So you (still) want to serve your country: How to stay connected after leaving federal government
Many incredible people who I respect deeply both as humans and as people who fought scams, helped seniors, and got services to Veterans were illegally fired last week.
I’m working on fighting back, but in the meantime wanted to share advice on how to stay connected. This should be broadly applicable, but it’s designed especially for early career technical folks who had just tipped their toes into the civic tech space, or were about to dip their toes.
Get connected with (or re-build) your local civic tech scene
There are a ton of ways to do this, and I promise it will be good for your soul (and for your job search). Some favorites include:
- Attend (or re-launch*) your local hack night! Bring your laptop, make a goal of meeting three people and hearing something that they’re working on that they’re excited about. Check out this selection of current hack nights —they are all members of the Alliance of Civic Technologists.
- Civic Tech Atlanta
- Code For Dayton
- SF Civic Tech
- Code for Philly
- BetaNYC
- Chi Hack Night
- Civic Tech New England
- Code for BTV
- Florida Community Innovation
- Open Austin
- Open Sacramento
- Code for Charlottesville
- OpenOakland
2. Find (or launch*) your state/local Digital Service team. The brilliant folks at Georgetown’s Beeck Center have created a Government Digital Service Team Tracker to help you find them.
Some ways to get started include signing up for their newsletters or events, checking out job postings, helping out on any open repos on github. They will IMMEDIATELY notice you if you’re filing beautiful bug tickets or helpful PRs, I promise.
Another way to get connected is to follow the folks running the teams on LinkedIn and weigh in when they post cool stuff!
3. Consider joining Technologists for the Public Good and seeing if you have local connections. They also have reduced cost memberships and scholarships.
4. Sign up for Civic Match from Work for America!
Find state (and local!) offices that are doing work that you believe in.
You likely know your state has a governor, and your city has a mayor, but there are many other really interesting agencies at the state and local level. One of the best places I’ve ever worked was in state government, for the Ohio Attorney General’s office. Every state AG office has a team that works on consumer protection, antitrust, privacy, and more. If you want to work on issues around data protection or big tech, those are the places to be. They also are typically smaller than a federal agency, have less bureaucracy, and allow you to be entrepreneurial and more creative. This is excellent if you’re into open source software and don’t mind a scrappy approach to problem solving.
Another state office that has an incredibly cool mission are state insurance commissioners. They take consumer complaints (!!!!!!!!!!!!) about health insurance (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and enforce the law on behalf of the residents of their states. They are so, so good.
Few of these offices will have perfect job postings up — they’re not used to getting to hire folks like you. I would strongly encourage you to apply if it looks interesting, even if you don’t technically meet every requirement and even if the title is weird. Apply, and reach out to someone who already works there on LinkedIn and ask to chat to help de-bug jargon and see if work there aligns with your interests.
Note: Even if you don’t personally love the politics of the head of the particular office, there are civil service jobs that are focused on the persistent mission, regardless of the administration.
*Launch things
Every one of the teams or events I just described got launched somehow. I was lucky enough to be part of launching a few teams myself, and it’s scary, but it’s also fun and rewarding. If you’re wondering how you actually do it, here are the first few steps:
- Write down a list of bullets of what you’re thinking about launching.
- Find someone you trust and ask for their feedback and ideas.
- Turn your bullets into a two pager (at most!) to describe the problem you’re trying to solve, why now, how you want to solve it, and what solving it would mean for real people.
- Circulate it to more folks for their feedback, including ideas of how to make it come true. Make sure to include folks who maybe worked on previous iterations and will have insights and help on how you can go further and hopefully make new mistakes.
Maybe it’s re-launching an in person local hack night that withered during the pandemic, maybe it’s a whole new way of tackling public problems. It can be scary in times of uncertainty, and I invite you to listen to the bravest voice inside of you asking “what if this worked in a different way?”
Refer to Thermodynamics
I’ll leave you with the first law of thermodynamics, which has always brought me solace in times of grief and loss, whether it was after my father died, or after people tried to dismantle world-class teams of public servants to stop them from protecting the public:
Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It can be transformed.
