Colorado Digital Service (CDS)

Formed in 2019, CDS is a diverse, cross-functional team of senior engineers, human-centered design specialists, product managers and procurement and contracting specialists within the Governor’s Office of Information Technology (OIT).

Using a community-centered and outcomes-based approach, the Colorado Digital Service partners with agencies to design, build, and buy sustainable technologies that help Coloradans thrive.

Apply Here to Join Our Team

Our commitments

Community-centered, outcomes-based approach

CDS’s commitment to a community-centered and outcomes-based approach means our work is focused on how it will impact the lives of real people. We are working to redistribute power back to our community by bringing them into the design process and letting their voices impact the technologies that serve them.

Design, build and buy sustainable technologies

CDS’s commitment to sustainable technology implies our work will be adaptable beyond its original use case. It avoids one-off builds that create vendor lock-in and inhibit cross-team collaboration and shared solutions.

Help Coloradans thrive

CDS’s commitment to helping Coloradans thrive is because we believe that our approach and partnerships will yield stronger results for all members of the public as well as the people who provide those services.

Our team values

Find the truth, tell the truth	Give credit and absorb risk	Champion equity
We examine opportunities with humility, integrity and bravery. We have the courage to find a different path forward.	We share our wins with our partners and provide cover for them when facing challenges together.	We advocate for diverse perspectives and act on these insights to build toward a more just, equitable world.
Move at the speed of trust	Lead with curiosity, not judgment	Build momentum
We prioritize relationship building and bringing team members along above the speed of deliverables.	We use empathy and curiosity to find positive outcomes in challenging situations.	We are here to break analysis paralysis and are focused on progress, not perfection.

Partner with us

The Colorado Digital Service operates in a hub-and-spoke model. We have a central discovery team, Hub, and teams that are embedded at an agency.

The CDS Hub team is deployed for only short amounts of time with agency partners. The Hub team is not cost reimbursable, which means that agencies don't have to pay in addition to their existing OIT administrative payment. Agency teams, on the other hand, have their tour of service dedicated entirely to an agency and their mission. Agency CDS members are paid for by the agency partner billed through the 3005 Service Line.

When an agency partner requests an engagement with us, we take them through our inbound process, so we can better understand their needs and what our team can provide in a meaningful way.

Team members assigned to an engagement will be responsible for collaborating on an engagement scope, project plan, and handing over necessary deliverables and artifacts.

Explore what our team can do for you by sending us an email.

Read about our past work

We have partnered with many different state agencies to provide modern software delivery expertise. A few of these examples are:

Establishing Vendor Bakeoffs
As a new system is selected to be purchased from a vendor, it’s essential for state teams to be critical of what they are getting. A vendor bake off is a side-by-side comparison of vendor capabilities that tests potential solutions against user and technical needs. This method has teams write simulated situations and bring in the end users to try to complete them in vendor software. Bake offs are particularly useful for when procuring software-as-a-service or off-the-shelf solutions.
Supporting strategic product implementations
Creating or changing existing technologies that support programs requires more than just changes in technology. Our team approaches helping our partners by deeply understanding their user ecosystem, their internal staffing models, and the way the technologies currently and aspire to support the business processes.