Happy 5th Birthday, USDS 🎂🥳
By Eunice Garcia (she/her), Operations Manager
The first meeting I ever had at our headquarters, lovingly dubbed “JP,” was inside a windowless basement meeting space. Despite the lack of sunlight, I was struck by the couches and cozy décor. The “Green Room,” named in homage to the White House parlor across the street, was still a far cry from the elegantly adorned walls of the executive residence. Our startup feel was fueled by emoji pillows, posters taped to the walls, people in hoodies, and a freezer full of popsicles. It was immediately clear how wonderfully wild and inspiring the people, culture, and mission of the U.S. Digital Service are. The magic of that moment is still with me. Almost two years later, our values have become my daily reality.
Nearly 400 people have contributed to the USDS family — and we’ve come a long way. Founded in 2014 after helping fix Healthcare.gov when it went down, tackling hard challenges is a fundamental part of our DNA. From deploying rapid response teams, to designing intuitive interfaces, our projects empower the nation’s top technologists to bring industry best practices to government. At nearly 60% women in leadership, USDS is 50% female overall. Diversity is important to us because our work impacts Veterans, military service members, immigrants, farmers, small business owners, students, Medicare patients, and many more. We know we build better products when representing all of America.
As we celebrate five years of USDS, here are some of our most memorable moments. 💪🏽🖥🇺🇸
Melissa Schaff (she/her), DDS, Design 🎨
“That time I walked into the Pentagon and realized the apex outside of Defense Digital Service’s office was full of pics of Veterans — the same pics of Veterans we used for Vets.gov and VA.gov. It felt like a sign I was meant to be here, especially since I had just reviewed 300+ photos from the photographer, Stacy Pearsall, for VA.gov and felt personally connected to them.”
Kelly O’Connor (she/her), VA, Product 📦
“My first meeting with a cabinet level secretary, Bob McDonald, who once he found out my dad was a combat Veteran wanted to talk about that!”
Lauren Alexanderson (she/her), VA, Design 🎨
“I’m sure many people on my team will list the night of the VA.gov launch as a favorite memory. It was certainly one of the professional highlights of my career. What stuck out to me was that this group of really smart and talented product managers, engineers, designers, communicators were bought into a vision, executed on that vision in harmony over a period of many trying months, and delivered an amazing product that would have huge impact to millions of people. I was — and still am — really proud to be part of it.”
Stephanie Grosser (she/her), HQ, Strat Ops ♟
“My favorite moment on every USDS project- and I’ve had a few- is that moment just before launch when stakeholders get nervous and we can look them in the eye and honestly tell them we’ve worked with their team to do everything right. Then together we get over the risk aversion that is purposefully built into our bureaucracy and deliver modern tech for the American people.”
Anissa Perez (she/her), DHS, Talent 🎤
“My favorite USDS memory is when the entire Department of Homeland Security Digital Service team held a scavenger hunt on U Street during our annual offsite. The team purchased flowers for strangers, posed in store windows, reenacted movie scenes, and about 15 more fun things. I’ll never forget!”
Michael Palmer (he/him), DHS, Procurement 📥
“I remember in August 2016 at 6am standing on the quiet streets of DC, watching the sun rise before walking into 650 Massachusetts Ave. to begin a revolutionary $1.5 billion contract competition called FLASH. On that morning in August, the first of 1,000 contractor staff arrived and over the next 3 weeks we evaluated them in person as they designed, developed, and deployed digital service products. Three years later, technical capability demonstrations, like we used on DHS FLASH, are widely used as agencies desperately search for talented digital service vendors and organizations like USCIS are now defaulting to this method of evaluation rather than asking for written proposals.”
Steve Albers (he/him), HHS, Engineering 👨🏽💻
“During our orientation Stephanie Grosser and Meredith Stewart did a talk called ‘Getting to Yes’ that laid out our challenge: we don’t have a lot of time, and we are going to move projects forward — no excuses. It left me excited for work and motivated to get things done.”
Amy Gleason (she/her), HHS, Product 📦
“My favorite memory from my time at USDS is launching a potentially industry-changing healthcare product at The White House. It was really fun to have the CMS Administrator announce it in her speech, to have people at the event get excited and talk to us afterward, and to have press tell the story in a positive way. I have been trying to drive healthcare data interoperability for 23 years, and this one project, Data at the Point of Care API, has the potential to do more in a few months than otherwise has happened in my entire career!”
Meg Peters (she/her), DHS, Design 🎨
“At the second USDS birthday party, we were all wearing red, white, and blue — with USA bling and glitter everywhere. The song “YMCA” came on, and it quickly morphed into “It’s fun to work at the U-S-D-S!” with everyone singing along and striking the poses for U-S-D-S, drowning out Y-M-C-A.”
The best of technology.
The best of government.
And we want you.
We’re looking for the most tenacious designers, software engineers, product managers, and more, who are committed to untangling, rewiring and redesigning critical government services. You’ll join a team of the most talented technologists from across the private sector and government.
If you have questions regarding employment with the U.S. Digital Service, please contact us at usds@omb.eop.gov or visit our Hiring FAQ.
