
“They Have No Use for Someone Who Looks and Dresses Like Me” - rmason
https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140325160616-16553--they-have-no-use-for-someone-who-looks-and-dresses-like-me?trk=eml-ced-b-art-M-0&midToken=AQHHy9b_jZx3Cw&ut=1Qc5PziQGF-C81
======
greenyoda
To be fair, many tech companies have no use for someone who looks and dresses
differently from them either. For example, a fifty year old woman who comes to
an interview for a developer job wearing a business suit. She could be an
incredible developer, but sorry, she wouldn't fit into the culture...

~~~
tomjen3
So what? Unless you have some SJW agenda it doesn't who builds the system, so
long as the system gets build (and build well).

Washington needs geeks because they can't build the systems without us and
they can't get geeks because they are washington. Geeks can build a system
with (or without) a few workers.

~~~
LyndsySimon
I didn't read GP to say that it was necessarily a bad thing - only that they
were pointing out that the social discrimination cuts both ways. In my
experience, they're right, it does.

~~~
tomjen3
That is true and sad. I just don't think it is as important.

~~~
LyndsySimon
Why do you believe that?

It seems to be that discrimination is either bad or not bad. Are some
individuals more worthy of consideration?

------
kalvin
There's a lot of (understandable) cynicism here. But if this makes you mad and
you want to do something about it, email your links/resume to jobs at hcgov
dot us.

We're a team of a dozen or so software engineers (many ex-Google and YC)
who've been working on fixing Healthcare.gov for the future, since December.
We're actively looking for experienced software engineers. Several have joined
in the past few months.

(If you've seen this comment before, we were looking, but now we're very-much
looking.)

The external environment may be frustrating compared to what we're all used
to, but internally and day-to-day we're running like a startup--
github/node/backbone/AWS/asana/standups/etc. We're finally shipping and we're
going to keep shipping.

Change starts with a small group of thoughtful, committed software engineers
(...paraphrasing...) and there are many groups now seeding different parts of
the system; our area is Healthcare.gov and associated systems. Because we
began in a crisis situation, and other unique factors, some of the usual
downsides mentioned in this thread don't apply to us.

Email us! We can also refer you to the other groups referenced in the OP if
they make more sense for you.

~~~
jbarham
> We're a team of a dozen or so ex-Google and YC software engineers

Coincidence or nepotism?

~~~
jtheory
Actual nepotism: "we're a team of painfully inexperienced and/or incompetent
people, some of whom aren't even engineers, but we're all from the Dickerson
family 'cause the boss-man is a Dickerson".

------
bellerocky
I can't imagine government employment and software engineering culture ever
meeting. In a government job seniority and time in job counts more than
competence. You sit on your ass for long enough and you get more for it. In
the Bay Area the new and young eat the still beating hearts any of the old and
cranky people who made the poor decision to mentally check out later in their
career and stopped learning. Most engineers who want a career don't check out
because they know this, the fire inside them never dies.

This field is fast paced, and the government bureaucracy is antithetical to
fast moving changes. It crushes souls, it does not inspire innovation. Not
even powerful technology behemoths with lots of brain power can save
themselves from new kids beating out new technology in their dorm room. How
could the federal government ever adapt to such a system? Expect more
healthcare.gov disasters until they figure this out.

I am specific about the Bay Area although I know some other places are
similiar because I've seen cultures clash when a big company from Texas
acquire some new SF startup and the cultures collide when you have a place
where being friendly is important meet a startup where competence is the only
currency that counts. It doesn't matter if you're friendly, it doesn't matter
how long you've been in that position, here nobody cares about these things,
although being friendly is nice it is not enough, and in many places you can
get by somehow in a way you can't in the Bay Area tech scene.

~~~
batbomb

         It doesn't matter if you're friendly, it doesn't matter how long you've been in that position, here nobody cares about these things, although being friendly is nice it is not enough, and in many places you can get by somehow in a way you can't in the Bay Area tech scene.
    

The problem is that this attitude overflows into everyday lives, and that's
why people protest the Google bus. People don't want to live in a world with
insensitive assholes that get their jobs done. They don't want to live in a
brave new world devoid of history and culture, segregated by industry,
education, age, and class.

They especially don't want to live next door to the enlightened bay area
techie that can't stop complaining about his company's acquisition by those
darn Texans.

~~~
tomjen3
Why should we care about them? Let them rot, if it comes to where we have to
we have more money to buy guards than they have.

~~~
bkirkbri
Because we live in a world that is not homogeneous and are all enriched as a
result. Ending up as one's own version of Howard Hughes, locked in a room with
a gun and a pile of money, is unappealing to me.

~~~
tomjen3
I strongly disagree that we are enriched as a result. In fact if the world
didn't have these conservatives in it we would have been much ahead.

And just because there are some people you don't want to associate with
doesn't mean you don't want to associate with people - just that after
compulsory schooling I don't want to talk with/spend time with about 80% of
the world. That leaves a bit over a billion, so it doesn't matter.

------
adricnet
This Tim O'Reily blog post on Linked In is about a Time magazine article which
is about the rescue of the Healthcare.gov project by technical experts from
"outside government" and is actually pretty interesting, at least to skim.

Could we get it a better title for the HN post that might encourage more
people to follow the link?

~~~
myhf
Actually can we get it submitted with a title that explains what it is, and
then have a mod change it to the first H1 on the page without comment? Thanks
in advance

~~~
lotharbot
The mods have been doing a much, much better job of explaining title changes
recently (and occasionally either reversing them, or not making them in the
first place.)

See
[https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dang](https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dang)

------
curun1r
The interesting thing is that Obama had this figured out and it helped him get
reelected...here's what the guy who ran his campaign's IT infrastructure looks
like:
[http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/science/harperal...](http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/science/harperalone.jpg).
The story
([http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/11/when-t...](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/11/when-
the-nerds-go-marching-in/265325/)) of how much better Obama's IT was than
Romney's is a fascinating read.

But there are so many regulations to government contracting that you can't
simply choose the people most able to complete the project. You have to choose
from the limited set of people that have jumped through all the necessary
hoops and cleared all the necessary hurdles, which basically eliminates anyone
capable of producing something usable/stable. When all hell's breaking loose
and you're attempting to avert a crisis, only then does it seem that you can
bring in qualified people, but those people aren't going to be paid the
hundreds of millions of dollars that the original incompetent team was paid to
create the mess in the first place.

~~~
GVIrish
There are multiple layers to the woes bedeviling government IT (and government
work in general).

The contract award process is indeed broken and often awards contracts to the
large fish who fail regularly. Part of that is because 'prior performance'
carries signifiant weight, meaning that if you're Lockheed Martin and you've
done a 15000 user enterprise resource planning project before you have a leg
up on the 50 person IT shop that hasn't, even if said IT shop is far more
competent.

But really before you even get to the contract, the fact of the matter is that
a lot of the full time government employees making the IT decisions are flat
out incompetent. The contractor might have smart people that can do excellent
work but if the FTE continually makes bad strategic decisions the best coders
in the world are not going to be able to deliver a great system. The original
article goes a little bit into that where it talks about how technical people
in government don't have the power.

Another problem is that government people are rarely held accountable for
their failures. They in turn often don't hold contractors accountable.

Then there's the fact that the government has systematically reduced the
amount of full time employee programmers in favor of contractors. That isn't
necessarily bad in some ways, but basically it results in the government
paying a lot more money to get the same technical expertise. The argument is
usually, "Yeah but we don't have to pay for a contractor's benefits." Yet the
government is paying 2 or more times the cost of a full-time employee per year
for the contractor bill rate.

I think for government IT to truly improvement there needs to be some serious
structural changes to the way government work is done from contract awards to
employee accountability to the composition of the government work force. It
really will need to come from the top, and unfortunately the people at the top
usually don't make things like that their priority which is why we're here
today.

------
lchengify
Unfortunately the TIME article is now behind a paywall. However I read it back
in February and for those of you with a subscription, I highly recommend
reading it.

Having worked at Google I can tell you I have infinite respect for the quality
of SREs. They really know the deep dark levels of the system, and take their
work seriously, especially given some of the messes they have to clean up. I
can't even imagine the shitstorm Mikey Dickerson flew into when he
volunteered, but the fact that he was described as the guy who was "actually
helpful" is not shocking.

I'm not sure exactly how the Obama administration dragooned the tech companies
to send volunteers. However, if Obama and Larry Page did have a convo, I like
to think it went something like this:

    
    
      Obama: Mr. Page, we have a dire situation and we need a team of your best men now.
      Larry: What do you need exactly?
      Obama: 10 of your SREs to help us fix a production system we can't understand.
      Larry: ... you can have 1.

~~~
_mulder_
Or perhaps...

    
    
      Obama: 10 of your SREs to help us fix a production system we can't understand.
      Larry: ... you'll only need 1.

------
flyt
Government will continue to have major problems hiring some of the best people
in the tech industry until they stop screening for past use of drugs, even
soft drugs like marijuana.

Considering that two states (Washington and Colorado) now make it legal for
its citizens to purchase and consume marijuana from the age of 21 onward, it's
ludicrous that the federal government can sustain itself by completely
excluding the citizens of two states from holding federal jobs.

There are absolutely other structural and cultural problems that prevent
government from attracting the best from industry, but an insistence on a
drug-free past has already and will continue to be a show stopper until
attitudes (and procurement requirements) change.

~~~
GVIrish
If you don't hold a clearance weed usage won't really be a problem. And if you
do apply for a clearance, past marijuana usage is not necessarily a
disqualifier. What they're screening for is substance abuse that might be
problematic enough that they could compromise your ability to keep secrets.
And they want to see that you don't lie about past use. I know more than one
person who has smoked weed in the past and still gained a clearance.

But really I think the absurdly slow and convoluted gov't application/hiring
process, lower pay, and paltry starting annual vacation are bigger deterrents
to joining government IT.

------
Igglyboo
Reminds me of a recent remark[1] by an FBI executive about how the federal
governments drug testing policy was hampering their ability to get leading
cyber-security expects on staff. A policy that very few top technology
companies share.

Obviously this isn't the exact situation as described by the article but it
still goes to show how out of touch the federal government is with the tech
industry and how much catch-up they need to play if they want the best of the
best.

[1] [http://www.ibtimes.com/fbi-director-says-agencys-pot-
policy-...](http://www.ibtimes.com/fbi-director-says-agencys-pot-policy-needs-
reform-attract-cyber-security-professionals-1588245)

------
steven2012
The big problem is that the people in government who spend the money don't
actually have to earn it, which means that they don't value it. It's the same
way with Trust Fund babies, who suckle off their parents' wealth and spend it
all on drugs and partying. Since they didn't have to earn the money, it's
meaningless to them.

What happens in government is that the ones who spend it have all this power,
they don't value the money, so then it goes to people that give them
kickbacks, and then there is no accountability. Except in the government you
talk about hundreds of millions and billions of dollars as opposed to millions
and tens of millions around here.

The government needs to take up a different way of budgeting their money.
Instead of cutting budgets where people can save money, they should be
increasing budgets of those people that can save money or spend it wisely.
There are so many things wrong with how the government spends money, no wonder
people hate paying their taxes, when they see $300M spent on the government
website that could have been made in SV for less than 1% of that.

~~~
GVIrish
The fact that in government work spending money wisely is not critical the way
it is in private sector is a component of the problem. But I think the more
fundamental problem it points to is a lack of consequences for poor
performance. An agency can waste a lot money but rarely does any experience
consequences for it. A department can fail miserably on big initiatives, small
initiatives and everything in between but again, rarely does anyone get fired
or even disciplined for that. Even in the most high profile government IT
failure in US history, no one was asked to resign.

Start creating real accountability for government organizations and the right
people can actually rise to the top and the wrong people can get weeded out
(rather than waiting until the bad apples retire). People will start paying a
lot more attention to their budgets when they're actually held responsible for
using them wisely.

> Instead of cutting budgets where people can save money, they should be
> increasing budgets of those people that can save money or spend it wisely.

While that sounds like a simple solution, it would incentivize people to make
ill-advised cuts one year so the budget could be increased next year. Really
all that needs to be done to end the end of fiscal year spending spree is to
not reduce budgets when an organization doesn't spend all of it in a given
year

------
kabdib
I must have missed the mention of the big consulting firms that make TONS of
money on bad government development practices.

Hiring and promotion are certainly amongst the first things to fix. But you're
going to have a tough time retaining decent engineers in a toxic environment,
one that has been around for many, many years and is probably impossible to
fix.

~~~
GVIrish
Yeah the poor environment can be frustrating and demoralizing. Recently I had
to deal with an environment where I wasn't allowed to deploy code to the
development server myself. I had to copy code to a shared drive and wait for a
scheduled job to copy the files up, and it only ran every 15 minutes at best,
sometimes an hour.

I had to fight to get that changed but it's just indicative of the serious
dysfunction in the organization.

------
muglug
The article brings up the UK's GDS, but it operates in a completely different
political environment, where the words "big government" don't have the same
menacing undertones they do in the US. The federalist system, combined with a
dislike of government spending, renders US government efforts to simplify
their citizens online interactions essentially fruitless.

Take applying for driving tests, for example: in the UK, there's one central
body that administers them, so one website can cater to all comers (and it's
not massively difficult to roll out country-wide changes). The US has 51
different state-run DMVs, each with their own regulations and application
processes. The amount of money it would take to centralise that system is
enormous, to say nothing of the political wrangling it would take to wrest
control of even a small portion of the process from the states.

------
ArkyBeagle
"Everybody in this room is wearing a uniform. Don't kid yourself." \- Frank
Zappa to a bunch of (apparently?) British hippies on "Burnt Weeny Sandwich"
some time before or during 1970.

------
anymousecow
It's kind of funny. Not sure how badly this guy dresses. I've seen people
wearing a t-shirt, jeans, and sandals that look well considered, maybe CEO of
a space start-up, and others that look like a hot mess. Ostensibly both
parties should find less ways to be insulted, avoid posturing, and avoid
visually fatiguing fashion faux pas. No need to spend money, spend a little
more time choosing wisely. But not so much time that you want people to have
the impression you care but not really and end up with lululemon.

------
staunch
They don't even feel ashamed for being technically illiterate because they're
not "nerds."

[http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/9cdz79/ko-
computer](http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/9cdz79/ko-computer)

------
naturalethic
Time Magazine covers is why I subscribe to "hacker" news

------
javert
They have no use for us, and We have no use for them, either.

If we (engineers) would stop serving the state, which has now become
tyrannical, it would be forced to change.

Engineers supporting tyrannical states is a classic case of Rand's "sanction
of the victim."

(I'm looking at you, NSA. But also at anything involving Obamacare.)

