee4e5b5) — Washington, DC