Engineers Modernize Federal Retirement System, Reducing Processing from Six Months to Near-Instant

Imagine retiring after a lifetime of public service — as a veteran, air traffic controller, or first responder — only to wait six months in financial limbo because a decades-old government process can't handle your application.

That was the reality for thousands of federal retirees every year since the 60's, having to apply for retirement within a paper-based, broken system plagued by delays and inefficiency.

Two engineers walked into the government six months ago to drag federal retirements from an underground mine onto the Internet.

They built retire.opm.gov and are poised to turn six-month waits into near-instant processing for hundreds of thousands of employees.