USDS

The United States Digital Service (USDS) functions much like a Silicon Valley startup embedded directly within the White House. Instead of building massive tech projects from scratch, they deploy small, interdisciplinary teams to individual federal agencies to troubleshoot major pain points. Their strategy centers around human-centered engineering, iterative development, and cutting bureaucratic red tape.

The Mission: It recruits top private-sector technologists—including engineers, data scientists, and product managers—for short-term "tours of civic service" to modernize and simplify federal websites and public-facing digital platforms.

Founded: August 11, 2014, by President Barack Obama following the massive service crashes during the launch of HealthCare.gov.

The Talent: It recruits software engineers, data scientists, UX designers, and product managers for short-term "tours of civic service" (usually 1 to 2 years).