Digital Service
Talent + Teams
Governments must recruit, hire, retain, and promote talented employees who use human-centered strategies to deliver digital services that reflect the needs of the people who use them.
How to Use This Page
Help your organization employ the brightest minds in government digital innovation. This resource page is for governments who are looking for promising practices to empower the people who make digital transformation happen.
Check out personnel-related examples from governments around the world to draft effective job descriptions for new digital roles, learn more about digital service team sizes and structures, explore workshop guides to build your staff’s digital know-how, and more.
Build Government Digital Delivery Capacity
Recruit
Browse and update government job descriptions as a starting point in your hiring process.
Hire
Adopt and adapt interview questions for key digital roles so you’re asking the right questions.
Retain
Mitigate burnout and boost morale to keep digital government talent in your organization.
Upskill
Support experienced public servants with up-to-date training and learning opportunities.
Example Job Descriptions
We compile digital government job descriptions so your organization has a quick starting point when you are ready to hire digital service talent. Review featured digital service job descriptions below, or search the full library to find others you can duplicate and refine.
Digital Services Director
This is a job description for the role of Digital Services Director from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Engagement/Product Manager
This is a job description for the role of Engagement/Product Manager from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Engineering Lead
This is a job description for the role of Engineering Lead from the Colorado Governor's Office of Information Technology.
Content Designer
This is a job description for the role of Content Designer from the San Francisco Digital Services.
Data Analytics Organizational Change Manager
This is a job description for the role of Data Analytics Organizational Change Manager from the State of Ohio.
AI Policy and Programs Manager
This is a job description for the role of AI Policy and Programs Manager for the State of Maryland
Hiring Talent + Interview Questions
Check out sample interview questions and structures for a variety of digital government roles. Learn more about identifying public service motivation and ways to assess candidates during an interview process. Review the featured hiring resources below, and access the full library for more.
Hiring Question Bank for Digital Service Teams
A toolkit with interview questions for digital service teams hiring digital talent to leverage.
Insights Into Hiring for Digital Service Teams
A report examining hiring practices, challenges, and lessons learned of digital service teams.
Creating a Hiring Question Bank for Digital Service Teams
Event recap from DSN Webinar: Digital Service Team Hiring Insights and Question Bank
Talent Toolkit
This resource provides strategies, practical examples, and templates for attracting, developing, and retaining a high-performing digital service workforce.
Making a Successful Shift to Digital-first Government
As they transition to providing more services online, there are ways governments can get creative working around talent shortages and entrenched bureaucracies.
Explore Government Digital Service Teams
Government digital service teams (DSTs) help facilitate the digital transformation of essential government experiences. DSTs are in-house teams of digital practitioners with:
- Expertise in, at minimum, user-centered research and design, agile product management, and data-driven decision making. Many DST practitioners also have experience in digital government policy, change management, cybersecurity, and/or cloud-based solutions.
- A mandate to create and improve, and/or help other government actors create and improve, public-facing online government experiences.
The Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation’s Digital Service Network (DSN) maintains a Government Digital Service Team Tracker: a living database for those seeking to learn more about the locations, structures, mandates, and more of government digital service teams across the United States.
Explore the tracker below and dive deeper into U.S.-based DSTs on the tracker’s publication page.
Resources to Engage and Grow Digital Talent
Looking to build or mature your organization’s digital service team? Interested in developing programming to upskill public servants on digital delivery best practices? Check out featured publications below:
Leadership Lessons From Chief Digital Service Officers
An April 2024 Chief Digital Service Officers (CDSO) gathering included discussions about the realities of digital service leadership in government. These discussions are summarized in infographics offering valuable perspective to emerging digital service teams.
Building Digital Service Teams That Last
At the April 2024 in-person Chief Digital Service Officer (CDSO) convening, the DSN hosted a conversation about building teams that last and focused on three key steps – hiring, retaining talent, and upskilling.
“What’s On Your Radar” Prioritization Exercise Template
The What’s On Your Radar exercise is an interactive, level-setting exercise designed to help individuals identify and prioritize their work.
“Collective Intelligence” Problem Solving Exercise Template
This exercise template includes detailed steps and prompts to encourages participants to collaboratively address challenges with peers.
Crafting a Theory of Change for Digital Transformation in Government
In our research announcement on theories of change (ToC) for digital government, the Digital Service Network shared our belief that all Digital Service (DS) teams should work to develop a ToC.
Wielding a Theory of Change for Digital Transformation in Government
This essay explores how a ToC is made explicit with various audiences.