Why Term Limits Should Be the Norm for Government Innovators
I’ve seen this problem from nearly every angle.
At the Defense Digital Service (DDS), I built tools side-by-side with warfighters whose lives depended on getting it right. Later, standing up the Customer Experience Office (CXO), I helped craft enterprise strategy and policy across sprawling federal systems. Outside government, I served as a general manager at Rebellion Defense, and now as an advisor to MO Studio, supporting mission-driven design and technology teams working in complex public environments.
Through these experiences, one truth stands out:
The department suffers from a lack of motion.
The Death of Grit
Last weekend, I stood at the edge of a soggy soccer field, watching my daughter’s team warm up under gray skies. The drills were basic: footwork, passing, shots on goal. But halfway through, I saw her slump her shoulders after missing a save, then glance toward the sideline to see if I had noticed. I did. What I saw wasn’t just frustration—it was a quiet unraveling. Not because she didn’t care. But because she did. And because caring without immediate success is one of the hardest emotional weights to carry at her age.
I walked over during the break, knelt next to her, and asked how she was feeling. “I’m just not good at this,” she said. “It’s too hard.” That’s when it hit me: she wasn’t struggling with technique—she was struggling with struggle itself.
What We Built, What We Lost
There are places that shape us. Not because they’re perfect, but because they let us show up as we are, and do work that matters. For me, the Defense Digital Service was that place.
I joined DDS because it wasn’t like the others.
My time at DDS wasn’t defined by a single project — it was a blur of missions stacked on top of each other, each demanding urgency, clarity, and heart. I worked on everything from counter-unmanned aerial systems (cUAS) to critical efforts tied to the Afghanistan evacuation. When the team needed support on recruiting, I stepped in there too — because at DDS, titles didn’t box you in. If something needed doing, you did it.
It was a flat organization — no hierarchy to climb, no corner office to covet. Everyone held the same title. No one was angling for a promotion or polishing their résumé for the next big job. We were time-bound — temporary stewards of a mission that would continue after us, if we did it right.
Everyone knows it, but no one wants to say it out loud: DoD onboarding sucks.
You get through the hiring gauntlet (a process I’ve written about before) and once you make it through the interviews, paperwork, and security screenings, you show up… only to wait. You wait for access. You wait for a laptop. You wait for clarity on what you’re even supposed to be doing.
I’ve worked at the Department of Defense, Amazon, and Redfin. I’ve seen how different organizations treat the first few days, weeks, and months of a new hire’s experience. At DoD, we too often forget that onboarding isn’t just a logistical task, it’s a readiness issue. If we want people to move fast and deliver outcomes, we need to give them the tools and the trust to start doing that on Day 1.
We tried to do things differently at the Defense Digital Service (DDS). We used Macs. We used Gmail. We used Slack. The goal was to meet new hires where they were using tools familiar to folks coming out of tech. It was a smart intent: minimize the learning curve, remove the unnecessary friction. But even with all that, I still found myself completely stuck trying to navigate militarycac.com/macnotes.htm. Anyone who’s ever tried to use a CAC with a Mac in DoD knows exactly what I’m talking about: the endless driver installs, the weird pop-ups, the arcane browser settings. It was maddening.