Engineering Manager

About the Company

Have you struggled to reserve that coveted summer camping spot at a state park? Wondered why you’re still filling out a paper form at the DMV? Or tried (and failed) to book your favorite pickleball court from your phone? Kaizen Labs is rebuilding the government’s digital front door - bringing modern, people-first software to the public services millions of Americans rely on every day. From parks & recreation and permitting to licensing and payments, we’re replacing outdated systems with intuitive, beautiful technology designed for residents and the public servants who serve them. Our platform now powers over 50 agencies across 17 states, reaching more than 30 million residents. Recent partners include Maricopa County (AZ), San Bernardino County (CA), and the Cherokee Nation. In Maryland, our platform helped eliminate seven-mile traffic jams at state parks, saving hundreds of thousands in costs and dramatically improving the visitor experience. Founded in 2022 and based in New York City, Kaizen has raised $35 million from world-class investors, including NEA, Andreessen Horowitz, Accel, 776, and Carpenter Capital. We’re a team of builders, designers, and operators redefining what it means to serve the public in the digital age - and we’re just getting started.

About the Role

This is a hybrid role based out of our New York City HQ. Candidates must reside in New York or be able to commute to New York City to work out of our office at least three times a week (Tuesdays - Thursdays). As our Engineering Manager, you’ll be building the financial systems that power this mission - ensuring governments and residents alike can trust every transaction, every time. You’ll get to solve some of the hardest technical challenges in fintech and civic tech, shape the foundation of our platform, and play a key role in scaling an early stage startup on its way to nationwide impact.

Responsibilities

• You will be responsible for owning and building our financial systems - payments, processors, reporting, and accounting infrastructure.
• These systems are among the most sensitive parts of our product and codebase, and as we scale to larger, more sophisticated customers, they’re holding us to higher standards of accuracy, compliance, and reliability.
• This is a highly technical role with leadership responsibility: ~80% hands-on engineering and ~20% people management.
• You’ll collaborate closely with product and platform teams to design simple, abstracted financial interfaces, while ensuring our systems are accurate, and built to scale.

Technical Challenges Unique to This Role

• Building and scaling financial systems that reconcile accounting data, power accurate reporting, and support enterprise-grade compliance.
• Owning integrations with payment processors, ERP systems, and financial reporting tools to ensure reliability and trust.
• Designing simple, abstracted payment and reporting interfaces for our customers.
• Ensuring financial accuracy through reconciliation, alerting, and monitoring systems.
• Supporting diverse use cases - everything from permits and public reservations to point-of-sale transactions and large-scale government payments.

What You’ll Do

• Lead the accounting and payments roadmap - defining priorities, building, and executing.
• Own payments, processors, reporting, and financial accounting systems end-to-end.
• Establish rigorous systems for reconciliation, alerting, and financial accuracy.
• Collaborate with product engineering to design clean, abstracted interfaces for payments and reporting.
• Manage and mentor a small team while remaining a strong IC.
• Drive ERP integrations and ensure smooth connectivity between payments, accounting, and inventory systems.
• Contribute to high-level architectural decisions, helping us design scalable, reliable, and auditable financial systems.

Qualifications

• 6 years of professional software development experience, with deep exposure to fintech, payments, or accounting systems.
• Background at finance-heavy, tech-forward companies or foundational work at an early-stage startup building financial infrastructure.

Required Skills

• Strong backend engineering skills (TypeScript, Postgres, Stripe API experience preferred).
• Experience with ERP integrations.
• Comfortable leading projects and/or teams, or leading complex, cross-functional initiatives.
• Customer-obsessed mindset - you care about providing reliable systems that empower users and earn customer trust.
• Strong written and verbal communication; able to collaborate across product, engineering, and operations teams.
• Familiar with (or excited to learn about) integrating AI-assisted coding and problem-solving tools into everyday development.

Preferred Skills

• Have experience with POS/payment terminals or retail and e-commerce systems.
• Be familiar with compliance-heavy environments.
• Have experience balancing IC engineering responsibilities with early management.
• Bring experience building systems at companies that scaled.

Base Salary is $180k - $220k