In 2025, you read, you clicked, you (hopefully) applied. It was a tough year for the civic tech sector, particularly for folks at the federal level, who may have been on teams that were eliminated or whose professional landscape has shifted dramatically. It was a tough year for me personally as well. But we are in a new year and a new chapter, and I am excited for what this year will hold.
2025 was also the first full year since moving the newsletter to Substack, and that means lots of data to dig into. I wanted to learn what roles and resources in civic tech actually excite you and what is beneficial to inform what the newsletter should look like in 2026. I tracked every click across 13 newsletters and 600+ job listings to understand what you’re actually looking for—and what you’re ignoring.
In addition to looking at the data, I also want to hear directly from you. I’ve put together a short subscriber survey to understand who you are, what you’re looking for and where you think the Public Sector Job Board should go in 2026 and beyond.
Here’s what I learned from you all, and what it means for the year to come.
By the Numbers
The Big Picture
13 newsletters published
676 jobs featured
Over 10,000 total clicks on job listing links
5,037 subscribers in December 2025 (up from 1,731 in January 2025)
Beyond the Jobs
It wasn’t just jobs. You also engaged with:
36 events — happy hours, conferences, and meetups around the country
65 reads and resources— staying up to date with essays, case studies, and policy commentary as well as hungry for career guides, fellowship programs, and team information
Your Top 10 Most Popular Jobs
Worth noting: Not all of the most popular jobs are in the most popular regions. The #1 job this year—Qualitative Researcher at the Metropolitan Council—was in the Midwest. The #9 job was in Colorado. When the role is right and the org has a reputation for doing good work, you’ll look beyond your usual geographies.
The pattern: 7 of your top 10 are UX, design, research, or product roles. You’re not just looking for government jobs—you’re looking for civic tech jobs.
What Else You Clicked On
It’s not just about the jobs. Some of your most-clicked content wasn’t job listings at all.
🎉 Events: You Want Community
Happy hours and meetups were huge this year. The most popular:
NYC civic tech happy hours
Boston public interest tech happy hours
Bay Area happy hours
FormFest
dotgovdesign.org
CityCamp
Regional meetups, design conferences, hack nights—you showed up for all of it. You’re not just looking for jobs in isolation. You want to meet people, swap stories, and feel part of something.
📚 Reads: You Care About Context
You come not just for the jobs, but to learn about new resources about what is happening in civic tech. The essays and commentary you clicked on most:
“Should I Stay or Go” - technologists debating the federal moment
Propel’s technical post on SNAP and LLMs
Mark Headd on legacy system modernization
You want to understand the landscape—what’s working, what’s broken, and what it all means.
🚀 General Recruitment & Fellowships: Breaking In
It isn’t always just about the specific jobs. Org-wide hiring pages and fellowship programs got massive engagement:
NY State Digital Service Jobs page
Maryland Digital Service recruitment
Work for America’s CivicMatch
Whether you’re exploring civic tech or helping others get in, “how do I break into this field” content consistently resonates.
🔗 Resources & Community
You also clicked on tools, org pages, and community resources:
LinkedIn civic tech groups
Lab @ DC jobs page
What You Loved
🏆 Most Popular Category: UX/Design/Research
You explored UX and design roles at more than 2x the rate of engineering roles. Service designers, researchers, content strategists—I see you.
🏛️ Most Popular Organizations
The orgs you wanted to learn more about:
New York Public Library — Every product role they posted was a hit
Maryland Digital Service — Digital producers, designers, product owners
City of Boston — Service design, data science, UX leadership
New Jersey Office of Innovation — Across the board
California Office of Data and Innovation — Research, data, UX
You want innovation-minded teams at government agencies that get it. You want to do modern, human-centered work—just in public service.
💰 Salary Sweet Spot: $150-175k
Roles in this range got the most engagement. Senior enough to be interesting, achievable enough to feel relevant.
📍 Most Popular Regions
New York / New Jersey
New England (especially Boston)
DC / Maryland / Virginia
California
Pacific Northwest
What Didn’t Land
This is the part where I get honest with you.
About 40% of listings had fewer than 7 of you check them out; some had zero. While a handful of people found those roles useful, it’s a signal that certain types of jobs aren’t connecting with most of you.
The patterns:
Traditional IT titles at traditional agencies “Application Developer - [State Agency]” didn’t resonate the way “Product Designer - [State Digital Service]” did. Same government, different framing, very different response.
Lower-salary roles at lesser-known orgs Roles under $75k rarely got much traction unless they were prestigious fellowships or internships at orgs you already recognized.
Certain regions Jobs in smaller cities—particularly in the Southeast and Southwest—struggled to gain traction, even when the roles themselves were solid. Your interest clusters heavily in the Northeast, California, and the Pacific Northwest.
A note on this last one:
I intentionally have tried to feature a diversity of geographies and organization types. I don’t want this newsletter to be only “the same five employers every week.” Governments across the country are moving towards digital. There are opportunities across the country where you could be the one to build a design practice, modernize a legacy system, or bring human-centered thinking to an agency that’s never had it.
Those roles are harder sells. They don’t come with a built-in innovation brand or a team of peers. But they’re real opportunities to make an outsized impact—if you’re up for being a pioneer rather than joining an established program.
I’ll keep featuring them selectively, because someone reading this might be exactly the person to take that leap. But I hear you that they’re not what most of you are looking for.
What This Tells Me
You’re not here for “government IT jobs.” You’re here for:
Civic tech — modern practices, human-centered work
Innovation teams — digital services, labs, R&D groups
Transformation roles — helping government work better
Mission-driven product and design work - enough said
Community — events, happy hours, and connection with others doing this work
Context — understanding the policy landscape and what’s happening in the field
You want to do meaningful work with modern methods—and you want to do it alongside people who get it.
What This Means for 2026
Based on what I learned, there will be some adjustments in the year ahead:
1. More signal, less noise
I’m going to be more selective. Roles that consistently don’t resonate—traditional IT titles at non-innovation orgs, very low-salary roles at unknown agencies—will be deprioritized. The goal is a list of jobs that make you go “oh, I want to do that”.
2. Leaning into what works
This may mean fewer jobs in each newsletter since these teams are still growing, but the ones that are featured will resonate. Expect more:
UX, design, and research roles (when they exist)
Product management
Innovation and transformation leadership
Content design and strategy
Roles at digital service teams, labs and other teams ahead of the curve
3. More community and context
You clicked on events and reads almost as much as jobs. I’m going to lean into that:
More consistent coverage of civic tech events and happy hours
Curated reads that help you understand the landscape
Spotlighting fellowships and “breaking in” resources
4. Better context on listings
Where I can, I’ll add more signal about whether an org “gets it”—things like team structure, mission and values, or what people say about working there.
Help Me Make It Better
I’m running a short survey to hear directly from you:
What roles are you actually looking for?
What regions matter to you?
What would make listings more useful?
What else would you want from this newsletter?
Your answers will directly shape what this newsletter looks like in 2026.
Thank You
To everyone who subscribed, clicked, shared, and landed roles in 2025—thank you. This newsletter exists because there’s a community of people who believe government can work better, and want to be part of making that happen. I look forward to continuing to grow our community in 2026 and beyond.
— Rebecca
P.S. The Average Public Sector Job Board Reader
Based on aggregate click data, the average Public Sector Job Board reader is:
A senior-level UX researcher or product manager in the Northeast, currently employed but passively open, drawn to innovation teams at state and city government, skeptical of traditional IT departments, and willing to look at anything posted by the New York Public Library.
Sound like you? You’re in good company.