Also, if you're a technologist interested in working in government now (at whatever level), and you're thinking "well, everything there is broken, nobody knows what to do and I can come in and tell people how to do things properly"...

... you're not going to be successful.

(You're also wrong)

AND:

PLEASE consider your local city/county/state government. You can make as much -- if not more -- impact there as you can at the Federal level.

Voter registration? State. Food stamps? State and county.

Actually getting unemployment checks? State.

Your state governments need you. Your counties need you.

Think of it like this: you probably know that the presidential election matters a bunch, but then so do the senate and house elections, and the makeup of state government.

Consider how much acting local can be a big, positive change.

There are also a bunch of non-profits to get involved with. @codeforamerica is hiring *right now*:

* design manager for social safety net services
* product designer for EITC refunds
* senior s/w eng
* user research manager for GetCalFresh/foodstamps https://www.codeforamerica.org/jobs 

... and if you want to know what working on a big project like unemployment insurance is like, take a look at this California GovOps agency "strike team" report into California's Unemployment Insurance system:

https://www.govops.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2020/09/Assessment.pdf