
Tech-starved government seeks industry’s best, brightest - rmason
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/tech/2020/02/17/code-for-america/111330788/
======
karatestomp
As a remote worker who may not exactly be the best and brightest but for whom
the pay for the digital service is close enough to right to be appealing and
who'd probably be a real asset to them, aside from getting hired apparently
being a months-long process I stopped even looking when it became clear most
of the positions are short "term of service" things. If I'm going gov it's for
the retirement and bennies. The long haul. A "term of service" that takes a
bunch of unusual effort to get and pays just OK holds zero appeal.

~~~
inferiorhuman
USDS and 18F make their rounds on HN periodically. The mandatory relocation
without relocation stipend, required drug testing, and security clearance all
make recruitment difficult.

Edit: Oh yeah, the short terms hurt as well.

~~~
Quarrelsome
Not really learning from the private sector are they?

~~~
inferiorhuman
Local governments aren't that much better, sadly.

[https://www.jobapscloud.com/SF/sup/bulpreview.asp?R1=PEX&R2=...](https://www.jobapscloud.com/SF/sup/bulpreview.asp?R1=PEX&R2=1043&R3=102665)

Senior ops gig, exempt from civil service rules which means essentially a
three-year at-will gig. Below average pay, below average benefits.

------
askldjd
I spent a little over 3 years in USDS and it changed my life. If you are
interested in working on high impact projects that affects hundreds of
millions of Americans, I would strongly recommend that you give it a try.

------
smoyer
And the Democratic party's Iowa Caucus fiasco proves (once again) that they
should indeed ask the nerds to take care of their technology!
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Iowa_Democratic_caucuses#...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Iowa_Democratic_caucuses#IowaRecorder_app))

~~~
LiquidSky
What? That was the exact opposite lesson from that debacle:

Instead of being wowed by shiny new technical solutions promising superiority
being hawked by "the nerds", stick with tried and true methods, especially
when it comes to critical ventures like an election. "Move fast and break
things" is the absolute last thing anyone organizing an election should want.

~~~
smoyer
Except the contract to develop the software went to a political crony instead
of a qualified nerd.

------
megiddo
"Department with budget for 50 devs and 180 already on staff seeks suckers to
work for wealthiest institution on earth."

~~~
phkahler
I liked the part where they referred to them as "technicians".

------
mnemonicsloth
One thing I have observed about software and organizations is that big,
intractable problems in code are often rooted in big, intractable problems in
the organization that produced it. If you look at a codebase and find that
choices in one half are half-incompatible with the choices in the other, the
likely explanation is that the organization itself has factions, each of which
insists on doing things its own way, and management can't or won't step in to
resolve the deadlock.

In short, working for dysfunctional organizations means all your time as a
programmer is spent catering to the dysfunction.

Now, is it possible for an organization to be functional when all its
priorities have been set by congress? Or the president? _This_ president? Or
worse, whose priorities have been set by this president _and_ the congress
that is diametrically opposed to him?

Count me out.

~~~
jperras
> One thing I have observed about software and organizations is that big,
> intractable problems in code are often rooted in big, intractable problems
> in the organization that produced it.

You've paraphrased (intentionally or not) Conway's Law:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law)

"organizations which design systems ... are constrained to produce designs
which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations."

~~~
Matt_Cutts
I appreciated the allusion to Conway's Law here. I will say that in a
government of 2M+ people, there's a ton of problems that are completely non-
partisan that everyone would like to solve where technical expertise can make
a real difference.

------
AngryData
Stop drug testing and there would probably be a pretty big application boom.

~~~
Matt_Cutts
Fun fact: the reason that USDS applicants (who would work within the Executive
Office of the President) have to take a drug test goes to a Clinton-era legal
battle that went to the Supreme Court: [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-
xpm-1998-mar-03-mn-24917...](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-
xpm-1998-mar-03-mn-24917-story.html)

------
wpasc
I wonder if it would be possible to model work for the USDS in terms of side
projects. I would not want to take a leave of absence from work to serve in
the USDS, but I would definitely love to put 10-20 hours a week on the side
for a really meaningful side project.

I don't know if that model would be tenable, but I think it would attract many
people who already spend that kind of time on side projects.

