Defense Digital Service — Bringing modern product design practices into high-security government systems

My Role

Over four years as a Lead Designer at the Defense Digital Service, I led design on my projects, working closely with product managers and engineers to address user and mission needs in high-security environments.

Design Guild Lead

I also served as design guild lead, representing the design team in discussions with other guild leads and the DDS director. We coordinated projects, shared concerns, and kept communication flowing between teams and leadership. During an organizational transition, I worked with a team and CDAO leadership to run workshops that addressed conflicting priorities and helped teams work together toward CDAO and DoD goals.

How We Worked

DDS often worked in product trios: a product manager, a designer and researcher, and an engineer. We partnered with DoD organizations to understand their needs, investigate the underlying problems, and determine how best to help.

Discovery and Recommendations

Discovery typically lasted two to four weeks, sometimes longer depending on the project. We went where the work happened, interviewing people in their own environments to understand their workflows and constraints. I traveled overseas to meet users on military bases, see how they worked firsthand, and hear about the challenges they faced.

That research shaped our findings and recommendations, which we documented in reports typically 20 to 40 pages long, some of which I was the lead author on. We shared our findings with the leadership that brought us in and discussed whether there was an opportunity to move forward. When an engagement did not continue, the report could still give partners documented findings to support their case with senior leadership and members of Congress.

Moving Forward

When we agreed on a path forward, we worked with partners on solutions shaped by what we learned. That could include building an MVP and helping the partner prepare to take ownership and maintain it.

Types of Work

Most of the work we did cannot be shared publicly. Publicly documented examples represent only a portion of the broader portfolio, including background investigation systems, counter-drone capabilities, military relocation services, AI tooling, and cybersecurity.

AI Readiness

DDS led efforts to accelerate the DoD's adoption of artificial intelligence across five dimensions: opportunity discovery to identify high-impact use cases, data management to ensure quality and interoperability across systems, IT environment modernization for secure and scalable deployment, risk and governance frameworks for responsible AI, and adoption programs to train and empower DoD personnel. The team developed Axon, the DoD's first large-language model operations framework, and deployed the first LLM to a DoD High Performance Computing Center.

Design Challenges

The design challenges at DDS were distinct from the private sector. Users operated in environments with strict security constraints, limited connectivity, and legacy systems that couldn't simply be replaced. Success meant going where the work is, showing up to experience problems firsthand, understanding deeply entrenched workflows, and delivering solutions that worked within those constraints rather than around them. Every design decision had to balance usability with operational security requirements. DDS demonstrated that modern product design practices could transform even the most complex government systems by focusing on the people who actually use the technology.

Closure

DDS was dissolved in early 2025 as part of restructuring under the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The unit's mission and the work it accomplished over nearly a decade remain a testament to what's possible when you bring private-sector talent and modern practices into government.