[SUmarFarooq]

Hi Matt, I've got two questions.

1. Can you talk at all about the interview process for USDS? My big reluctance to apply for positions right now is that so many companies require extensive knowledge of algorithms, which can be daunting for someone who's self-taught, like myself. I imagine USDS is more focused on large-scale systems, but I'm unsure what that looks like in an interview setting, other than discussing a candidate's experiences with system design or improvements.

2. Can you comment on how a transition from one president to another affects USDS? I imagine there's a change in priorities and possibly some leadership, but what do those changes look like, and how drastically do they affect the organization?

[Matt_Cutts]

Thanks for asking! On the interview process, there's a resume review stage, then a technical interview. If the technical interview goes well, then there's one more technical interview plus a resilience/emotional intelligence/EQ interview. We do typically ask one coding question when we're talking to engineers, but you're right that we're more concerned about large-scale systems, diagnosing bottlenecks, and asking the right questions compared to (say) focusing on algorithms. We care less about minimum spanning trees and more about practical aspects of making real-world systems perform well.

On the transition between administrations, we've been fortunate to have solid support in both administrations. It's been a non-partisan issue to make the government more effective and efficient using technology. No one wants archaic computer systems that could break and risk delivering services to the public. I feel very good about our ability to prioritize projects based on their impact, and we've been able to continue to work on vital services.