Key takeaways from my time in civic tech
By: Derek Tam
Tags: Civic Digital Fellowship, Internships, Civictech, Government, Technology

Key takeaways from my time in civic tech

One of many virtual talks with civic tech groups, this time with the USDS! Also, crab claws.

I was ecstatic to be visiting Washington D.C. for ten weeks in February 2020, contributing to a cause that impacted millions nationwide and learning within a group of like-minded individuals with similar goals ahead of us. I even had a ‘bucket list’ folder in my chrome bar with bookmarked ‘hidden gems’ I was going to cross off every glimpse of free time I had in the summer days of D.C. We all know what happened in the coming months, but despite the Civic Digital Fellowship becoming virtual many of these initial hopes would still hold true. I wrote these three questions in my journal the night before the Fellowship started:

1) What resources are being put into government technology to change the stigma around our generation that civic and technology are independent of one another rather than dependent?

2) What do the full-time opportunities or career paths look like after this aside from the Presidential Innovation Fellows and how do we apply for them?

3) How can I further change my mindset from checking boxes in life to making an impact?

I now have a greater understanding of these thoughts through the Fellowship, how ‘impact’ is defined by all of us, what civic tech is, and so much more.

I was paired with working on Vote.gov, the site that provides information for voter registration. In anticipation of the 2020 federal election and National Voter Registration Day, our team was preparing for an influx of web traffic and wanted help in displaying information to the public. A typical week would consist of me attending meetings with the Election Assistance Commission, meeting with various internal teams (analytics, UX, development), updating branches for front-end development, and finally listening in on USAGov’s weekly call center live sessions.

An important discovery through these live call center sessions was developing a sense of empathy for who we’re building our products for. Especially in the private sector, it’s easy to think of the 1% using specific products. But when you’re listening in on a woman from rural Kentucky voicing her troubles applying for her stimulus check, the problems get very real, very quickly.

Here’s a list of takeaways that I, a new graduate technologist, have uncovered through my time here at the Civic Digital Fellowship.

1. Understand that there are hoops and ladders

This title may as well just be labeled ‘bureaucracy’. Our generation must contribute to hacking the bureaucracy; we need our generation to build upon existing frameworks and navigate through year-old laws, tech stacks, and practices that are prohibiting technologists from iterating and innovating.

What I once thought was a nifty, unique way of incorporating a popular civic election API into our product turned into several what-ifs — for instance, our team manager needed to ask the General Services Administration (GSA)’s legal team for contradictions in the terms of service — until several weeks passed and the passion for the feature subsided on top of piling work. I imagine similar stories of creative attempts or ‘hacker mentality’ may be echoed throughout the field.

A lesson I learned through my virtual summer was that working in civic tech is painstakingly difficult yet ultimately rewarding. Julia Lindpaintner (CDF ’18) graciously pointed me to the slack channel called #why-we-do-this during our coffee chat, wherein the Technology Transformation Services (TTS) at GSA, we set aside work topics to focus on the purpose, no matter how trivial or small, of our work.

#why-we-do-this GSA TTS slack channel

I mean, in how many other professional places are you reminded of the impact of your work daily? My supervisor Jessica said she acknowledged these obstacles as well, but at the end of the day, wanted me to remember the impact of our work. Eddie Hartwig, Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Digital Service (USDS), compared fresh eyes in government like new workers coming into a construction site and wondering “why are these unkempt wires scattered all over the grounds, and what are all these obstacles doing in my way?” DJ Patil, the former Chief Data Scientist of the United States, told us that working in government is “90% banging your head on the wall and 10% actually seeing results.” But at the end of the day “that small percentage of impact you do have” will be more memorable in retrospect than any other work done in the private sector or academia. The list of quotes could go on and on.

2. There is a breadth of talent in civic tech, you’re just not looking in the right places

A subversive thought in my mind coming into this summer was “well, the work being done must be second-rate. Since I don’t hear about it publicly that means that no talented, intelligent people are working on public-facing problems.” This was a brash overgeneralization that I had. Everywhere I looked, there were individuals whose intellect and careers were immensely impressive. Song Hia, my mentor and a Product Manager at the NYC Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity shared an entire document of resources with me, making me realize the impact that the marketing of large corporations/tech companies has done to draw my generation towards them. I realized I needed to have a shift in perspective that talent doesn’t only come from the best-marketed companies or those with the most money.

3. Impact is hard to quantify, but in civic tech our impact is undeniable

One of the common lines Chris Kuang, co-founder and Director of Operations at Coding it Forward, mentions in an introduction to a virtual call is how we Fellows are looking to do more than drive ad revenue or click through rates. This is something I reflected on — that instead of building products or features that service the 1% of the 1% of the population, we could be making a different sort of impact, one larger yet harder to quantify, in solving problems that include more individuals. Take the Census Bureau, for example. In counting every single person in the United States, that team is servicing (at least in theory) every citizen in the country. Every single one! To think that I grew up with technology, but a large percentage of the world’s population has yet to be introduced to technology or even the internet goes over my head. Instead of building out SaaS enterprise software, why not build out products to service those in need before they get left behind?

4. Many of the same areas of work found in academia or the private sector are found in the public sector

Commissions are working on the policy for Artificial Intelligence, defense tech companies hacking bureaucracy around Air Force software, and so much more. So many knowledgeable, qualified individuals are supporting initiatives to help push civic tech in the right direction in anticipation of accelerating technologies. They are allowing government, data, policy, and innovation to happen in a contemporary setting.

Fun fact: One of the co-founders of Django, a popular web framework based on Python, is a full-time employee in the General Services Administration working on login.gov.

5. The same roles and processes that are popular within tech companies are also in civic tech

Yes, there are product managers, designers, and developers within civic tech. Every day, the Usa.gov team holds 10 minute daily stand-ups that follow agile methodology with sprints. The U.S. Digital Service (USDS), U.S. Digital Response (USDR), Code for America, Presidential Innovation Fellows, and virtually every civic tech organization is looking for talented individuals with tech backgrounds who can simply put, get stuff done.

By the end of the Fellowship, I was satisfied with my work. I was able to contribute in multiple facets of Vote.gov: analytics, design, and development. I can only imagine how the workplace must feel now in anticipation of the federal election.

As for me, I’ve realized the value of performing large-scale, public-facing work. Civic tech is a community that will forever be in my mind, and will certainly be a place to contribute to in the future. It’s up to our generation to step up in anticipation of the acceleration of technologies (Moore’s Law is scary) in all areas — policy, software, hardware — before those who can’t understand them get left behind. Regardless of the circumstances, I’m glad this experience still happened and hope to see my fellow Fellows soon.