Amy Quispe, U.S. Digital Service, Alum; Marc Alvidrez, U.S. Digital Service; Rick Hawes, U.S. Digital Service, CDC
The COVID-19 pandemic put unprecedented strains on government software services. Now more than ever, software needed to work. How could the government—an institution not known for the speed and flexibility of its software systems—effectively meet the needs of the public?
SREs in government were well positioned to creatively navigate the high burden of regulatory constraints and administrative complexity. Despite the odds, SREs were able to move to quickly employ their service management and incident response skills.
Amy Quispe, U.S. Digital Service, Alum
Amy Quispe was a digital service expert at the United States Digital Service. In her time at USDS, she worked on a variety of projects including the vaccines.gov vaccination finder website. Before joining USDS, she was an engineer at Facebook, Medium, and Google. She serves on the Board of Directors of hackNY.
Marc Alvidrez, U.S. Digital Service
Marc Alvidrez is a digital service expert at the United States Digital Service. In his time at USDS he has worked with the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services and US Postal Service on the launch of covidtests.gov, and on the human organ procurement and transplantation network (OPTN) with Health Resources and Services Administration. Previously Marc spent 17.5 years at Google/Alphabet as an SRE, the last three at Loon.
Rick Hawes, U.S. Digital Service, CDC
Rick Hawes is a digital service expert at the United States Digital Service assigned to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. At the CDC, Rick worked on the COVID-19 response and many of the CDC's data modernization efforts. Before joining the USDS, Rick worked as a software architect for many companies, including, most recently, Yahoo and Microsoft.
author = {Amy Quispe and Marc Alvidrez and Rick Hawes},
title = {{SRE{\textquoteright}s} Critical Role in the {COVID-19} Pandemic Response in Government},
year = {2023},
address = {Santa Clara, CA},
publisher = {USENIX Association},
month = mar
}