A new White House agency staffed by former members of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is actively recruiting engineers through informal channels, raising questions about its hiring practices and operational structure, WIRED reported in August 2026.
The National Design Studio (NDS) was established in late summer 2025, less than two months after Elon Musk departed from DOGE in June 2025. Headed by Joe Gebbia, cofounder of Airbnb and the country’s chief design officer, NDS is nested under the Executive Office of the President. Its stated mission is to redesign government websites to improve usability and appearance.
Several former DOGE operatives have landed at NDS. Edward “Big Balls” Coristine, who was 19 when he joined the government and had reportedly been terminated from a network monitoring internship after being suspected of leaking internal information, now serves as NDS’s head of engineering. Akash Bobba, another early DOGE engineer, is also at the agency. Bobba retained an “unpaid expert appointment” at the Office of Personnel Management until March 7, 2026 — more than six months after reportedly joining NDS — according to documents filed in a lawsuit by the American Federation of Government Employees.
An engineer told WIRED they were recruited not through a formal application but via a cold message from Coristine, who said he was looking for “very talented and hardcore engineers who can ship.” The subsequent interview struck the engineer as unusually informal. “It was casual to the point where I don’t think there was any process established,” the engineer said, requesting anonymity for fear of retaliation.
NDS job listings do not appear on USAJobs, the federal government’s official hiring portal, mirroring DOGE’s earlier practice of soliciting applicants through a separate website. The White House, NDS, HHS, and OPM did not respond to requests for comment.
The agency’s opaque structure and unconventional hiring practices suggest it may be operating outside standard federal government norms — a pattern that echoes DOGE’s own approach during its tenure.
Source: WIRED