The National Design Studio Became a DOGE Landing Pad. Now ‘Big Balls’ Is Recruiting
The National Design Studio Became a DOGE Landing Pad. Now ‘Big Balls’ Is Recruiting
国家设计工作室成了“政府效率部”的落脚点，如今“大球”正在招兵买马
Last year, the first iteration of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) began to wind down with billionaire Elon Musk’s departure from government in June 2025. But a new entity, led by yet another tech billionaire, emerged much more quietly less than two months later: the National Design Studio (NDS). 去年，随着亿万富翁埃隆·马斯克于2025年6月离开政府，所谓的“政府效率部”（DOGE）第一阶段工作开始收尾。然而，不到两个月后，一个由另一位科技亿万富翁领导的新实体悄然浮出水面：国家设计工作室（NDS）。
NDS is headed by Joe Gebbia, the cofounder of Airbnb who now serves as the country’s chief design officer. Its mission is to redesign government websites to make them “beautifully designed” with a “great user experience,” according to Gebbia. But NDS retains many of the hallmarks of DOGE, including some of its team members, an opaque structure, and a seeming lack of adherence to the way many rules and systems in the federal government work. As it continues hiring, WIRED spoke to an engineer who interviewed for a position with the agency. NDS由Airbnb联合创始人、现任国家首席设计官乔·格比亚（Joe Gebbia）领导。据格比亚称，其使命是重新设计政府网站，使其拥有“精美的设计”和“出色的用户体验”。但NDS保留了许多DOGE的特征，包括部分团队成员、不透明的组织结构，以及似乎对联邦政府许多既定规则和系统缺乏遵循。随着该机构持续招聘，《连线》（WIRED）采访了一位曾参加该机构面试的工程师。
“I don’t want to come off as a prude and say it was deeply unprofessional, because I’ve had plenty of casual interviews,” says the engineer who interviewed for the job and who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation. “But it was casual to the point where I don’t think there was any process established.” “我不想显得太古板，说它非常不专业，因为我经历过很多随意的面试，”这位因担心报复而要求匿名的受访工程师表示，“但这次面试随意到让我觉得他们根本没有建立任何流程。”
Like DOGE, NDS is nested under the Executive Office of the President. Though the NDS website says that the group is hiring, there is little information about the roles and seemingly no way to apply for the jobs from the website. NDS jobs also do not appear on USAJobs, the hiring portal for the federal government. Similarly, DOGE also solicited applications through a separate website, and before President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2025, via direct message on X. 与DOGE一样，NDS隶属于总统行政办公室。尽管NDS网站显示该团队正在招聘，但关于职位的信息寥寥无几，且网站上似乎没有申请渠道。NDS的职位也没有出现在联邦政府的招聘门户网站USAJobs上。同样，DOGE也曾通过独立网站招募人员，并在2025年1月唐纳德·特朗普总统就职前，通过X平台上的私信进行招募。
Gebbia has long been a close associate of Musk’s, and joined DOGE in February 2025. As DOGE members dispersed across the government and private sector, NDS became a landing spot for some of DOGE’s key operatives. Edward “Big Balls” Coristine and Akash Bobba, both of whom WIRED identified as part of the cadre of young engineers who formed the early core of DOGE, have both ended up at NDS. Coristine, who was 19 years old when he joined the government and had reportedly been terminated from an internship at a network monitoring firm known for hiring reformed blackhat hackers, after being suspected of leaking internal information, is now the group’s head of engineering. 格比亚长期以来一直是马斯克的亲密伙伴，并于2025年2月加入DOGE。随着DOGE成员分散到政府和私营部门，NDS成为了DOGE部分核心人员的落脚点。爱德华·“大球”（Big Balls）·科里斯汀（Edward Coristine）和阿卡什·博巴（Akash Bobba）——两人均被《连线》确认为DOGE早期核心年轻工程师团队成员——最终都加入了NDS。科里斯汀加入政府时年仅19岁，据报道，他曾因涉嫌泄露内部信息而被一家以聘用改邪归正的黑客而闻名的网络监控公司解雇，如今他担任该小组的工程主管。
It’s not always clear who is a part of NDS, and in what capacity. Zachary Terrell, a former DOGE affiliate who is currently serving as chief technology officer at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), also “contributes” to NDS, according to his website. Bobba retained a position as an “unpaid expert appointment” at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) until March 7, 2026, more than six months after he reportedly moved over to NDS, according to documents filed in a lawsuit by the American Federation of Government Employees, a union that represents federal workers. The White House, NDS, HHS, and OPM did not reply to requests for comment. 目前尚不清楚谁是NDS的成员，以及他们以何种身份参与。据其个人网站显示，曾隶属于DOGE、目前担任卫生与公众服务部（HHS）首席技术官的扎卡里·特雷尔（Zachary Terrell）也为NDS“做出贡献”。根据代表联邦工作人员的工会——美国政府雇员联合会（AFGE）在诉讼中提交的文件，博巴在据称转入NDS六个多月后，仍保留着人事管理局（OPM）“无薪专家任命”的职位，直至2026年3月7日。白宫、NDS、HHS和OPM均未回复置评请求。
An engineer who recently interviewed for a job with NDS, and who has previously worked in government, told WIRED that their interview with NDS was unlike any interview for a government job they’ve ever had. The engineer, who currently works in the private sector, hadn’t applied for a job with the group. Instead, they received a cold pitch from Coristine inviting them to have a conversation about a role with NDS. “We’re taking the leap to create agentic experiences where Americans can get things done with their government,” Coristine wrote, saying he was looking for “very talented and hardcore engineers who can ship.” 一位最近参加了NDS面试且有政府工作经验的工程师告诉《连线》，这次面试与他们以往经历过的任何政府职位面试都不同。这位目前在私营部门工作的工程师并未申请该职位，而是收到了科里斯汀的“冷启动”邀请，邀请他们商讨NDS的一个职位。“我们正在跨越式地创造代理体验，让美国人能够通过政府完成任务，”科里斯汀写道，并表示他正在寻找“能够交付成果的、非常有才华且硬核的工程师”。
“I have no idea how they got my contact information,” says the engineer. Unlike other interviews for government jobs, the engineer says, there was no recruiter present—only Coristine was on the interview call. “Normally initial screenings are done over the phone, rather than video, to reduce bias in the process,” they say. “我不知道他们是怎么得到我的联系方式的，”这位工程师说。他们表示，与其他政府职位面试不同，现场没有招聘人员，面试通话中只有科里斯汀一人。“通常初步筛选是通过电话而不是视频进行的，以减少过程中的偏见，”他们说。
During the engineer’s NDS interview, they say, Coristine didn’t seem to know the skill set he was looking for. “I generally don’t know if this person is capable of evaluating a full-stack engineer,” they say, “because they themselves aren’t aware of the skill sets, tools, and things needed in this profession.” Coristine did not reply to a request for comment. (In January 2025, Coristine was one of several DOGE members who interviewed workers at the General Services Administration’s Technology Transformation Services, who were required to defend their jobs and justify their projects. At the time, employees who spoke to WIRED described meetings in which the DOGE members were not familiar with their work.) 这位工程师表示，在NDS的面试过程中，科里斯汀似乎并不清楚他到底在寻找什么样的技能组合。“我完全不知道这个人是否有能力评估一名全栈工程师，”他们说，“因为他们自己并不了解这个行业所需的技能、工具和事项。”科里斯汀未回复置评请求。（2025年1月，科里斯汀曾是面试总务管理局技术转型服务部门员工的几名DOGE成员之一，当时员工们被要求为自己的工作辩护并证明其项目的合理性。当时接受《连线》采访的员工描述称，在会议中，DOGE成员对他们的工作并不熟悉。）
Coristine told the engineer that the role was geared toward supporting what would become Rampart, a tool released in late June to prevent personally identifiable information (PII) from leaving a user’s browser, particularly if they’re using something like a chatbot. In an interview with the Technology Business Programming Network (TBPN) podcast, Coristine described the project as a “side quest” and told the engineer that the NDS team of about 30 people did not include a machine-learning engineer. 科里斯汀告诉这位工程师，该职位旨在支持后来被称为“Rampart”的项目。这是一个6月下旬发布的工具，旨在防止个人身份信息（PII）离开用户的浏览器，特别是在用户使用聊天机器人等工具时。在接受“技术商业编程网络”（TBPN）播客采访时，科里斯汀将该项目描述为一项“支线任务”，并告诉工程师，NDS约30人的团队中并没有机器学习工程师。
The tool is similar to OpenAI’s browser-based “privacy filter,” which can detect things like a personal email, address, or account number, and mask them automatically. But exactly how this tool is meant to be used in the context of government services is unclear. In the interview with TBPN, Coristine did not offer any particular examples, though he noted the tool is significantly smaller than OpenAI’s, making it potentially more accessible in lower-bandwidth environments. 该工具类似于OpenAI基于浏览器的“隐私过滤器”，可以自动检测并掩盖个人电子邮件、地址或账号等信息。但该工具究竟如何在政府服务背景下使用尚不明确。在接受TBPN采访时，科里斯汀没有提供任何具体示例，但他指出该工具比OpenAI的工具小得多，这使其在低带宽环境下可能更具可用性。
“It feels very counterintuitive because in most instances, when you are asking for PII, you want PII,” says the engineer, noting that in government work, a user might need to provide PII like their social security number or address in order to access government benefits. “You don’t want that information redacted.” “这感觉非常反直觉，因为在大多数情况下，当你要求提供个人身份信息时，你正是需要这些信息，”这位工程师指出，在政府工作中，用户可能需要提供社会安全号码或地址等个人身份信息才能获得政府福利。“你并不希望这些信息被遮盖。”