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What people often misunderstand about hiring in public service is the sheer quality and commitment of those who choose to work in government, especially at places like TTS. Here’s my perspective as someone who led design hiring for years.
Full disclosure: I’m responding to media coverage and have no insider knowledge of current GSA happenings. However, as someone who handled tech hiring within TTS for years, I feel compelled to speak up given recent discussions about staffing. This is written strictly in a personal capacity.
Here’s the thing people don’t realize about jobs specifically within TTS, especially at 18F: For whatever reason, people across industries who work in tech knew about us. Over the years, as civic tech’s “lore” (RIP civic tech) grew as the place you go in government when you want to do good stuff or help people, it meant that people actively sought out our job postings when we were hiring.
I was Head of Design for close to four years, overseeing the largest in-house team of human-centered designers anywhere in the federal government. Before that, I spent two years as a first-level manager over product designers. I’ve been involved in a lot of hiring over that time, especially when I led Design at 18F. We’d had attrition over the years that we couldn’t backfill for a long time, but when we finally could, it enabled us to pivot and focus on big priorities like:
There might be a few service design leads here and there, but 18F was the first and only place to build a dedicated practice around service design.
Here’s the reality: our job postings would go up for a week — a quirk of the hiring rules — and sometimes they were only allowed to be up for a single day. Even with those restrictions, we’d consistently get 1,000+ applicants for every opening.
A lot of these applicants came from companies you’ve heard of. I saw it not only in the applicant pool but also in the backchannel messages I’d get from people at some of the most well-known Silicon Valley firms who were looking to make a difference. There was a clear pattern: some people had made their money and wanted to contribute. Others were drawn to the decent work-life balance — or at least, what we used to have — and the flexibility of remote work.
But not everyone fit that mold. We had applicants from all walks of life, with all sorts of professional backgrounds, and from all over the country.
Our staff represented the country. I had colleagues from Alaska to rural western states like Montana, from Puerto Rico to the Deep South. There were far more people living on farms in rural states than in big cities. This felt right for the kind of work we were doing — work that impacted people everywhere.
It might surprise some people that public servants genuinely care about their neighbors — even those they’ll never meet. People want to contribute to something bigger than themselves.
Make no mistake: quality was never the issue. Every single designer we hired was top-tier. Even our backups — and the backups’ backups — would’ve been fantastic hires. That’s how strong the talent pool was. In recent years, as people began feeling like it might be okay to work in government again, the pool only got stronger.
I’m not worried about the people we hired finding new opportunities. I’m disappointed they won’t be able to work on the things they cared about. I’m disappointed for the people who won’t get a chance to learn from them. And ultimately, I’m disappointed for the country.
Public service isn’t a consolation prize. Every workplace has its share of challenges — difficult people, inefficiencies, or those who struggle to meet the task. But at TTS, our processes and standards ensured we didn’t let those challenges take root. No one I’ve worked with or seen dismissed in the news fits that category — not today, not ever during their tenures.