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How we automated federal retirements

96 points by caseysoftware

by epec254

4 subcomments

The key part IMO is buried in the article - there happened to be an existing, perfectly accurate database containing all the required info about each employee - the same info that previously had to be manually found for each retirement.
Without this, this effort would not have been possible.
> Fortunately, we stumbled on a critical clue. While poring over old documentation, we discovered that OPM actually had data warehouses that stored historic information about every federal employee. Apparently, these warehouses were created as part of a modernization effort in 2007, and HR and payroll offices all across government have supposedly been regularly reporting into it.
> For some reason however, this was not well known at OPM, and those that knew about it didn’t know what data it held, nor considered how it could be used to simplify retirement processing. Not many had seen the data, and administrators were initially resistant to sharing access.
> From a software perspective, this was the holy grail: a single source of truth that held all the information that the manual redundant steps were meant to review. Because the information was regularly reported by HR and payroll, by the time an employee retired, OPM should already have everything needed to process the retirement, without anyone re-entering or re-verifying information.

by alpha_squared

2 subcomments

> Two engineers walked into the government six months ago to drag federal retirements from an underground mine onto the Internet. They built retire.opm.gov and are poised to turn six-month waits into near-instant processing for hundreds of thousands of employees.
Written by said engineers about themselves. It's hard to read this as little more than a long-winded self-congratulatory Twitter post before the results are actually visible. It's no wonder their social handles sit at the bottom of the page to funnel followers to their page.

by throw10920

3 subcomments

> They had committed to building all of this [a previous modernization effort] on Microsoft PowerApps, a “no-code” tool meant for building simple web apps
> When we met with the developers in Macon, Georgia, OPM's engineering hub, they told us the PowerApps experience was so unfriendly that even they were afraid to make changes. Unless they’ve been specifically trained with PowerApps, most software developers would find it extremely unintuitive to build with, making it hard to apply classic coding skills or iterate quickly.
How much longer is it going to take project managers to realize that no-code tools are inappropriate for large, complex codebases?

by skybrian

1 subcomments

I did a brief news search for something from a more neutral party and found this article:
Federal retirement processing has slowed substantially this year due to DRP. As OPM continues modernizing retirement systems, another application surge looms.
https://federalnewsnetwork.com/retirement/2025/12/in-the-dar...
They seem to think the new systems helped:
> Amid the application influx, the Office of Personnel Management has also rolled out a major effort this year to modernize the legacy federal retirement system, which has long been paper-based. Many experts see the launch of OPM’s online retirement application (ORA) as a long-awaited improvement, but some remain wary of the timing, as agencies face application volumes not seen in at least a decade.
> Thiago Glieger, a federal retirement planning expert at RMG Advisors, described the converging changes as “uncharted waters” for OPM.
> “OPM has not really handled this new [ORA] system before, and this many federal employees retiring all at the same time,” he told Federal News Network.
> But Kimya Lee, OPM’s deputy associate director for Retirement Services, said having the ORA platform available this year has been crucial for managing both current and upcoming waves of retirement applications.
> “A surge like this would be extremely difficult for our legacy processing to work — it just wasn’t built for something like this,” Lee said during a Dec. 9 Chief Human Capital Officers (CHCO) Council meeting. “Despite record high retirement volumes this year, ORA is performing well. This gives us confidence as we prepare for retirement activities in 2025 and into 2026.”

by corndoge

2 subcomments

This "national design studio" seems strikingly similar to 18F, which was cut by DOGE earlier this year. Was not aware of it until now. Apparently it was established in August by EO: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/08/impr...
Does anyone have a scoop on NDS? Is it composed of 18F staffers?

by coderintherye

0 subcomment

Power Apps is just absolutely terrible for forms. Which is sad, because the platform itself is decent and most governmental entities that I've worked with seem to have access to it. If the UI/UX was better and Forms weren't cursed then non-technical teams could maintain their own apps and workflows. Combo'ing it with Power Automate can get a lot of things done. But Power Apps Forms need a complete re-haul and without such a change it will absolutely be the right decision to create something outside of it.

by preetnation

0 subcomment

I love both that this happened and that you did the work to bring attention to it. Heck yeah

by roflchoppa

0 subcomment

> Unless they’ve been specifically trained with PowerApps, most software developers would find it extremely unintuitive to build with, making it hard to apply classic coding skills or iterate quickly.
Sounds just like Sharepoint.

by Molitor5901

0 subcomment

I think this is a good thing and do not understand the negativity in the comments. We should want systems to function more efficiently, regardless of how that comes about or who does it.

by bzmrgonz

1 subcomments

I am so disappointed they chose MS SQL server. Just imaging the opportunities and the giant annual recurring savings to thr public purse going with postgresql would have brought to thr table(the postgresql ecosystem spreads as far as the eye can see). It's a travesty of epic proportions. Let's hope you at least follow modern coding practices of decoupling and low code/no code to ensure survivability and maintainability into posterity.

by primer42

2 subcomments

This is exactly how us taxes should work. The IRS already has all the information it needs - it should fill out the form, give you a chance to double check, and then you're done.
Sigh...

by skybrian

1 subcomments

National Design Studios seems to have been created in August:
https://archive.is/Gv9nC
> Aug 21 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump will appoint Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia to spearhead the new National Design Studio that will seek to make digital services at federal agencies more efficient, two officials familiar with the plan said.
> Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to create the studio - a new body that one of the officials said appears to be a stripped-down successor to the controversial Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), formerly headed by billionaire Elon Musk.
The work described in this blog post seems to have been done under its predecessor, DOGE, given that the launch date was June 2. But apparently these engineers moved to the new organization, so that’s why the blog post is there.

by flufluflufluffy

3 subcomments

Ah yes, the Nextjs app with access to personally identifiable information for every federal employee.

by trelane

0 subcomment

As many have pointed out, the data backing the new retirement system was created in 2007.
So, amazing collaboration between the George W Bush & Trump admins.
I am glad everyone here is applauding the achievement.

by dfilppi

0 subcomment

[dead]

by mrstone

1 subcomments

[flagged]

by silexia

3 subcomments

[flagged]

by Roguelazer

1 subcomments

So what's going to happen in 3 years after these startup bros have left government, none of the frameworks they're using are supported any more, and nobody in the office that they parachuted into is trained to maintain whatever spaghetti they crapped out over three months of all-nighters? There's a reason that we don't build critical infrastructure by giving it to some guy whose entire accomplishments are "working at Airbnb for 10 years"

by zeroCalories

0 subcomment

[flagged]

by trelane

2 subcomments

[flagged]