The recent executive order establishing the President’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) by reorganizing and renaming the United States Digital Service (USDS) raises significant concerns for the civic tech ecosystem. By restructuring USDS, the government risks closing avenues for non-traditional technologists to contribute their expertise to public service, potentially stifling innovation and progress in government technology initiatives. Moreover this will decrease the pool of technologists that are joining the CivicTech ecosystem who were brought in through their exposure to this type of work. This will hurt government agencies who will lose out on a whole new hiring pipeline for future executives that are now interested in pivoting from their current career to stay in government and take on an executive role within government. This will also lessen the pool of government contracting (GovCon) business founders, if you look at the Digital Services Coalition you will see an impact that USDS and 18F has had on the current GovCon landscape, with so many companies founded by or staffed at the highest levels with alumni from these organizations.
USDS has historically been a conduit for professionals from diverse backgrounds to apply their skills to governmental challenges and projects. For instance, I was able to bring over two decades of experience spanning state and city government, as well as private industry roles at Sony Music , Zagat , Google , Johnson & Johnson , IDT Corporation , and Phase2 Technology . I was able to bring this varied experience to bear on projects across the government supporting missions at: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) , USCIS , U.S. Department of Justice , Internal Revenue Service and U.S. Department of Agriculture . While at USDS, I supported the launch of a modern, digitized version of the 10-10EZ form at the VA, transforming it into a mobile-first, responsive application. This modernization led to a tenfold increase in submissions within the first three months, significantly improving veterans’ access to healthcare benefits. My path into government was through the USDS, before reading a blog post about healthcare.gov written by Mikey Dickerson in 2015 inspired me to apply to join. Government work wasn’t even on my radar at that point in my career. This exposure and experience within the government via USDS changed my career trajectory and the future course of my life, reframing all aspects of my life around CivicTech, founding a business supporting delivery companies in the GovCon space, mentoring across multiple communities of folks either in the technology for good ecosystem or looking to enter into it. Heck I even met my amazing wife (Amy Edwards Holmes) during a government shutdown while both of us were considered “essential workers”.
The strength of USDS has been its ability to attract talent; professionals who might not have pursued traditional government careers but were drawn to the mission of public service through technology. This reorganization under the DOGE umbrella could inadvertently deter such individuals from joining, thereby depriving the government of fresh perspectives and innovative solutions. Moreover, the establishment of DOGE Teams within agencies, as mandated by the executive order, may lead to a more siloed approach, limiting cross-agency collaboration and the infusion of external expertise that has been instrumental in past USDS successes. The franchise model that USDS implemented was very deliberate and took lots of effort where everyone was a USDS member no matter the team you were a part of or what community of practice your expertise aligned with.
The temporary nature of the U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization, set to terminate on July 4, 2026, further adds to the uncertainty surrounding the continuity of digital transformation efforts. I know that in my time at USDS we were often told flippantly things like: Why would I listen to you, you won’t be here in two years. I can’t imagine that career civil servants who will be doing their jobs years after this 18 month window will not have similar feelings about DOGE as they did about USDS.
I care alot about the CivicTech and Public Interest Tech communities and USDS that I was lucky enough to be a part of from 2016-2020 and this is one Geek’s initial thoughts and concerns. Thanks!
The original version of this blog post is on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/usds-doge-civictech-ecosystem-concerns-robert-holmes-rboue/
The only changes are to the links mentioned in the article, if there is a link on the World Wide Web that is an online destination I swapped if for the LinkedIn link.