Follow up to DOGE ‘doesn’t exist’ – with eight months left on its charter, via Wired, see DOGE Isn’t Dead. Here’s What Its Operatives Are Doing Now [no paywall] -“…On Instagram, Yat Choi described his work as ongoing, announcing that he was returning to the underground Pennsylvania mine where federal retirement claims are processed. “Like Jigga [Jay-Z] I showed them the blueprint back in April, now going back in the Mine to lead the pilots next week,” wrote Choi, who previously worked as an engineer at AirBnb and has referred to Canada as home in other Instagram posts. Choi did not respond to a request for comment. It’s not just Choi. Many of the original young and inexperienced DOGE technologists whose identities were first reported by WIRED appear to still be enmeshed in federal agencies. Edward “Big Balls” Coristine, Gavin Kliger, Marko Elez, Akash Bobba, and Ethan Shaotran all still claim to be affiliated with DOGE or the US government. So do other tech workers from Silicon Valley and Musk companies like xAI and SpaceX. Coristine, Kliger, Elez, Bobba, and Shaotran did not respond to requests for comment. The DOGE ethos—characterized by cutting contracts and government workers, consolidating data across agencies, and importing private sector practices—remains fully in force. While several media reports have suggested that DOGE has all but fizzled out, DOGE affiliates are scattered across the federal government working as developers, designers, and even leading agencies in powerful roles. “That’s absolutely false,” one USDA source says of reporting that DOGE has disbanded. “They are in fact burrowed into the agencies like ticks.”

DOGE has “just transformed,” an IRS employee tells WIRED. While DOGE is no longer moving across the government in a move-fast-and-break-things blitz, DOGE affiliates appear to be digging in for the long haul—and Silicon Valley–shaped fingerprints remain all over the way agencies continue to be run. Over the last few weeks, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has rolled out coding tests to its hundreds of technical staff, quizzing them over their “technical proficiency.” The decision to roll out these tests came from Sam Corcos, a DOGE operative and chief information officer of the Treasury, according to a source familiar with the situation. Corcos is seeking to overhaul the IRS’s 8,500-person IT department, the source says. This is part of a larger ongoing “modernization” process at the US Treasury. The tests, administered through a tool called HackerRank, have been used by private-sector tech companies like Airbnb, LinkedIn, and PayPal to quiz a potential hire’s technical skill. One source at X, the social media company owned by Musk, tells WIRED that X uses “HackerRank’s tool to do coding screen-sharing for tech screens and remote interviews,” but confirmed that existing employees are not assessed with the tool. “They want to see IRS as like a tech company, that’s the feeling I get,” says an IRS employee who spoke to WIRED on the condition of anonymity, as they were not authorized to speak to the press. While coding tests are expected for candidates applying for technical roles, testing existing agency employees is highly unusual, four IRS sources tell WIRED. Early in DOGE’s tenure, staffers at the Technology Transformation Services (TTS) were forced to defend their projects on video calls with DOGE members. Government employees were also asked to send weekly emails detailing their work and achievements, which were later reviewed by artificial intelligence. (These emails and project reviews closely resemble the playbook Musk used when he took over X, formerly Twitter, in 2022.)…”