Private technocrats salvage broken government software

When large public IT projects fail, governments increasingly rely on short‑term embeds from industry leaders to stabilize systems and deliver outcomes. Jeremy Singer’s six‑month stint at the Department of Education to rescue the 2023 FAFSA redesign — which later helped make 1.7 million students newly eligible for maximum Pell Grants — is a concrete example. — This pattern raises durable questions about public accountability, procurement practices, the limits of congressional drafting for software, and whether states should build permanent in‑house capacity rather than depend on emergency private fixes.