President-elect Joe Biden's team has hidden a job advert in the source code of its buildbackbetter.gov transition website, as it begins the process of attempting to staff its new administration.
The secret advert was spotted by "The Jester," an anonymous "hacktivist" who was listed by Time magazine as one of the most influential people on the internet in 2015.
"NICE!!! In the rendered source code of president-elect @joebiden's https://buildbackbetter.gov website," the Jester wrote in a Twitter post highlighting the section of code that contains the advert.
"This harkens back to the likes of the UK's MI5 and MI6 who I believe used to recruit the type of people they were looking for by publishing obscure crossword and puzzle competitions in newspapers," the hacktivist said.
Tech journalist Neal Ungerleider suggested in a Tweet that the secret ad was designed to "attract the folks who look at these things," such as web developers and coders.
The advert is hidden in the HTML code—the standard programming language for creating web pages—of the buildbackbetter.gov website.
"If you're reading this, we need your help building back better," it reads, followed by a link to the job application web page of the U.S. Digital Service (USDS) website.
The USDS is a federal agency within the Executive Office of the President of the United States that works across government to improve digital services and websites.
The agency comprises "designers, engineers, product managers and bureaucracy specialists" who "work with and empower civil servants," according to the USDS website.
NICE!!! In the rendered source code of president-elect @joebiden's https://t.co/r1kPGgbYZl website. pic.twitter.com/7fPjX1hocn
— JΞSŦΞR ✪ ΔCŦUΔL³³°¹ (@th3j35t3r) November 25, 2020
This week, the Trump administration finally authorized the presidential transition process to begin, although the President is still refusing to concede the election publicly.
On Monday, the General Services Administration informed Biden that the official transition process can now go ahead after weeks of delay, providing his team with millions of dollars of federal funding and access to government resources, as well as the use of .gov internet domains.
As a result, the Biden team changed the address of their transition website from buildbackbetter.com to buildbackbetter.gov.
Biden's team now has the task of staffing its new administration and has now begun the recruitment across for numerous jobs across the federal government.
"Today, our country faces multiple crises that impact our lives, livelihoods, and the very soul of our nation: the worst pandemic in over 100 years, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the most compelling call for racial justice since the '60s, and the undeniable realities and accelerating threats of climate change," the Biden-Harris administration wrote on the website's job application page.
"But, for all the hardship we are experiencing, there is nothing Americans cannot accomplish if we do it together. In this moment, we must harness the passion, creativity, talent, and ingenuity of the American people to build back better and restore faith in our government. We are committed to building an Administration that looks like America and works for all Americans. Join us."
