📣 Tech Jobs for Gov— the job board companion to this newsletter — is now open for listings from the whole civic tech ecosystem. Government jobs are always free to post, and details about rates for other types of organizations are at techjobsforgov.com/post-a-job.
🗓️ A small number of openings for 1:1 navigation conversations. If you’re trying to figure out how to move into civic tech — or what your next move looks like once you’re there — reach out via civicworkstudio.com/contact with what you’re trying to figure out and your LinkedIn. These conversations are confidential. I’ll follow up with availability and rates.
Deep-Dive: New York is updating the city charter
The NYC Commission on Government Efficiency held its first public hearings earlier this month. COGE is a charter revision commission, meaning it has the authority to put amendments to New York City’s governing constitution directly in front of voters. One of the hearing topics was modernizing government technology and civil service hiring.
These processes are wonky and political, and they don’t always produce change. But they occasionally open a window for outside technical expertise to reach leaders and the public, leading to open discussion about what the role of government is and what type of change is possible.
I testified at the Brooklyn hearing on June 11. The argument I made: the Charter already mandates merit hiring and effective service delivery, but creates no structural mechanism to verify either. The fix doesn’t have to be new legislation. It can be a clock and accountability structure built into the Charter itself. Read my testimony here.
Others who testified the same night made arguments worth highlighting on their own terms:
Leah Bannon, a public servant working in digital service delivery who spoke in her personal capacity, made the case for digital service teams and against large IT contracts. Her core point: contracting creates a constant structural tax on efficiency because vendors are always optimizing for business development, not service delivery. The alternative isn’t better contracts but rather small, empowered, multi-disciplinary teams hired directly inside agencies. Her testimony is here and includes a great list of other resources.
BetaNYC testified on digital sovereignty with the argument that as long as the city pays private vendors for foundational digital infrastructure, it’s paying a toll on its own operations. They draw an analogy to the Croton Aqueduct: in the 1840s, the city decided it wouldn’t pay a licensing fee every time a fire hydrant opened. That logic should extend to the software that hosts the city’s own laws and services. Jordan Shapiro’s full testimony is on BetaNYC’s site.
Robert Gordon, writing from Recoding America Fund, made the civil service reform case: New York City has roughly twice as many vacancies as before the pandemic, a fourteen-month exam-to-hire timeline, and 2,600 job titles, many with names nobody outside the system recognizes. Other large cities like Boston, Denver, and Seattle don’t operate this way. The complexity isn’t preventing corruption anymore; it is creating workarounds that favor the well-connected and pushing the city toward contractors who cost more. His piece is here.
There were many other important takes on these issues, but at it’s core: we need to rethink how the city buys and builds technology, and the systems that enable it, to ensure that we can deliver an affordable New York now and for the future.
If you’re in New York City: The commission’s next hearing is July 8 in Manhattan. Written public comment is open at nyc.gov/site/charter/meetings/public-comment.page.
If you’re not in New York: I don’t have a comprehensive map of where the equivalent opportunities are, but most cities and states have formal processes to make charter and other changes. These types of processes, whether charter revision processes, legislative sessions, and executive commissions, open a window where showing up matters and offer an opportunity to learn more about how government works. If you’re aware of something like that in your community, check it out.
Know someone navigating a move into government tech? Forward this their way.
Reads
👶 Two million fewer children are enrolled in Medicaid: Georgetown’s Center for Children and Families shared this stark view on what is already happening, even before full HR1 cuts take effect. Two million fewer children are enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP since January 2025, mostly among kids who likely still qualify. The drop is procedural due to enrollment churn, administrative burden, and renewal failures. We won’t know the full effect for years, but this is what many teams in and outside of government are trying to prevent.
🏥 A UX guide for Medicaid work requirements — Sarah Esty and the team at 17a shared a new resource focused on the member experience of Medicaid work requirements. While much of the focus has been on the backend, we’ve already seen data that when Arkansas and New Hampshire implemented work requirements, 72-82% of people who had to complete a manual renewal failed. These are overwhelmingly people who were working, exempt from work requirements or who just couldn’t navigate the system. This guide is meant for states to help know where they stand and what UX elements they may need to focus on before 2027.
🏗️ The 2027 capacity stack — Kelly Taylor, one of the co-founders of Colorado Digital Service, shared his perspective on what the civic tech field should be doing before incoming governors are sworn in. There are 39 gubernatorial elections on the 2026 calendar, at least 21 guaranteed transitions. He notes that too many states have to relearn the same lessons from scratch, and we miss valuable time and opportunity when states have to relearn this themselves. He shares 9 recommendations for what we should do as a field before inauguration days to build better systems and structures around the tools we have.
🗂️ The policy simplification problem — Lena Selzer at Civilla shared why AI in government is a policy problem before it's a technology problem. A state caseworker making a benefits determination works from a 1,700-page policy manual and then must balance conflicting guidance, central office memos, and supervisor interpretations that may or may not align. There's a lot of talk about encoding policy rules to be machine-legible. But in most agencies, the rules themselves aren't legible yet. The human work of sitting side-by-side with caseworkers to surface what actually happens when a case gets processed, not the idealized process, is unglamorous, hard to fund, and the thing that determines whether everything else works.
🌐 Beyond translation: the case for content localization — Vyki Englert wrote for the Compiler blog on why hardcoding Google Translate into a government website isn’t enough, even if it satisfies a legal checkbox. True language access means preventing errors and translating how people speak and understand, not a word-by-word exact translation that misses the meaning entirely. When translation isn’t built in from the start, people navigating benefits eligibility get routed wrong, miss deadlines, and lose access to services they qualify for.
🏛️ CMS established Office of Health Technology and Products — Effective June 9, CMS formalized its digital service function under a new office that includes Digital Service at CMS, an Open Source Program Group, a Standards and Interoperability Group, and a Product Development Group.
🛠️ Why projects get stuck and how to unblock them — Bloom Works recently shared a piece on three recurring failure modes in government tech projects: designing solutions before understanding the problem, losing strategic ownership as work moves fast, and planning a single launch instead of continuous improvement. They pulled on practitioner experience to understand how a product manager can be helpful in moving projects along.
Events and opportunities
🍺 NYC: BetaBuilders: Pride Tech Night: BetaNYC is celebrating Pride Month and the queer tech and data community in an evening with lightning talks, networking, and a special announcement. June 23, 6–8pm. $30 includes entry and two drink tickets.
🍑 Atlanta: Civics 101 — The Center for Civic Innovation is hosting a hands-on session on how City Hall works, what neighborhood planning units actually do, and how to shape real policy change. June 23, 6–9pm. Free and reduced-cost tickets available.
💻 Virtual: Digital Services Retros Launch: The Federation of American Scientists and Georgetown’s Beeck Center are presenting findings from their Digital Services Retros project. Speakers include Sarah Tuneberg, CIO of Colorado’s Office of Information Technology, and Rebecca Piazza, the Executive Director of Safety Net Strategy at Code for America. June 25, 11:30am–1pm ET. Free.
🎓 Virtual: AI Government Leadership Program — Applications are open for Partnership for Public Service’s free four-month cohort program for state and local government executives and federal GS-15s and SES members. Six half-day sessions, September through December 2026. Apply by July 10. Free.
🍺 NYC: Civic Tech’ish Summer 2026 — Join for NYC’s most popular happy hour for civic tech practitioners and meet public servants, consultants, technologists, and community organizers. Downtown Brooklyn. July 14, 6–8pm. Registration required.
There are over 180 jobs listed right now at techjobsforgov.com and there are new ones added every day. The newsletter includes a selection of roles currently open.
UX, Design and Innovation
🍎 Senior Product Designer | NYC Office of Technology & Innovation | up to $160k (closes Aug 14)
🍎 Content Manager & Copy Editor: Focus UX/Accessibility | New York State Office of the Attorney General | up to $87k (closes July 10)
🍎 Knowledge Base Content Strategist | NYC Housing Authority | $80k (closes July 2)
🌽 Customer Experience Manager | SouthWest Transit (MN) | up to $131k
🐻 Enterprise Innovation Unit Analyst | CA Department of Social Services | up to $8k (closes June 23)
Product & Program Management
🍎 Innovation Technologist | New York City Department of Design & Construction | up to $106k (closes July 18)
🍎 Assistant Director, Research, RFx, and Portfolio Management | New York State Office of General Services | up to $145k (closes June 26)
🍎 Engineering Technology Manager | The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey | up to $160k
🍎 Strategic Analyst | NYC Campaign Finance Board | up to $90k (closes Aug 9)
🍎 Efficiency Business Integrator | NYC Office of the Mayor | up to $175k (closes Aug 8)
🔔 Product Analyst 2, PLCB | Commonwealth of Pennsylvania | up to $90k (closes June 23)
🦀 Product Development Lead, Service Design & Technology | Amtrak | up to $122k
🏔️ Deputy Director - Office of eHealth Innovation (OeHi) | State of Colorado | up to $107k (closes June 28)
🌦️ Product Owner | State of Washington | up to $101k (closes June 25)
🌦️ Digital & Data Services Supervisor | Oregon Metro | up to $142k (closes June 29)
💻 Lead Product Manager | Exygy/Bloom Housing | up to $160k (closes June 22)
🍎 AI Project Lead | Kings County District Attorney’s Office | up to $140k (closes June 23)
🌽 Director of Digital Transformation and Learning | City of Rochester | up to $170k
🌽 AI Strategy & Enablement Service Delivery Analyst | Metropolitan Council | up to $133k (closes June 26)
🏔️ Big Data and Artificial Intelligence Policy Director | State of Colorado | up to $12k/month (closes June 23)
🍀 Senior Data Engineer | Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services | up to $154k
🍎 Data Engineer | NYC Department of City Planning | up to $112k (closes Aug 3)
🍎 Director of Applied Data Science and Solutions, Bureau of Data Technology & Strategy | NYC Department of Health & Mental Hygiene | up to $150k (closes Aug 8)
🍎 Director of System Integration | NYC Department of Youth & Community Development | up to $160k (closes Aug 11)
🔔 Director of CRM and Data Analytics | Philadelphia International Airport | up to $145k
🌽 Senior Data Scientist | Metropolitan Council | up to $144k (closes June 21)
🐻 Data Engineer | CA Department of Education | up to $11k/month (closes June 22)
🐻 Data Architect | CA High Speed Rail Authority | up to $13k/month
🍎 Software Engineering Manager, Research | New York Public Library | up to $155k
🍎 QA Automation Engineer | NYC Department of Finance | up to $130k
🍎 Software Developer | NYC Department of Finance | up to $150k (closes June 19)
🍎 Software Developer | NYC Department of Small Business Services | up to $127k (closes July 9)
🔔 Principal Software Engineer | City of Philadelphia | up to $124k
🦀 UI Systems Lead Engineer | State of Maryland | up to $103k (closes June 26)
🦀 Cottage Applications Developer | Maryland Department of Human Services | $47.65/hr (contract) (closes June 23)
🌽 Hexagon Octave Technical Lead (Principal Software Engineer) | Metropolitan Council | up to $164k (closes July 8)
🐻 Software Application Developer | CA Department of Justice | up to $11k/month (closes June 29)
🐻 Software Quality Analyst | CA Department of Transportation (Caltrans) | up to $9k/month (closes June 22)
💻 Engineering - Senior Tech Lead | Maryland Digital Service | up to $175k (closes August 31)
💻 Director of Engineering | Exygy/CiviForm | up to $195k (closes June 22)
🍎 Chief Technology Officer | State of Delaware | up to $147k (closes June 29)
🍎 Assistant Commissioner, Mass Engagement | NYC Department of Sanitation | up to $180k (closes July 24)
🍎 Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives | NYC Housing Authority | up to $190k (closes August 8)
🐊 Chief Information Officer - CIO | South Carolina Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities | up to $249k (closes June 28)
🐻 Chief Information and Innovation Officer | County of Marin | up to $299k (closes July 7)
🐻 Chief Information Officer | Covered California | up to $35k/month (closes July 3)
🐻 Assistant Chief Information Officer | San Bernardino County | up to $259k (closes June 19)
💻 Chief AI Engineer | CA Office of Data and Innovation | up to $195k
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