Seize the Moment: We the People (Doing the Work)

Reilly Martin is the executive director and Stephanie Cain is the outgoing board president at Technologists for the Public Good.

Improving service delivery in government should take an approach that effectively balances and integrates people, process, and policy. Public interest technology is a key part of government service delivery. We believe a focus on technology and technologists ensures innovation that is sustainable, welcomed, and delivers on the promise to positively impact all people’s lives and make society more equitable, inclusive, and just.

Our organization, Technologists for the Public Good (TPG), is a professional association that seeks to cultivate a trusted, neutral space for public interest technologists to come together. We understand that there is an urgent need for skilled public interest technologists across the country at every level of government–particularly in states.

Why this matters

The 2024 elections ended with 38 states with trifecta governments. Both Republican and Democrat-led states face unprecedented challenges in the upcoming 2025 legislative session: artificial intelligence (AI) risks and opportunities, social media, consumer privacy, and connectivity all promise to be thorny issues for state policymakers. Competent technology experts will prove essential to drafting and implementing fair and effective executive orders, bills, and budgets designed to address these issues. A quick browse through the State-level Digital Transformation Policy Scan produced by the Digital Service Network at Georgetown University’s Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation, for example, reveals hundreds of state-level AI bills and executive orders. Unfortunately, states don’t often have this much-needed expertise in-house.

Technology implementation is nothing without the people behind it. According to a survey we conducted in 2024, nearly 25% of public interest technologists experience burnout, and about 50% feel like they don’t have opportunities for growth. The substantial unrest in the federal government appears set to leave a substantial number of public interest technologists in limbo, either searching for a new role in the field or searching for a new career path altogether. This means state governments need to focus on retaining current staff and that they have a tremendous opportunity to welcome talented technologists to the table.

How to seize the moment

1. Innovate and expand government technology positions according to increasing needs. 41 states/territories representing both Democratic and Republican majorities have passed some form of AI legislation since 2019, and a handful have created appointed high-level AI advisory roles. Expanding these departments and roles benefits the public and opens opportunities to bring expert technologists into government.
2. Invest in pathways and partnerships. Apprenticeships and fellowships provide exposure and pathways to public sector work. We’re seeing the returns on investments in this, and now is the time to double down, not shy away. Considering competitive salary ranges, when appropriate, and flexibility of work environment or schedules can help recruit and retain dedicated employees from a multitude of backgrounds. Governments should also be intentional about the balance of employees to contractors and vendors, ensuring that external resources are always partnered with in-house expertise that can effectively guide and support them.
3. Bring and support diverse perspectives to the work. Modifications to degree requirements for hiring helps technology workers from nontraditional educational pathways bring their essential perspectives and experiences to the work.
4. Enable increased knowledge sharing between current staff with technological and non-technological expertise. Leadership development and mentorship programs help employees feel engaged and empowered, as well as provide robust opportunities for professional development. Creating opportunities for nontechnical staff to better understand how to engage with technologists elevates everyone’s work, builds trust, and enables teams to function better. And, ensuring technical employees have time allocated within their working hours to interact with nontechnical peers, nonprofit organizations, and companies helps everyone in the sector deliver better work.
5. Grow funding to increase the sustainability of the field. Programs that started and/or grew from catalytic or pilot funding, such as the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) or Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), included funding for people alongside the program or technology implementation. There must be continued investment in state and local budgets to fully realize and/or measure the outcomes. Budgets should balance experimentation and funding for pre-existing technology infrastructure and systems, avoiding the pitfalls of well-funded and successful pilot programs that become stagnant when denied continued resourcing.

We know that many public interest technologists across all levels of government work for organizations that will soon go through leadership changes. This leaves many of them with questions of ‘what’s next?’

For example, senior technology leaders for the federal government have already confirmed leaving, and some are considering career options in state and local governments. These are technologists with a demonstrated commitment to public service. By moving between levels of government, they bring deeper knowledge on the implementation of government services inclusive of technology that are funded by the federal government and implemented by state or local governments, such as Medicare or Medicaid.

The political landscape in coming years promises enormous growth in – and also uncertainty around – the role of public interest technology in our lives, so we’d all be best served by investing in those who bring humility, savviness with bureaucracy, and exceptional technical talent to their work. We stand ready to support these folks, and call for the states to do so as well.

This post is part of a series examining US state tech policy issues in the year ahead.