Whereas Elon Musk’s so-called Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE) has taken an axe to the federal workforce, the group itself is hiring.
The US DOGE Service, previously the US Digital Service (USDS), has been interviewing potential candidates in latest weeks and months, even providing salaries on the very best finish of the federal government pay scale. WIRED spoke with one one that made it by a part of the DOGE interview course of about what it was like.
In response to the interviewee, there seem like 5 phases to the DOGE hiring course of, all executed shortly over a two- to three-week interval. Step one within the course of is a brief 15-minute screening name with a recruiter, adopted by a tech evaluation that candidates have three days to finish. If candidates go this screening, they’ll be requested to take part in two totally different technical interviews with DOGE employees. The fifth and ultimate interview is a placement interview, the place candidates would be taught extra about what sorts of labor they might be assigned if employed.
“I believe it’s honest to name it a dream job,” the interviewee, who requested to not be named as a way to shield their privateness, says of the USDS in its pre-Trump administration kind. The interviewee says they have been “impressed” by a December 2023 interview with Mina Hsiang, then the administrator of the USDS, on The Verge’s Decoder podcast. She described how the division, since its creation in 2014 by former president Barack Obama, introduced a small group of technologists collectively to enhance tech providers throughout the federal authorities. The interviewee had utilized to work at USDS in earlier years, and relistening to Hsiang’s interview “was the inspiration to use once more,” they are saying.
The interviewee knew a number of federal staff who had already been laid off as a part of the DOGE’s incursion into federal companies, and although it was “prime of the highest of thoughts,” they are saying they have been nonetheless “enthusiastic about getting an interview.”
Throughout the preliminary 15-minute name, the recruiter outlined among the doable tasks DOGE may undertake. These included, the interviewee says, “leveraging AI to enhance medical providers for veterans,” “streamlining federal support purposes from Individuals who expertise pure disasters like floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes,” and “bettering the Free Software for Federal Scholar Support (FAFSA) and increasing Individuals’ entry to monetary help for larger schooling.”
These particulars about doable tasks have been additionally specified by an e mail the interviewee acquired earlier than the telephone name, inviting them to talk to the recruiter. The interviewee, who had utilized to USDS a number of instances each earlier than and shortly after the brand new Trump administration, says they weren’t positive how or why their utility had caught the attention of the brand new DOGE Service. “Possibly they have been simply in search of a coder,” they are saying.
Seeing USDS known as the “US DOGE Service,” the interviewee says, made them “wish to barf” as a result of “it represented the hollowing out of the group I appreciated. I did not know what to make of it, since I utilized on a lark and hated what DOGE was doing. However I used to be able to be taught what they needed and to discover what affect I may have.”