Founding Engineer (Full Stack or AI/ML)

These roles are exclusively available to U.S. citizens who can obtain and maintain a U.S. government-issued Top Secret security clearance.

Who We Are: 

Our mission at Hazel is simple and powerful. We use AI to help U.S. government purchasing teams buy at the speed of need with unparalleled efficiency and cost-effectiveness. It is a $2.7T problem every single year, and Hazel is at the forefront with State, Local, and EDucation (SLED) and federal government agencies.

Government procurement has moved at a glacial pace for decades, stovepiped by complex processes, regulatory capture, and overworked civil servants. The impacts are severe. Our founders saw at Palantir and BCG how lowly procurement challenges fueled wildfires across California, compromised critical U.S. national security systems, and wasted billions of dollars.

Hazel has identified a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to solve this by deploying cutting-edge AI to the public sector and unlocking the full potential of our nation. We empower our partners to move with expediency against the most pressing challenges of this century including climate sustainability, great power competition, and more. Hazel builds AI for the public interest.

What We Are Building: 

Hazel is transforming government procurement – how government agencies purchase goods and services from commercial vendors. This includes everything from copy paper to wind turbines to nuclear submarines. Our platform supports the full lifecycle of government procurement from need identification through award management. Hazel’s partners include state & local governments, schools, and federal agencies with whom we develop a product with features including: 

• AI labeling and categorization of solicitation text documents 
• Creation of solicitation documents with generative AI 
• Vendor discovery, labeling, and identification 
• Purchasing decision optimization with data-driven insights 
• Indexing and referencing of compliance documents

Why Join Hazel: 

As a Hazel founding engineer, you will gain unparalleled access and insight into how top government stakeholders manage billion-dollar purchasing decisions. You’ll then turn those insights into product by owning development of one of the most innovative, consequential, and secure software solutions in government today. This includes building secure large language models, integrating and training them on unstructured text data from over 19,000 agencies, and building a responsive front-end cloud-hosted application. Only Hazel offers the cadence and rigor of a tech startup paired with the impact and mission of the public sector.

You’ll work side-by-side with inquisitive and driven founders who want to grow with and support you every way they can. The founders continuously promote learning (about everything) and have numerous resources available from other founders/startups/VCs.

Hazel is a mission-driven organization founded by engineers and built around delivering world-class innovation to our government partners. We strive for excellence, deliver impact, and have fun doing it.

How You Fit Us: 

You care about mission. Hazel partners with agencies supporting everything from public school teachers in the classroom to warfighters in the field. We believe in products which change America for the better.

You solve problems. There’s no more time to opine on strategy and policy when our nation faces existential challenges, today. We are workhorses, not showhorses.

You are always learning. Nobody has all the answers, and the world is ever-evolving – so we must be adaptive and curious about everything. We bring the best practices available to meet the challenge.

You believe in team. Our team grows together, supports one another, and elevates our shared successes. We are more effective together.

Requirements: 

For Full Stack Engineer 

• Proven experience as a full stack engineer or similar role
• Proficiency in front-end languages (e.g., HTML, CSS, JavaScript) and frameworks (e.g., React, Angular, Vue)
• Strong knowledge of back-end languages (e.g., Python) and frameworks
• Experience with databases (e.g., PostgreSQL) and server management
• Familiarity with version control systems (e.g., Git).
• Familiarity with cloud platforms and services (e.g., AWS, Azure), CI/CD tools, and software infrastructure fundamentals (networking, security, distributed systems)
• Familiarity with industry standard monitoring, logging, and data management tools and best practices
• Travel 50% to customer sites
• U.S. Citizen, with the ability to obtain and maintain a Top Secret U.S. government-issued security clearance

For AI/ML Engineer

• Proven experience as an AI/ML engineer or similar role
• Proficiency in programming languages commonly used in AI/ML (e.g., Python, R)
• Experience with machine learning frameworks and libraries (e.g., TensorFlow, TextBlob)
• Strong knowledge of data processing and visualization tools (e.g., SageMaker, PyTorch)
• Familiarity with cloud platforms and services (e.g., AWS, Azure), CI/CD tools, and software infrastructure fundamentals (networking, security, distributed systems)
• Familiarity with industry-standard monitoring, logging, and data management tools and best practices
• Travel 50% to customer sites
• U.S. Citizen, with the ability to obtain and maintain a Top Secret U.S. government-issued security clearance

Base Salary Range: 

$120K - $200K USD | 1% - 2% Company Equity 

• Estimate provided is dependent on a wide range of factors, including years of experience, relevant knowledge, and security clearance
• We provide full health insurance, generous 401K, and you can tell us what other benefits you’d like as well

Hazel is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or veteran status, age or any other federally protected class.

Hazel’s name is inspired by Hazel Ying Lee, one of the first Chinese-American women to serve in the U.S. military as a member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots in World War II. All Americans can break barriers, dare to innovate, and be the change.