Noreen Hecmanczuk

Now @IRS delivering a modern taxpayer experience 💵 Formerly @WHOMB 🦅@USDS 💪💻🇺🇸 @NSF 🌎@USDA🐮 @USDOL 👷‍♀️@USOPM 🤝@WHLDP 🇺🇸 Tweets my own.

[Noreen Hecmanczuk @NoreenHec]

@skupor @Ga7lef @USOPM @americanmoment @jgebbia Awesome @skupor Thanks to you & Team @USOPM 👏🇺🇸

[Noreen Hecmanczuk @NoreenHec]

@Ga7lef @USOPM @skupor @americanmoment @jgebbia Can you help? 🇺🇸

[Noreen Hecmanczuk @NoreenHec]

True story. Congrats @yatshitcray - thanks for coming to serve our country and breaking through the bureaucracy. ⛏️👏🇺🇸

[Spike Brehm @spikebrehm]

they did it. the mad lads actually did it.

i never talked about my time at DOGE last year because it was so controversial and contentious (remember that?)

early last year, @jgebbia recruited a handful of his most trusted early Airbnb engineers to embed at the Office of Personnel Management to solve the "retirement paper" problem.

processing a federal retirement took months, and in the extreme retirees could wait up to 6 months for their full pension to arrive. what was the holdup? paper. remember hearing Elon talk about "the mine" in Pennsylvania? we got to visit it. in deep underground caverns blasted out of limestone, there were literally acres of file cabinets, as far as the eye could see, storing files detailing federal employees' employment and paystub history. a simple "case" might be only a quarter or half inch thick, but really complex cases filled up whole filing cabinets. one famously took up a whole pallet.

each case was hand processed by case workers in cubicles deep underground. they checked calculations, made sure forms were filled out properly (many weren't), and handled a long tail of complex issues. we'd watch as they keyed data into a black and white terminal, transmitting to the COBOL mainframe built many decades ago.

since cases were processed by hand, there were multiple rounds of human review, and additional rounds for complex cases. case files were walked around between one worker's outbox and another's inbox. sometimes it would sit in one place for days, waiting to be picked up.

to OPM's credit, they'd done multiple rounds of "digital transformation" spanning decades, so some systems were newer than others. there was a big effort in the mid-90s. but the systems were disparate, and it was a total maze getting them to talk to each other. there was a big effort to build a web app where employees applying for retirement could digitally fill out the necessary forms — just to be mailed to the mine and stuffed into the paper file. and few federal agencies were even using it.

when we arrived, OPM was midway through a fresh attempt at digital transformation, delivered by a software contractor.

the blackpill was seeing the terrible quality of the software and interacting with the contractors. coming from silicon valley, i couldn't believe how low the talent and quality bar was for selling software to the government. it's clear, as the OG USDS people explained to me a decade ago, the primary skill these vendors have is securing government contracts. it's a huge moat. delivery of quality product be damned.

we fired the vendor and took over the project. they'd been working on it for more than a year, and there was another year before they were going to deliver it. at first we tried to bend it to our will, to actually connect all the various data sources and get to a decent UX for case workers in the mine to use, but we soon realized we were going to have to rebuild the whole stack from scratch.

it was around this time I had to go back to new york — i had a new job waiting for me, a four month old, and a wife whose patience was running out. but i got to watch from afar as the team cranked day and night, hitting early milestones. and now they've fully done it.

huge congrats to Joe and the team. @yatshitcray was the hero in the trenches. indefatigable, unrelentingly optimistic, and determined to see this project through. when i recruited him for "ok i can do two, maybe three months", he stuck it out over a year making this project a reality.

while the retirement project was under the DOGE banner, it operated different from what you heard from the breathless, negative media — we came in with the attitude of partnering with career OPM employees. we were team members determined to bring our software talents to bear on the problem they've been trying to fix for years, which they hadn't had the resources to solve before. they were wary at first, not sure about us, but they quickly saw how authentic and determined we were to work together toward the same goal. props to Joe for developing those relationships, setting the example of how to collaborate together.

what's the end result? lifelong federal employees, veterans, postal carriers get their full pension installments almost immediately. days instead of months. peace of mind for these people to devoted their careers to serving our country. massively streamlined operations inside of OPM. and NO MORE PAPER 🫡🇺🇸

[Noreen Hecmanczuk @NoreenHec]

@skupor @elonmusk Congrats, @skupor For those of us former OPMers who
fought the good fight during Trump 45, LMK if you’re selling the mine t-shirts. I’d love one! ⛏️👏🇺🇸

[Noreen Hecmanczuk @NoreenHec]

@yatshitcray For those of us at OPM before you, thank you! And if you’re selling the tshirt, I’d love one! 👏🇺🇸

[Noreen Hecmanczuk @NoreenHec]

Imagine an America where it’s safe to go to school, ride a train, and exercise your free speech.

Fletcher, Harper, Iryna, Charlie and all who loved them deserved better. Keep praying for Sophia. She deserves better too. 🙏

[IRSnews @IRSnews]

Billy Long has officially been sworn in as the 51st #IRS Commissioner!

Post 2/2

[IRSnews @IRSnews]

Billy Long has officially been sworn in as the 51st #IRS Commissioner!

Post 1/2

[Noreen Hecmanczuk @NoreenHec]

@DOGE Welcome to government @elonmusk and @doge Wish you would have been with us at OPM during Trump 45. We’d be much further ahead.

[Noreen Hecmanczuk @NoreenHec]

@carrieunderwood Grace under pressure. Beautiful. 👏🇺🇸

[Noreen Hecmanczuk @NoreenHec]

@VivekGRamaswamy You’re 100% right. 🇺🇸

[Erie @Erie]

Ding dong, the “usability testing is illegal in government” myth is dead!!!!

https://t.co/hLmbYyNvCX

cc @pahlkadot @ezraklein

[Noreen Hecmanczuk @NoreenHec]

True @elonmusk Welcome to government! Everything is siloed. Will make your 🤯 We need #technologists to join us. Read this: https://t.co/KFpEoM4Chd and this https://t.co/J93t41nDMT 🇺🇸

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

The government runs on ancient computers & software. Needs an upgrade!

[GSA @USGSA]

Over $80.6 million in @USGSA @TMF_gsa investments is transforming the way @USDA does business. From network modernization to cybersecurity, we're helping provide simple, secure, & seamless digital services to support achievement of USDA’s mission areas.

https://t.co/ecbI6wQ56y

[U.S. Technology Modernization Fund @TMF_gsa]

The mission of the #TMF is simple: Invest in technology to make government services simpler, more seamless, and secure. Throughout 2023, our work played a critical role in doing just that. View our 2023 #ImpactReport: https://t.co/sBapE7pSZ1

[Noreen Hecmanczuk @NoreenHec]

📢 #GHC23! Looking to make an impact with your tech superpowers? You can by delivering a better government to 400 million people. Clare Martorana, Federal CIO, will tell you how at 2pm in the Chapin Theater. @AnitaB_org @TechTalentProj @USDigitalCorps @USDS @OMBPress

[U.S. Technology Modernization Fund @TMF_gsa]

OMB just released Delivering a Digital-First Public Experience guidance for Federal agencies to design, develop, and deliver integrated digital experiences for the American people 👏👏

[Performance.gov (Archived) @PerformanceGov]

Today, @OMBPress released guidance that will ensure the American people have the best possible experience when they interact with the government – one that meets 21st Century expectations: https://t.co/5oDoYvHAfh

[Office of Management and Budget (Archived) @OMBPress_46]

The American people deserve a simple, seamless, and secure experience when they interact with our government—and the Biden-Harris Administration is committed to delivering it.

[Noreen Hecmanczuk @NoreenHec]

It’s not often you get to meet one of your heroes. Today, I got to meet eight of mine — #womenwarriors with the @wwp @WhiteHouse We’re working every day to deliver a better government to our #veterans through policy, technology, and design. They deserve nothing less. 🇺🇸