Working in the Public Sector: Adrianna Tan
Adrianna Tan has been San Francisco’s Director of Product Management for just over two years. When she began her job, she didn’t know much about public interest technology, but she knew city she lived in had a young and ambitious digital team, and she wanted to be a part of it.
Before beginning her current role, she had spent her entire career at startups of all sizes, and she was eager to use her skills and apply them in a different area. We talked to her about her role, about the public sector, and advice for people interested in similar careers.
A BETTER TECH: What does your job look like day-to-day?
Adrianna Tan: On a day to day basis, I manage all of the product managers who work in San Francisco Digital Services. Some of them lead core products, like SF.gov and the city’s affordable housing site. Some of them work across key areas, like in digital permitting or in grants. I also serve in a leadership capacity on the team, as one of its directors.
Most of our team were intimately involved in the City’s pandemic response, working closely and collaboratively with City colleagues to deliver new programs and improve some existing ones during a time of need. Some of us got deployed to work in the emergency operations team. The work continues. I was proud to have served the City during a time of crisis. Our flagship product, SF.gov, played a key role in helping residents and businesses understand the latest health orders. We were able to deliver that vital information, which was changing all the time, in several languages in order to reach the City’s most vulnerable residents. I was personally involved in shipping parts of our infrastructure that were essential to this work.
“I started my tech career at a time when ‘move fast, break things’ was the ethos and core belief. In government, you simply cannot break...anything. ”
I started my tech career at a time when “move fast, break things” was the ethos and core belief. In government, you simply cannot break…anything. But you can try to move faster in the areas you have direct influence in. That’s how our team of under 40 ended up collaborating with partners in city government to deliver grant applications, permit applications, vaccine-related services, and other work.
What are some key things you’ve learned in your work with the City of San Francisco?
AT: Even though I am not from here, San Francisco is very similar to my home city of Singapore in several ways. For one, both cities have several primary languages. Both cities struggle to deliver core digital services in all the languages. Here in San Francisco, I was able to work with a small team to quickly deploy some government forms in all our core languages. I have to say that before I joined local government, I probably did not think much, or at all, about forms and translations. They did not seem like key technical challenges to solve.
Now that I am in local government, I think a lot about forms and translations. How people give the government information; how we process this information. None of this means that joining public interest technology or the public sector is less challenging, technically or professionally. For me, it has been one of the greatest challenges in my career, and also one of the more rewarding.
It does mean, however, that anyone who joins the public sector for a short time, or whose entire vision is that they alone, would ‘help the government fix things’ is not likely to succeed. The problems to solve, and how to solve them, are not merely technical. They are a unique blend of tech problems, procurement problems, funding problems, people problems. You have to be an experienced professional who can, at once, fix things that can be fixed when they need fixing, and also understand long term strategy around how to prioritize what to work on. To me, this feels not entirely dissimilar to working at any large tech company. Lone rangers rarely bring about outsized impact. Team players are key.
There are critics of both the public and private sectors, and the debate often is revolves around the government moving too slow and corporations too quickly. What do you have to say about that debate? What have you loved about the public sector?
AT: Some people are terrified of the bureaucracy that seems to come with working in government. They think it must be Kafka-esque at every turn. I’ve worked in some top startups, very well known ones that are perceived to be interesting places to work, and at this stage in my life I’m very grateful for having a semblance of stability. You can’t just swipe a credit card and claim a thing, but that’s for a reason. At the same time, well-intentioned rules can feel daunting if you’re used to moving really fast. I can’t speak for everyone else, but in my current capacity where I am, it’s been a unique blend of startup culture embedded inside local government and that actually works extremely well for me.
Lastly, the lack of profit and revenue as a key motivator impacts what I do in product management. It is so liberating to be able to say: you know what? Only a hundred people looked at my digital service in this particular language, that cost that much to translate? GREAT! Let’s keep doing it. In the private sector, I would have to make the decision to axe it; because only a hundred people used it. But here, that’s a hundred more people that we would not have served at all, if we did not do that. Like Cyd Harrell says in her book, you don’t really have competitors. Your residents don’t just easily switch to another government to get something done. You have to do it right. Most of all, you should definitely avoid breaking anything, even while you are moving relatively quickly.
Do you have any advice for anyone interested in starting a career in Public Interest Technology?
AT: For anyone interested in public interest technology, set up chats with people in the space or follow them on Twitter. Attend public interest technology conferences (like A Better Tech); read Cyd Harrell’s book. Look at what governments everywhere are doing, not only in the US. Singapore, Estonia, the UK, New Zealand, Canada, they all seem to be doing interesting work here.
Don’t limit yourself to just governments, either. Learn about the software companies and vendors who work with governments, too. Unfortunately, available positions in public interest tech so far have been very much skewed towards mid-career folks who are planning to make a switch, than to entry level positions for those who want to start their career here. Hopefully, this changes in the future.