Yat Choi

Coder
Tech Industry Links: Airbnb

An Airbnb engineer working with alumni Joe Gebbia and Andrew Vilcsak on the retirement modernization project at the OPM, Yat Choi is also reportedly a Canadian working on a temporary visa. It true, this circumstance would normally disqualify him from being a federal employee unless some special waiver were granted.

Positions

Position Notes
OPM
OPM 4/XX/25 consultant Senior Technologist «a Canadian working on temp visa which would disqualify for federal role. LinkedIn reports he worked on the retirement processing modernization project. Wired reports still involved in OPM retirement work in December 2025»
GSA
GSA 6/XX/25 consultant Scientific Technologist «working for GSA as a contractor from MSI Consulting because a not an American citizen»

Events

Date Event
8/04/25
In a report about DOGE’s continued work on OPM’s Online Retirement Application (ORA) continuing to move ahead, Politico identifies DOGE staff that are working on the project under Joe Gebbia.
8/26/25
A report from Politico identifies three foreign nationals who are working for DOGE within the GSA. Normally, they would not be eligible for government positions but have been hired as contractors. Two are from AirBnb and one worked for X.com in prior capacities.
12/26/25
The National Design Studio launches a new blog named “Dev Index” with an article written about the modernization work at OPM for digitizing retirements that apparently has moved over to the NDS from OPM with Joe Gebbia. The article is written by Yat Choi and Dennis Li and thanks Edward Coristine and Zach Terrell for reviewing the content.