USDS Alumni Network: Jim Smith
By: U.S. Digital Service
Tags: Engineering, Interview, Civictech, Design, Government

USDS Alumni Network: Jim Smith

When you join USDS, you become part of a community that extends to life after your tour of duty. In this blog series, we share the stories of USDS Alumni. Find out what they worked on, where they are now, and why you should join us! U.S. Digital Service Follow Aug 26, 2020 · 4 min read

James Gottlieb Smith (he/ him), Improbable. Previously USDS Engineer. From San Antonio, TX.

What’s your background and how did you end up at USDS?

I’m a physicist, mathematician, and novelist by training. But my career has been in software engineering. Much of this came through luck and being a cis, white, middle-class male.

I was lucky enough to get into a magnet high school. While there, I was lucky to get summer jobs in research groups. Some summers, I was measuring out chemicals with radioactive tags. Other summers, building digital models of the magnetosphere. Fun stuff.

Since then, I’ve lucked into finding jobs. I was in the right place when the Physics Department was looking for a webmaster. I knew the right people to find out about job openings in the university’s central IT group. And later to find out about the intersection of computing and humanities research. I went to the right events and met the right people so that later, someone invited me to apply for a job in the DC area. I knew someone who posted about a job opportunity at a startup and joined the startup. They later gave my name to a USDS recruiter.

What inspired you to join USDS?

I’ve always had a soft spot for public service. In high school, I volunteered for the telephone bank of the local public radio station. I worked in land-grant universities for almost my entire career. I was even a minister for a few years. So the mission of USDS is a natural fit for me.

I remember looking at 18F and USDS but thinking that I wasn’t good enough.

Then the USDS recruiter called. That told me that I had chance. Walking into the USDS headquarters for the first time sealed it for me: I could see that USDS was my tribe.

I stayed for a bit over three years. I woke up one morning and realized I wasn’t as effective as I wanted to be, so it was time to move on. The nice thing about the USDS model is that there’s no stigma attached to this. We’re all term-limited, so we all have to leave someday.

Did you feel effective in your short time?

I did feel effective. Even when it became difficult to get things done, I still had an impact.

At SBA, I got everyone on the certify.SBA.gov project to work together on infrastructure. The “infrastructure as code” effort ended up spreading to the rest of the agency.

At Login.gov, I was able to add support for federal government IDs (PIVs and CACs). This was a great help to federal employees in restricted areas. They wanted to use government services, such as searching for another government job. But because of where they worked, they couldn’t have their phone with them. So we let them use their PIV or CAC as their second factor.

After Login.gov, I worked with another USDSer to lay the ground work for the Identity Program Management Office (PMO). While we didn’t have anything public come out of that work, we advocated for the American public. We networked across agencies. We got several balls rolling for the next person to run with.

What would you tell others who may be interested serving?

Being part of USDS isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about asking the right questions.

Sometimes, the right question is to get more information. Read the account of Richard Feynman reviewing the blueprints for the Oakridge plant (in Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!, 1985 Bantam). He didn’t know what the blueprints meant, but he asked questions. Because of that, the plant didn’t explode.