The Trump administration is terminating the jobs of dozens of technology specialists whose broad portfolio of projects across the government included the I.R.S.’s free tax filing software and passport services.
The specialists, who belonged to a unit at the General Services Administration known as 18F, developed software and technology products for various federal agencies, with the goal of improving efficiency and better serving the public. In an email to workers at the agency’s Technology Transformation Services over the weekend, Thomas Shedd, a former Tesla engineer who is now the division’s director, said that 18F had been identified as noncritical and would be cut.
“This decision was made with explicit direction from the top levels of leadership within both the administration and G.S.A.,” Mr. Shedd said in the email, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times. He added that while no other Technology Transformation Services programs had been affected, “we anticipate more change in the future.”
In termination letters dated Friday, employees were informed that their roles would be eliminated in keeping with President Trump’s orders to downsize the government. Workers have been placed on administrative leave until they are officially released at the end of April, according to copies of letters seen by The New York Times.
A spokeswoman for the G.S.A. said in a statement that the administration would continue to embrace technology that would enhance and modernize the government’s digital infrastructure and I.T. capabilities, in a statement confirming that employees of 18F had been informed they would be laid off.
Among the marquee websites that 18F employees helped build or revamp are the Internal Revenue Service’s free tax filing service known as Direct File and the National Weather Service’s page, weather.gov.