"In August 2014, President Obama and Congress created the United States Digital Service (USDS).
In January 2025, President Trump signed an executive order to rename and reorganize it as the United States DOGE Service.
[...]
On March 17 2025, I joined DOGE as a software engineer working for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)."
Some important details that should also be mentioned is that:
- "On February 14, 2025, along with other layoffs across the Federal government, several dozen employees who were part of the United States Digital Service prior to the January 20 inauguration of Donald Trump, were dismissed with an email saying, "Due to the restructuring and changes to USDS's mission, USDS no longer has a need for your services."[30][31][32] Of the remaining 65 employees in the department, 21 resigned with a joint resignation letter on February 25 that stated, "We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans' sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services" (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Digital_Service )
- On March 1st, 2025 - " The former employees of 18F said in a joint statement that they had been abruptly locked out of their computers and email at midnight EST, with "no chance to assist in an orderly transition in our work."[28][29] The 18F website was taken offline the same day." ( from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/18F#Mass_firings_and_eliminati... )
OP, you're not getting a lot of nice words in the comments here — understandably, many are upset with DOGE — but I appreciate you taking the time to write this. It's a great insight into DOGE and the motivations of the people that chose to work there, which we have been missing. Thank you!
> In 2016, I canvassed for Bernie Sanders. I spent my first day in Nevada
> walking door-to-door in the desert heat with a dying phone battery and a stack > of printed papers delineating potential voters, thinking "there really should > be an app for this." There, I ended up writing some Google Apps code for
> caucus result reporting.
>
> This was a chance to do something bigger.
The original motivations as stated seem to be good. Essentially, he wanted to leverage technology to deliver positive impact, a sentiment that most of the HN audience will resonate with.
I'm wondering if the author evaluated his initial convictions with the ongoing actual negative impact DOGE was causing just a few days in. Sure, it's hard to leave a paying job if your mortgage depends on it, but in the DOGE case pay was minimal if it even existed. If this was a move of conviction, then there were plenty of signs that the stated purpose of DOGE was not being followed. Yet, I can't fail but notice that the author stuck around with DOGE till he was unceremoniously fired.
I think he did have good intentions. For someone who took the administration at their word this must have felt like a once in a lifetime opportunity to be part of something that changed government operations for the better.
His mentions about improving efficiency and turnaround times are exactly what everyone wanted DOGE to be.
But you can tell he’s realized that DOGE is deeply unpopular. Even much of the right is realizing that DOGE was dishonest, inaccurate, and completely failed to deliver on their promises.
The way this article invokes Obama’s name before Trump or Musk (in an attempt at the “Obama created DOGE, actually” meme) is telling. The way he speaks about his passion for Bernie Sanders while only mentioning Trump and Elon is passing is also significant.
Being unceremoniously discarded by Elon Musk after trying to do a good job, all while watching DOGE cement itself as an historically unprecedented mistake for the country has to feel devastating. I can’t imagine trying to do something good and finding yourself very publicly associated with a deeply unpopular program and then also finding yourself evicted by that very program.
Honestly the best thing he could do for his own personal brand is to come out against DOGE, however lightly. He could just say that DOGE’s execution was not what he wanted. Instead he’s trying to pretend it was a good thing and that it wasn’t to blame for cuts, when we all clearly saw the e-mails, the threats, the public claims. He could have had a pass by claiming that he went in with high expectations, but trying to double down on them on the way out is just asking to be pegged to the wrong side of history.
> For someone who took the administration at their word
Anyone who did that should really not be in charge of anything more important than a popsicle stand, even that might be too much. Come on, how ignorant do you have to be to think you could trust this admin?
> Honestly the best thing he could do for his own personal brand is to come out against DOGE, however lightly.
Yep, and he couldn't even manage to do that, even in passing. I won't be using them but all the semi-slurs (like "beta" but worse) that the right likes to hurl at people seem to actually fit this person. To be so passive about losing a job for a non-reason, especially when they styled themselves as the second coming of jesus to come and clear away all the government waste, is mind-bending.
Sounds like someone who genuinely wants to make an impact, donated his time to do so, and wrote some stuff to potentially help while giving us a glimpse into the daily life of a high-profile group. I really appreciate this.
I think the intent, as stated, appears to match what you're saying. It's hard to ignore that there doesn't appear to be any display of critical thinking involved, though.
He wants recognition for quickly building simple tools (e.g. visual org chart) without the responsibility of what the tool was used for: to fire half a million people. Where are the efficiency gains in this? It's very telling that the interview that he got fired for included his praise that the government was actually more efficient than he expected.
Given all that, I can't take the writing as being all that sincere.
FYI this is Sahil Lavingia, who has a long history in the tech world and HN. He's definitely not a villain and has done some good things in the tech world over the years.
However, he's also very good at PR and spinning things in his favor. He has a long history of going full hustle-culture on trends as they come along, including everything from NFTs to LLMs and now DOGE. He's very good at wiggling out of difficult situations and rewriting history about himself, and this article is a good example of that.
This isn't ancient history, all of this /just/ (is) happened. We were all there. How is it that so many people took one look at DOGE (_before Trump took office even_) and saw it for what it is but this person with "long history in the tech world" couldn't see it? I don't care how many "good things" they've done in tech, they were a willful and active participant all of this.
> He's very good at wiggling out of difficult situations and rewriting history about himself, and this article is a good example of that.
Is it? It makes them look like an idiot. An idiot for not seeing what so many people saw before or an idiot for thinking we would buy this load of BS. In fact, I'm not even sure what this is supposed to accomplish, they do not come off looking smart or any positive trait I can think of.
> he materially contributed to seriously harming people.
There are 2 points:
1. Umm he wasn't an exec who had any power to decide whether to lay off somebody or not.
He built some prototypes and launched 1-2 improved UI. Was improving a website harming people?
2. Laying off unnecessary workforce isn't a net harmful to the society.
Are you saying we should never ever fire or stop hiring anybody ever?
Have you ever stop hiring someone in your life? A house cleaner. A babysitter? Stop going to a restaurant? Did you harm them when you stop paying for their services?
Getting fired from DOGE by having your access spontaneously revoked without explanation is extremely on-brand for DOGE.
I think Sahil honestly wanted to do well, but writing like this makes it clear that he wasn't immune to the Elon Musk reality distortion field:
> Meanwhile, the public was seeing news reports of mass firings that seemed cruel and heartless, many assuming DOGE was directly responsible.
> In reality, DOGE had no direct authority. The real decisions came from the agency heads appointed by President Trump, who were wise to let DOGE act as the 'fall guy' for unpopular decisions.
This is lie. We've all heard the claim that Elon is just an "adviser", but when he's following Trump around and showing up in cabinet meetings everyone knows what's going on.
To add to this, Sahil's assessment that publishing DOGE code would allay public concerns of mass lay-offs speaks volumes of the disconnect between the ethos of DOGE and public interest.
Life is not an optimization problem, it's full of people who have hearts, souls, and minds.
The article literally writes "Meanwhile, the public was seeing news reports of mass firings that seemed cruel and heartless, many assuming DOGE was directly responsible. In reality, DOGE had no direct authority." as well as "Built org chart tools: Interactive visualizations to aid RIF execution for 473,000 employees".
The guy assisted in firing 1/2 million people but thinks that DOGE had nothing to do with it.
His claim to fame is that he made a simple url shortener, added stripe integration to it and tried to sell people on this as a billion dollar business.
And a bunch of SV angel investors were dumb enough to give him over a million dollars in seed funding for this.
LLM to review PDFs, a demo of a LLM chat bot, and zero self-awareness.
> Sped up AI adoption: According to a VA engineer, accelerated adoption by "12 months"
Yes, let's trust the person scared for their job talking to the person representing the group responsible for letting people go. I'm sure they had a completely unbiased opinion and had no reason to blow smoke up your butt. /s
Reading through the Fast Company article that lost him his job [0] it really comes across as someone who should know better but doesn't.
> “I’m basically taking Elon at his word,” he admits.
Bozo bit flipped.
Also someone who has a very self-inflated sense of worth
> But in the government, I really believe that I can have billions of dollars of positive impact just by being technically minded.
Does the government need improving/modernizing? Yes. Is the way to do it with a sledgehammer? No.
I don't know what you call someone who seems unconcerned of the fact that the wool has been pulled over their eyes and wears their gullibility proudly for all to see. To get fired for talking to the press without explanation and just being ok with that?? Just insanity.
