“The Defense Digital Service was created in 2015 to help the Pentagon adopt fast tech fixes during national security crises and push Silicon Valley-style innovation inside the Pentagon. It built rapid response tools for the military during the Afghanistan withdrawal, databases to transfer Ukrainian military and humanitarian aid, drone detection technologies and more.
Without the program, some key efforts to streamline the DOD’s tech talent pipeline and counter adversarial drones will be sunsetted, one soon-to-be former employee said.
Once dubbed the Pentagon’s “SWAT team of nerds,” DDS was one of the department’s earliest efforts to inject Silicon Valley ethos into its massive bureaucracy.”
…
“every employee interviewed said they wouldn’t have left if it wasn’t for DOGE.
One former senior Pentagon official, who asked not to be named because of possible retaliation, described DOGE’s wider incursion into the Defense Department as damaging and unproductive
“They’re not really using AI, they’re not really driving efficiency. What they’re doing is smashing everything,” the former official said.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/15/pentagons-digital-resignations-00290930