Ask HN: DOGE on an IT resume – Asset, or liability?
An acquaintance I only know in an online sense recently mentioned in passing that he's part of the DOGE effort. Since I'm of a generation that doesn't discuss religion, politics, or the Great Pumpkin at work, I responded with a neutral, "You must be very busy these days." But it made me think about how sooner or later, there are going to be people in the job market with DOGE listed as where they worked in 2025. Any advice for handling this sort of thing, as both a job seeker, and as a hiring manager?
Considerations:
Will people seeing ex-DOGE employees on your staff (such as through LinkedIn) impact your company? For future recruiting? For business to business in your company's domain? For clients? I personally wouldn't work with people that operate in the manner DOGE has (push the limits and move as fast as possible so you can't get stopped, assume part of what you are doing is unacceptable/illegal and will be pulled back instead of making sure what you do is acceptable/legal) and I would be hesitant to trust a company that does unless I was looking to break things in an established space or something. Seperate from that the majority of devs I know wouldn't work with them for political reasons adding up to a whole lot of unfavorable to overlook if you have other candidates.
Do you recruit through current employees? Will tilting your recruitment pool to be more ex-DOGE centric impact your company culture and/or again recruiting other talent? I'm not calling them members of nationalist parties, but there's the whole 'let one into your bar and soon you have a bar full of them' analogy for a reason. Are you OK if you company is labeled an exDOGE shop or other political pejorative shop in the industry you are in?
There's enough other talent out their I'd just pass and less someone else juggle the factors.
Given how many different and compounding bad decisions seem to be happening here, if they actually push the social security rewrite live after just a few months like Musk said it would take, I currently — genuinely, literally — expect this will be somewhat like saying "Worked under Henry Labouchere during his time as Chief Secretary for Ireland" on a CV handed out in Dublin in 1860.
I really hope they delay that rewrite and actually test it. They might, but if they don't…
It'll be polarizing. As a huge red flag that some employers will look for to hire and other would avoid. I'd shun them, but others won't.
As a hiring manager, know your team and your company. If you have to ask the question, you probably don't want them, unless you are willing to churn your team over to his ideological mates. If your organization was "dark, gothic Maga" then you wouldn't be asking.
I would strongly shy away from hiring anyone who took part in the DOGE effort for a number of reasons, but primarily because the tech team involved seems so ham-handed and amateurish.
However, I would be willing to bet there are plenty of potential employers that wouldn't, or would even consider it a positive. Unless things turn much uglier, I suspect having that on your resume would simply affect which set of companies would be willing to hire you, not whether or not you're hireable.
Unless you're applying to MyPillow Inc. or X, I think you'll be fighting to keep that away from the background check for the rest of your natural born life.
There is no explanation that would make me overlook that red flag.
I mean, quite a few companies consider your ability to be cause harm or break law without worry to be an asset. Clear past example is enron, large consultancies, fox news and such. Same with managers like Musk, Thiel and such.
In that world, it will be an advantage.
But in just world, there would be actual investigation. DOGE is in fact breaking laws.
I'd enjoy interviewing the candidate.
if you’d put FB on your CV then DOGE is fine too :)