What It’s Like to Interview for a Job at DOGE

While Elon Musk’s alleged Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has taken an axe to nan national workforce, nan group itself is hiring.

The US DOGE Service, formerly nan US Digital Service (USDS), has been interviewing imaginable candidates successful caller weeks and months, moreover offering salaries connected nan highest extremity of nan authorities salary scale. WIRED said pinch 1 personification who made it done portion of nan DOGE question and reply process astir what it was like.

According to nan interviewee, location look to beryllium 5 phases to nan DOGE hiring process, each executed quickly complete a two- to three-week period. The first measurement successful nan process is simply a short 15-minute screening telephone pinch a recruiter, followed by a tech appraisal that applicants person 3 days to complete. If applicants walk this screening, they’ll beryllium asked to participate successful 2 different method interviews pinch DOGE staff. The 5th and last question and reply is simply a placement interview, wherever applicants would study much astir what kinds of activity they would beryllium assigned if hired.

“I deliberation it’s adjacent to telephone it a dream job,” nan interviewee, who asked not to beryllium named successful bid to protect their privacy, says of nan USDS successful its pre-Trump management form. The interviewee says they were “impressed” by a December 2023 question and reply pinch Mina Hsiang, past nan administrator of nan USDS, connected The Verge’s Decoder podcast. She described really nan department, since its creation successful 2014 by erstwhile president Barack Obama, brought a mini group of technologists together to amended tech services crossed nan national government. The interviewee had applied to activity astatine USDS successful erstwhile years, and relistening to Hsiang’s question and reply “was nan inspiration to use again,” they say.

The interviewee knew respective national workers who had already been laid disconnected arsenic portion of nan DOGE’s incursion into national agencies, and though it was “top of nan apical of mind,” they opportunity they were still “excited astir getting an interview.”

During nan first 15-minute call, nan recruiter outlined immoderate of nan imaginable projects DOGE mightiness undertake. These included, nan interviewee says, “leveraging AI to amended aesculapian services for veterans,” “streamlining national assistance applications from Americans who acquisition earthy disasters for illustration floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes,” and “improving nan Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and expanding Americans’ entree to financial assistance for higher education.”

These specifications astir imaginable projects were besides laid retired successful an email nan interviewee received earlier nan telephone call, inviting them to speak to nan recruiter. The interviewee, who had applied to USDS aggregate times some earlier and soon aft nan caller Trump administration, says they weren’t judge really aliases why their exertion had caught nan oculus of nan caller DOGE Service. “Maybe they were conscionable looking for a coder,” they say.

Seeing USDS referred to arsenic nan “US DOGE Service,” nan interviewee says, made them “want to barf” because “it represented nan hollowing retired of nan statement I appreciated. I didn't cognize what to make of it, since I applied connected a lark and hated what DOGE was doing. But I was fresh to study what they wanted and to research what effect I could have.”