History of the Tech Far Hub

The TechFAR Handbook was launched along with the Digital Services Playbook in August 2014 to help demonstrate how to implement Play 5: Structure budgets and contracts to support delivery. It describes flexibilities that exist right now within the acquisition regulations & laws to acquire digital services through contracts.

Many agencies were excited to use this guidance to improve their service delivery and acquisition practices, but just because something exists does not mean we are all familiar with how to use it. Something more was needed.

Through proven strategies, case studies, interactive tools, expert advice, and specific initiatives; the TechFAR Hub was designed to help those who must execute digital service strategies through contracts understand and navigate how industry best practices for digital service plays can be done through federal acquisition regulations.

USDS Acquisition Strategists

Within the US Digital Service sits a team of acquisition experts dedicated to rethinking the way the federal sector buys digital services.

While most of the technologist that join USDS are being brought in from external sectors, the USDS Acquisition Strategists are mainly former federal contracting specialists/officers and contracting officer representatives (CORs) who have a deep knowledge of how to craft acquisitions to fit the types of digital services being procured. These strategies focus on designing flexible and risk reducing procurements for services or supplies such as human centered design, iterative development methods (agile, devops, continuous integration), cloud, X-As-A-Service, and modern technology stacks.

If you’re interested in joining the USDS Acquisition Strategists and others working to make acquisition better for all.

Apply to USDS