One Developer. One Week. One Argument

Settled: Government Can Move Fast.

The common narrative in boardrooms, at conferences, and in the trade press for as long as I have worked in this space is that government is slow. And I understand where it comes from — there is enough historical evidence to sustain it from other agencies. Not at the agencies I have been in.

One of the developers on our team at the National Endowment for the Arts dismantled that argument completely. And he did it in seven days with federal agency AI-assisted development tools.

What Happened

Andrii, a developer working with our team set out to redesign and rebuild a mission-critical, public-facing system from the ground up. This is not a back-office utility. It is the system that grant applicants across the country — artists, arts organizations, and cultural institutions — rely on to manage their submissions for federal arts funding. It is, by any definition, a high-stakes, high-visibility application.

He rebuilt it in a week.

Not a wireframe. Not a proof of concept. Not a minimum viable product destined for another six months of iteration. A production-ready, AI-embedded replacement, built using AI-assisted development tools and open-source technologies, that is ready to serve the public.

Why This Matters Beyond the NEA

If this had happened at a technology company or a well-funded startup, it might warrant a mention in a team Slack channel. One talented developer moving fast is expected in those environments.

But this happened inside a federal agency — with all of the compliance requirements, security controls, and operational constraints that entails. And that changes the significance of the story entirely.

What Andrii demonstrated is not just personal capability, though that is real and worth celebrating. What he demonstrated is that the environment we have been building at the NEA — one that equips people with AI-assisted development tools, embraces open-source technologies, and creates the cultural permission to move — can produce outcomes that rival any private sector team.

This is the lesson I want every CIO, CAIO, and technology leader in the public sector to take from this story: speed is not a sector characteristic. It is an environmental one.

We Under-Equipped Our People

For years, the conventional wisdom held that government technology moved slowly because of bureaucracy, risk aversion, and talent gaps. And while those factors are real, they are not the root cause. The root cause is that we systematically under-equipped our people.

We gave developers legacy toolchains and told them to modernize. We asked for innovation while maintaining procurement processes that could not keep pace with technology cycles. We expected agility from teams that had never been given agile training let alone agile tools.

AI-assisted development changes this equation fundamentally. When a skilled developer has access to AI-powered coding tools, the gap between what one person can accomplish and what a large team could previously deliver collapses dramatically. Andrii did not beat the clock through heroic effort alone. In the Marine Corps we called it being force-multiplied. Andrii was force-multiplied.

This is the conversation the public sector needs to be having right now. Not just “how do we adopt AI responsibly” — though that governance work is essential — but “how do we use AI to unleash the talent we already have?”

A lone developer at a standing desk in a modern open-plan government office, bathed in the cool blue glow of multiple monitors displaying cascading lines of code. The atmosphere is focused and dynamic — papers and coffee cups suggesting sustained intensity. Through large windows behind him, the Washington D.C. skyline is visible at dusk, the Capitol dome faintly silhouetted. A digital clock on the wall reads Day 7. The mood is quiet triumph — not celebration, but the stillness of someone who just proved something. Cinematic lighting, editorial photography style, muted blues and amber tones.

What Leaders Need to Do

For technology leaders in government and the public sector, I would offer three takeaways from what we experienced at the NEA.

First, equip before you mandate. The instinct in many agencies is to govern AI adoption before enabling it — to write the policy before buying the tool. Governance matters enormously, and I have spent significant time building our AI governance framework at the NEA. But governance without enablement produces compliance theater, not results. Give your developers the tools, then govern their use rigorously.

Second, create cultural permission to move. Andrii moved fast not just because he had the tools, but because he had the trust. There was no committee approval required to start. No six-week requirements gathering process. He was trusted with a problem, equipped to solve it, and empowered to deliver. That cultural condition is as important as any technology investment.

Third, celebrate the evidence when it appears. One of the most powerful things a technology leader can do is name and amplify examples of what is possible within their organization. Not because it makes for good content — though it does — but because it reshapes what people believe is achievable. Every developer at the NEA who hears Andrii’s story recalibrates their own sense of what they can accomplish.

The Argument Is Settled

I am not suggesting that every government modernization challenge can be solved in a week by one developer. Complex legacy systems, enterprise integration requirements, and mission-critical data environments demand careful, sustained effort. I am not trading one oversimplification for another.

What I am saying is this: the blanket assumption that the government cannot compete with the private sector on technology speed and innovation is wrong. It was always more of a self-fulfilling prophecy than an immutable truth — and AI is making it easier than ever to prove that.

Andrii proved it. And at the National Endowment for the Arts, we are enhancing our environment, upskilling our people, trusting in the plan, and just getting started.