[isiahl]

RIP to the USDS, an inspiring government department to someone like me.

[lmeyerov]

"It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it"

This applies equally to institutions and individuals, so from investors to CEOs to politicians to tech community leaders to individuals picking where they work, this is a very "interesting" time

Both the USDS and PIF programs were inspiring to me as they were almost like a New Deal for digital natives & coders. They did a good job of attracting smart hard workers to be underpaid for unglamorous & often-frustrating but impactful work. A lot of good people!

[hn_user82179]

Yep. I’ve been subscribed to get emails when application to their jobs open, because they really represented a portion of the government that I thought was doing good work and was an area I could contribute meaningfully to (given my skillset). I never made the jump, it was such a large paycut and iirc looked like it’d require relocation, but I’d like to think I might in the future (if it ever comes back).

[ronbenton]

The people I met at USDS took that kind of pay cut for the mission, which I was in awe of. Senior, Staff, Principal engineers from big tech who likely had been making twice as much as top government salary.

[seanwilson]

They're behind U.S. Web Design System (USWDS)? This is going away?

USWDS have a cool palette system where color pairs from their palette have predictable WCAG color contrast (unlike in e.g. Tailwind's default palette), but I rarely hear of projects using USWDS colors:

https://designsystem.digital.gov/design-tokens/color/overvie...

> We call the difference in grade between any two colors the magic number. Magic numbers have the following contrast implications:

> A magic number of 40+ results in WCAG 2.0 AA Large Text contrast (example: gray-90 and indigo-warm-50v).

[Maxious]

Under Executive Order 14151 "Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing" many links/pages were already removed from the design system https://github.com/uswds/uswds-site/pull/3078 https://github.com/uswds/uswds-site/pull/3053/files#diff-86c... (ie. inclusivecolors.com would be prohibited)

Within 60 days "“diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility” (DEIA) mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities in the Federal Government" must be terminated https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/endi...

[tylerchilds]

> Sec. 3. DOGE Structure. (a) Reorganization and Renaming of the United States Digital Service. The United States Digital Service is hereby publicly renamed as the United States DOGE Service (USDS) and shall be established in the Executive Office of the President.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/esta...

in essence, USDS had the most cross functional access and was the best agency to be able to back door every other agency.

[righthand]

I wanted to work for them since Obama announced it, but they didn’t pay as well as a big funded private corp startup. If I was a bit older and more comfortable with my savings I would have.

I would have loved serving my country and working on software as a way to give back.

[ronbenton]

I talked to some people at USDS during my time in govt. They took a 50% pay cut to serve their country. Wish more people understood a lot of civil servants often do it for the mission.

[boris-ning-usds]

We'll live on in people's memories and hearts. Thank you.

[ipython]

Thank you for your service.

[ronbenton]

I wanted to join them some day. Hopefully they will be back.

[hayst4ck]

Mikey Dickerson, the first head of the USDS, would say hope is not a strategy.

[kevml]

I wanted to join them a few years ago but I wasn’t in the right life position to do so. I was hoping to one day in the near future. Maybe that day will one day come again.

[0xCMP]

I never really saw anyone bad mouthing USDS even here. Can you explain why you think people didn't like USDS?

I'm sure there was some resentment from other agencies that USDS helping them implied they didn't know what they were doing or something, but on HN it has basically been non-stop positive from what I've seen. Echos of the same things in this thread: that they wish they were in a position to sacrifice their pay in order to contribute meaningfully to the government where they have the most chance at impact.

IIUC Login.gov and the much more unified design system based on Material Design for government websites came from USDS.

[ronbenton]

I cannot speak to online sentiment, but my experience when I was in government was a lot of reverence for USDS. They did great work.

[righthand]

This is not true in my experience. Most people I’ve talked to didn’t even know about it. I always heard great things about it otherwise.

> According to comments from previous years, nobody liked USDS. Everybody was bullshitting on it.

Who is everybody? HN commenters? Do you have evidence of this sentiment?

Emotional anecdotal comments should not be taken as public sentiment on an issue. They are often one sided and inaccurate.