
Join the U.S. Digital Service - danso
http://www.whitehouse.gov/digital/united-states-digital-service
======
inmygarage
I saw Mikey Dickerson (in the video) speak to a group of ~200 people last
summer about the work that he and his team did on healthcare.gov. He was at
Google for nearly 8 years and left to run the recovery team for
healthcare.gov. Their team is the real deal -- they saved the site in just a
few months and now over 6 million people have signed up. Read the Time
Magazine story for the full account.

He does not seem like the type of guy that willingly puts up with government
b.s. He gets it, and after seeing him speak I believe in him.

When their talk was finished they got a ~5 minute standing ovation and even a
few stray tears.

I know it's cheesy but the government simply needs to catch up and I think
they are finally ready to try.

I applaud the effort and hope to help out in some way.

~~~
epberry
I agree. I wonder if they're willing to take people straight out of college.
I'd be interested in doing a short "tour of duty".

~~~
mattste
If I have the chance to work with talented industry veterans, I'd absolutely
love to do a tour of duty after I graduate.

~~~
domoarevil
This not a jaunt to Korea or Vietnam, holy moly.

~~~
Roritharr
No, but its arguably more important. Less risky, but as a good developer the
opportunity cost might be high aswell.

~~~
chucksmash
I believe parent was balking at the appropriation of "tour of duty" to
describe taking a government job for a couple of years.

The phrase carries strong connotations for a certain subset of people and it
would be pretty tone deaf of us as a community to repurpose it to mean
"writing instructions for computers the government owns."

~~~
scarmig
Unpopular opinion that needs to be said: plenty of people spend their military
"tour of duty" writing instructions for computers. Even more are glorified
paper pushers or janitors. Only a small subset actually ever see their lives
at risk--being a fisherman is more dangerous. The main substantive difference
is that in theory you can't quit on a whim.

We need to stop promoting an idea of martial valor over all other forms of
work, and stop coddling those who demand that everyone grant their line of
work more respect than everyone else.

~~~
Bahamut
This is incorrect - a sizable number get sent to the warzone in a time of war,
by far the majority. All who do have received some sort of weapon training, as
well as scenario prep when encountering the likes of IEDs or combat
situations. This is even more true for the Army and Marine Corps. The risk is
pervasive just by virtue of operating in a warzone. In addition, everyone
still has to stand post except for higher ranking officers and SNCOs.

While there are plenty of people who spend their deployments behind a
computer, don't assume it is so black and white.

Source: I am a Marine grunt

------
wpietri
I have met some of the 18F folks here in San Francisco, and I have gradually
become convinced that there is a lot of substance to this effort. People,
apparently including people at the highest levels, recognize that information
technology has made enormous leaps in the private sector, and they are serious
about helping government catch up.

One of the most interesting bits to me was something said by Todd Park, a
former CTO of the US and still a White House advisor. I was, frankly,
suspicious that Washington's culture could really accept a lot of the Agile
and Lean notions that are commonplace in the high-tech world. But he pointed
out, correctly, that waterfall projects are enormously risky. A big reason
Lean Startup advocates place such a strong emphasis on frequent small releases
is that it helps us reduce risk by finding and fixing problems early. He
pointed out that if bureaucrats really want to play it safe, using agile,
iterative approaches is exactly what they'll have to do.

I don't know enough about Washington to say if this really will work, but
improving government efficiency through smart use of tech strikes me as
exactly the kind of thing people from all parties can get behind. I'm excited
to see how it turns out.

~~~
trhway
>suspicious that Washington's culture could really accept a lot of the Agile
and Lean notions that are commonplace in the high-tech world.

given my experience with thorough, to the letter, under supervision of no-
expenses-spared-top-notch experts implementation of Agile/Lean/Scrum - 2 years
non-stop across pretty much the whole company, only very-super-important-
critical-projects got exception - the government would love it - a lot of
planing, reporting, meetings and other crap boggling down everything with
actual product development slowing down to the crawl as a result.

Btw, the original healthcare.gov - the one that failed and required that
emergency super-team fixing - was developed using Scrum, and as result it had
all the characteristics of a Scrum project, chief among them - bad, to the
point of straight failure, integration between components.

~~~
wpietri
I share your suspicion of large-company Agile: by and large I think it's at
best Mini-Waterfall, and at worst it's the same old bullshit with some new
jargon on top.

However, the large amount of bathwater doesn't mean there isn't a baby there.
And the places I see doing best at making the necessary culture shift are the
ones with a sense of mission. So I have hope.

And honestly, even if this merely means a transition away from pure Waterfall
to Mini-Waterfall, I think that will be a step forward. In the commercial
world, the rise of the Internet has made 3-year release cycles untenable for
most software; people now just scoff. So if we can merely get governments to
emulate business in the shift from titanic failures to medium-sized failures,
as a citizen I think that's a win. But still, from what I've seen, I'm hoping
for more here.

~~~
trhway
>However, the large amount of bathwater doesn't mean there isn't a baby there.

Applying generic systems analysis (where it doesn't matter whether it is
protein building, network protocol flow or software engineering process) one
can easily see that Scrum is a highly synchronous low-latency process (that is
the "baby" that management loves) which comes at the cost of dramatically
decreased bandwidth. In addition, changing a team's process inside, Scrum
indirectly completely changes how the team interacts with up- and downstream
teams/components - in particular on practice eliminating any chance for early
integration and for any iterations of the integrations.

That became obvious to me during the first day at the first Scrum course,
especially after i tried to ask those questions to the teaching Scrum expert
from the consulting company and received blank face with some blabbing in
response. Some time later, different company with different consultants - that
first hand 2 year experience i described in the previous post - the Scrum
drawbacks on practice happened to be even worse than i thought they may in
theory. We actually have great time right now at our BigCo. as after the Scrum
fiasco, and quietly dropping the Scrum company-wide as the result, the
management still seems to be kind of "in shock", and they haven't brought up
any new fad in the process improvement so far, so we're just doing typical
old-fashioned per-feature waterfall, and it just works as usual - which is
huge achievement compare to Scrum :)

~~~
wpietri
I can't really answer for Scrum, especially as taught by consulting companies.
I think of Scrum as a set of too-basic but reasonably good ideas that quickly
ended up mostly as a certification scam. I wrote more about that a number of
places, including here: [http://agilefocus.com/2011/02/21/agiles-second-chasm-
and-how...](http://agilefocus.com/2011/02/21/agiles-second-chasm-and-how-we-
fell-in/)

I think that's especially true for dramatic company-wide, top-down Agile
adoptions, which I have never heard of working. I think people doing that
cannot possibly understand Agile philosophy, which promotes local control and
continuous improvement of top-down control and giant leaps.

My positive experience is mostly with smaller shops, but I've definitely seen
many places where companies have grown up releasing early and often and have
no problem working in what I'd consider good Agile style. Wealthfront, Etsy,
and Spotify are all explicitly and openly like that. But I think there are
plenty of other places that aren't explicitly Agile but ended up that way as a
natural evolution.

For example, when I visited YouTube to study their process, there were a great
number of developers, designers, and product managers all working in
relatively independent small teams. They'd release at least weekly but
sometimes more often. There was no overarching plan; each team had particular
goals to pursue, and coordinated with other teams as needed. They never used
Agile jargon and didn't think of themselves as Agile, but I think they were
acting in ways that exactly matched the spirit.

------
joelanman
I work for the UK Government Digital Service - my views don't necessarily
represent my employer.

There are lots of comments here around the idea of whether you would work for
a government if you disagreed with their political views.

What I love about working on GDS projects is the potential to improve so many
people's lives. People often don't have a choice when it comes to interacting
with government - it's often a legal requirement, and there's only one way to
do it.

So, even if sometimes I may disagree with aspects of policy, the reality is
there is going to be a digital service based on it. And I can help a lot of
people by being part of making it as simple as possible.

~~~
rfrey
Working for change from within the system is definitely a legitimate position
to take.

That said, the objections I'm reading here are centered around supporting a
government that actively tortures political activists and captured enemies. I
think the phrase "if you [disagree] with their political views" trivializes
that position.

~~~
Someone1234
> That said, the objections I'm reading here are centered around supporting a
> government that actively tortures political activists and captured enemies.
> I think the phrase "if you [disagree] with their political views"
> trivializes that position.

Unless you're designing some kind of torture software, I think you're massive
reaching to make one apply to the other.

Nothing about doing better e.g. tax software, road planning, or similar is
going to help the US Government torture detainees.

Realistically there are millions of US Government connected jobs, it is just
unrealistic for everyone to boycott them because another part of a massive
government did something ethically and morally wrong.

~~~
bmj
Agreed. Even if you think the tax code benefits the $interest_group_of_choice,
reducing the number of automatically flagged audits, for example, due to
better algorithms, is a win for everybody.

------
gyardley
Let's say it's January 2017 and President Bush or Rubio or Paul or Walker is
being inaugurated. Does the 'U.S. Digital Service' actually keep getting
funded? If it does, do the staff actually want to stay? Will any of them be
willing to work on government objectives that might not be in line with their
personal politics?

I'll believe this is actually what it claims it is when I see it and its staff
persist through a change of political control in the White House. Until then,
I'm more than a little skeptical.

~~~
navait
Are there republicans actually criticizing the the Digital Service?(ignoring
healthcare.gov) I certainly have no clue why they would, as everyone needs
better IT infrastructure. A project like this, run well, would be in line with
republican policy objectives.

~~~
michaelt
I assume the OP meant the people who are passionate about building a sign-up
system for universal healthcare might not be so passionate about building a
sign-up system for, I don't know, national concealed carry permits or
something.

~~~
scuba7183
But there are some of us (including me) that would love to work on both

------
tdaltonc
It would be really great to fix the IRS's digital presence. Make TurboTax
obsolete. I hate TurboTax.

~~~
sliverstorm
Same goes for the DMV, as well as countless other citizen-facing government
orgs. Math & administration is really the roots of computing.

Edit: I'm rather unclear what is objectionable here.

~~~
mattlutze
Virginia's DMV offers a ton of its services online. It can take a bit to get
around their site, but it is overall a much more friendly experience than
needing to go into a brick-and-mortar for plate renewals and the sort.

------
sloanesturz
I would love to see a program like ROTC -- the government pays for you to get
a CS degree and then you work for the Digital Service to start your career.

You end up being 26 with a great education and a solid work experience under
your belt. Seems like a win-win!

~~~
growupkids
Most ROTC cadets do not have scholarships, and for their first two years they
recieve no money. Of those students, only during their 3rd and 4th years do
they recieve any funding at all, which is a stipend of approx. $300-500 a
month and only once they have signed a contract to commission.

~~~
jgallag8
At my university everyone in ROTC had full tuition as well as room and board
paid for for all 4 years. And they received the stipend on top of that. They
did have to commit after the end of the first year though.

------
gm3dmo
I worked a year on the UK government digital service, they really were trying
to do things differently, it was a really great experience with real teams
working in a supportive atmosphere. I think the 2 services share some DNA and
If you get the opportunity to work at the USDS then you should grab it with
both hands.

------
joshdotsmith
I wish there were something like this akin to the National Guard. If I could
serve a weekend a month (or maybe even more, if it were something closer to my
civilian skill set), I probably would have opted for this over joining the
Army.

Hell, if they did that, I'd probably serve after my time in the Guard is up.

~~~
diafygi
You're in luck! In most cities, there are Code for America "Brigades" that are
meetup groups where people can work on digital public service projects.

[http://www.codeforamerica.org/brigade/](http://www.codeforamerica.org/brigade/)

For example, I'm in the SF brigade and work on the BallotAPI project.

[https://github.com/sfbrigade/ballotapi](https://github.com/sfbrigade/ballotapi)

------
tdaltonc
The US digital Service should also make and maintain a framework that state
and local governments can implement. Paying a parking ticket in Los Angeles is
a trip to the 90's.

~~~
nether
Try applying for a hiking permit. Some CA ranger stations take only snail mail
or, wait for it, fax.

~~~
chiph
> hiking permit

Wait, what? Is this like a yearly state park pass? Or is this paid every time
you want to go take a walk in the woods?

~~~
nether
No, it's a free permit to hike in a park for a day. They want to track trail
usage, and sometimes implement quotas to prevent overuse. There are
occasionally rangers who patrol the trails and check for permits, but it's
pretty rare. You may also need a separate parking permit for national forests
(adventure pass), but apparently it's been ruled unconstitutional by the CA
supreme court. Many trails in national forests/state parks in California
require day hike permits (generally the good forested ones do).

You can see what a dayhike permit application looks like at the very bottom of
this page: [http://www.sgwa.org/permit.htm](http://www.sgwa.org/permit.htm).
Overnight (camping) permits are separate.

------
anarchitect
Would anyone from the Government Digital Service [1] in the UK care to comment
on this? GDS is a world-class operation which has many smart people using
modern technology to solve real problems for UK citizens. Much (all?) of the
work is open source [2].

[1] [https://gds.blog.gov.uk/about/](https://gds.blog.gov.uk/about/) [2]
[https://github.com/alphagov](https://github.com/alphagov)

~~~
frabcus
I'm not from GDS - however they're one of our customers at ScraperWiki, and I
know lots of the people there (via the digital civics NGO mySociety which we
started over 10 years ago).

There's been lots of interest in GDS from the US over the years, people over
there saying "why haven't we copied it yet?". As far as I can tell the US
Digital Service and 18F are that copying in a good way - taking lots of the
lessons from GDS and applying to the US situation.

As an example of the kind of thing, see the UK's Service Design Manual
[https://www.gov.uk/service-manual](https://www.gov.uk/service-manual) \-
there are sections for developers, designers and so on.

So basically, if you're good at tech, and want better Government websites (who
doesn't!), go help them :)

------
kazagistar
Here is what worries me:

Right now, the complexity of regulations and procedures is kept in check by
the inability for bureaucrats to manually execute them. Full automation might
not lead to a simplification of how people interact with the government; it
might just result in the ability to add even more regulation, beyond normal
human capabilities.

We have a world where bureaucratic complexity means few people can navigate
it, but we might just be growing a world where no one can navigate it without
paying a lot of money to established software companies to do it for them.

Automation is good, but we shouldn't let it hide the need to simplify.

------
danso
While I've been initially skeptical of the White House's digital efforts
because of my assumption that tech development, especially when it comes to
public information, will always be handicapped by bureaucracy and
politics...the 18F group has been doing some great work, the kind that is not
at all a bad standard for private startups to follow...certainly much better
than the kind of things that were rolling out in 2009-2010 (such as the
overhyped petitions.whitehouse.gov and the first CTO's pushing of Drupal)

The 18F Github contains a lot of interesting work, with reliance on
contemporary frameworks and practices (Jekyll seems to be their choice for
microsites) [https://github.com/18f](https://github.com/18f)

I loved 18F's work with overhauling the Federal Register site
([https://www.federalregister.gov/](https://www.federalregister.gov/))...and
even if you think the federal government's data efforts are paltry...then you
haven't seen what existed before 2009...which is pretty much nothing. The wide
array of data and information that has been machine-readable and public
accessible via the Internet is pretty astonishing, and while I doubt that
President Obama has made it a point to keep tabs on his IT, whoever has been
whispering in his ear has been very effective.

Edit: a cool project I noticed on 18F's github:
[https://github.com/18f/mirage](https://github.com/18f/mirage) ...a
Django/PostgreSQL project to assist procurement officers in surveying the
market for vendors...another 18F repo contains the Chef recipe for its
deployment.

~~~
konklone
[https://www.federalregister.gov](https://www.federalregister.gov) is a
_favorite_ of mine in the federal government, and an inspiration (they
launched with a full JSON REST API in 2010!) -- but just so it's clear, that's
not an 18F project.

The code for federalregister.gov can be found here:
[https://github.com/usnationalarchives/fr2](https://github.com/usnationalarchives/fr2)

(Disclosure: I work for 18F.)

~~~
andrenotgiant
The Federal Register site was developed by the same people that developed Gov
Pulse: [http://govpulse.us/about#who](http://govpulse.us/about#who)

Here is an article from the launch of the site:
[http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2010/07/26/meet-the-
new-f...](http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2010/07/26/meet-the-new-federal-
register/)

~~~
konklone
I tell this story all the time to people. It's so magically great, and the
developers are a national treasure.

I think of 18F and USDS in part as pieces of an effort to make this kind of
result less of an anomaly, and the kind of thing you generally expect your
government to do. Cause after all, why shouldn't you?

(Disclosure: I work for 18F.)

------
ipsin
Two things I wonder about:

1) Is an outfit like the U.S. Digital Service considering people who don't
have undergraduate degrees, but have a consistent track record or are a part
of established teams?

2) Is the salary roughly comparable with what's available in the private
sector? I understand that the government might pay less in return for some of
the perks of government work, but how close are they coming these days?

~~~
BrandonY
I have no expertise here, but here's my understanding:

1) Yes, especially if you've worked for some big name, non-government tech
companies.

2) Absolutely not. The salary is MISERABLE compared to what you could get in
the private sector. That's the real problem.

The government desperately needs world class software engineers, but the
private sector can effectively buy them all away. Who would try and fix the
busted old immigration system when Facebook or Google will pay you literally
four times more money to write way more fun stuff with modern technology,
world class perks, and job security that doesn't depend on the next election
cycle.

Joining these guys is a sacrifice. It's a service to the country. It's work
that literally changes and even saves lives, but it's miserable, boring work,
with little or no personal reward.

~~~
nadams
> The salary is MISERABLE compared to what you could get in the private
> sector.

That all depends. Many comp sci students are brainwashed to think that if a
salary isn't at least 100k then it's not worth their time.

The fact is that it depends on location and cost of living.

For example - if you get hired to work for Google in their HQ in CA then you
are guaranteed to get at least 100k salary. However, 90% of that will go
towards food/rent (you will most likely rent as houses cost up in the
millions...) - which making $60k in a smaller suburb area (where housing is in
the affordable $50-$200k range) would arguably be the same net income as if
you were working at Google.

I will say that you will earn more in the private sector - but I wouldn't use
miserable to describe government salaries (more like underpaid). When I worked
for the man it was defiantly an interesting experience but it was a very
relaxed environment/startupy feeling.

~~~
tymekpavel
90%? If you're willing to commute from Redwood City (15min CalTrain ride to
MV, 35 minute CalTrain tride to SF), you'll be paying $1500-2000/mo for a
1br-2br/1ba. That comes to 24% of salary, and you'd be hard-pressed to spend
more than another 6% on food.

~~~
nadams
Rent alone would come out to about 50% of your take home pay[1] (estimated of
course - you would probably get less depending on benefits). Assuming if you
hunted you might be able to rent for $1500, but from zillow[2] the rent
appears to be from $2-4k+. If you showed me an apartment for $1.5k and the
average is $2k I would want to know what is wrong with it.

In my suburban area - I could get a mortgage for a $100k house with at least
2br for about $500/month.

Of course people at Google probably don't get paid exactly $100k but keeping
in mind a good sized chunk of that is just going toward living there.

[1] - [http://www.calculator.net/take-home-pay-
calculator.html?cann...](http://www.calculator.net/take-home-pay-
calculator.html?cannualincome=100000&cpayfrequency=Bi-
weekly&cfilestatus=Single&callowance=2&cdeduction=500&cstatetax=9.3&ccitytax=0&cadditionat1=no&printit=0&x=58&y=6)

[2] - [http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_rent/Redwood-City-
CA/house,c...](http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_rent/Redwood-City-
CA/house,condo,apartment,duplex,townhouse_type/82960648_zpid/20128_rid/days_sort/37.608656,-122.033558,37.407665,-122.394047_rect/11_zm/?view=map)

~~~
chaqke
Some easy numbers: 1k/month is ~12k/year, which is ~15-18k of pre-tax salary.

To re-emphasize, 1k/month in lower rent is worth 15-18k of salary.

I have friends paying more than $2k/month more than me, which is around a
negative 40k raise (I live in San Francisco, but share).

It's very easy for humans to misinterpret recurring costs.

~~~
nadams
I don't understand your point -

Assuming $2k/month is $40k - that is almost half of $100k. So almost half your
salary is going towards just rent.

Let's say you made $50k in a suburb area - using your numbers you would only
pay $10k/year for a mortgage ($500/month) - with only $20k difference in
salary.

$100k in CA ~ $60k $50k in suburbs ~ $40k

Realistically you would probably make $60-$70k in suburb areas which,
according to your numbers, would make the same if not more AND own a house.

Of course this is ignoring other factors like food, utilities, bills and
taxes.

------
_cudgel
Does joining the US Digital Service require a clearance, and if so does
occasional marijuana consumption automatically disqualify you?

~~~
aidanfeldman
Member of 18F here. Not sure about USDS, but we get "public trust", which is
basically the step below clearance. Basically means "stuff that isn't public
yet".
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_clearance#Public_Trust...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_clearance#Public_Trust_Position)

~~~
johngd
I am not sure about medium-risk public trust positions, but for high-risk
public trust positions (think access to PII, social security # type stuff)
they require an in depth personal history, including a meet and greet with an
investigator (usually ex-law enforcement, so I was told).

Protip: Contractor or FTE, make sure you specifically ask HR whether or not
there will be an additional screening, and whether or not it is a 'public-
trust' position and what level that would be following your hiring.

I was pretty miffed when 'they' told me after the fact that my position
required an additional background check and that my continued employment would
be predicated on the outcome.

------
sneak
Remember, y'all: this is the government that brought you PRISM and XKEYSCORE
and TAO. This is the government with the department who tortured Manning and
is pressuring the UK to illegally interfere with Assange's right to asylum.

Think twice before you provide material aid to the enemy.

~~~
hippich
Also, government is made of people and if good people stop coming into
government and try make a difference, you end up with a government-enemy.

------
efriese
So what is this? I love the idea of contributing to something like this, but
they don't make the process clear. Is this a job? Can I work part time on
specific tasks? There are people willing to leave the private sector to do
this work, but that's not always an option. They need to find a way to
leverage people's spare cycles. They also don't mention anything about
security. The skill gap in security is MUCH larger than development. They are
missing an opportunity there...

------
kalvin
(I've been working on Healthcare.gov for the past year and know some of the
people at USDS; I was also YC S11 and appreciate the great parts of startup
culture even more now)

PSA: I know it's not easy to tell from the outside, or from a website, but
this is the real deal. Things are starting to change; by government standards,
at ludicrous speed. The Healthcare.gov crisis really started a useful fire.

Todd Park, Mikey Dickerson, and the team he's building at USDS and the people
he's placing into new "digital services" teams at other agencies like the VA--
if you meet them you'll quickly find out why they were superstars at their
tech companies.

One important thing to understand is: yes, things really can be vastly
improved IRL, not just in theory. It's not that government IT services ("IT")
suck because the people responsible for it don't care. They're just in a
completely different world, expectations and otherwise, and don't know how
much better it could be.

E.g., they don't know there exists a hosting option that is more secure, more
reliable, and less risky (and costs 90%/$90M less per year). Or that there
exist software people who can build a far better user experience (#1: the
worst UX is downtime, #2: product lead needs a) exist, and b) fight for the
user on every decision), while still meeting all business requirements (for
80%/$20M less per year).

Some people do know, but they can't do it themselves [0], and they also don't
have access to the right people to do it for them; their practical options are
Lockheed Martin's "small-business" subsidiary, or ACRONYM's federal IT
division.

USDS and 18F are fixing this, and much more. They need your help. I'm not sure
what's public, but the progress is incredible. It's still going to take a long
time. Most of all it's going to take more software engineers, designers, PMs,
etc. The tech gap between Silicon Valley and DC is unbelievable until you've
experienced it. Go east! (Or west [1])

It's definitely frustrating to work for/with the government (not sure how it
compares to other institutions that provide many real-world services to a
diverse 300+ million population), but if you're put in a position where you
can actually change things, the impact is enormous. And now you can do that as
a software engineer/technologist with no existing clue about government,
because USDS/18F has leverage and the ability to place you where you can make
that impact. [2]

The federal government deeply impacts all of our lives [3] and whether you
think it should do more or less, there's no reason for what exists to be so
incredibly inefficient and customer-unfriendly, especially when there's a huge
pool of tech people with the skills needed to fix it, and now, a pipeline that
can get them (you!) to the right place. Please apply!

(There's also small teams of engineers [4] on the inside tackling this
problem, if you prefer that (less direct, but avoids gov. pay being capped at
~$150k or so and the strict background checks.) Contact me if you want more
details.)

====

[0] They're also too busy trying to keep their heads above water in a
bureaucratic system that seems to function only because many of the people in
it work so hard, but I digress.

[1] AFAIK, USDS is based in DC (and I think has positions in Boston), 18F is
mostly in SF (Civic Center) and DC, with a few remote people around the US.

[2] Imagine if you could direct and organize a team of people to rescue
expanded healthcare coverage in the US (oops, Mikey did that already)

Imagine if you could help 22 million veterans get the care they deserve on
time, instead of hundreds of days late

Imagine if you could help "fix" the IRS with auto-prepped tax returns
(definitely seems like the hardest one on this list-- but it's also one that
everyone wants to see happen. And yes it's a policy problem, but it's also a
technical problem-- imagine policymakers having to trust the system that
resulted in the original healthcare.gov. And _informed_ engineering opinions
have much more weight than you'd imagine.)

[3] Yes I know there's a whole world outside of the US, especially on the
Internet :)

[4] "startups" and "small businesses" both have connotations on HN that I'm
trying to avoid...

~~~
dragonwriter
> Imagine if you could help "fix" the IRS with auto-prepped tax returns
> (definitely seems like the hardest one on this list-- but it's also one that
> everyone wants to see happen

Actually, its mostly hard politically, because not everyone wants to see it
happen. Particularly, tax preparation firms and tax software sellers want tax
returns to be difficult so that their business stays in demand, and lobby
heavily against government pre-preparing returns, and the political right
wants the personal tax process to be as painful as possible so that they can
leverage anger at that process to get behind tax cutting moves.

~~~
bsbechtel
There's also a whole mess of HUGE conflicts of interest and moral dilemmas
with the issue of taking a private company's tax dollars, and using those tax
dollars to develop and sell a competing product, which would then presumably
reduce the revenue (and thus tax revenue) of the private company.

------
DanielBMarkham
I'm upvoting this because the issue deserves more attention and discussion. I
am somewhat leery of implementation details, having tons of experience working
for both large governmental and private organizations. Large organizations are
notoriously difficult to deal with -- large government organizations are an
order of magnitude (or two) worse. Them's just the facts.

I am completely supportive of any effort to cut through the BS and make the
government more transparent and accessible. So easy-to-use portals, apps for
accessing benefits, publish-subscribe services to find opportunities? Dang,
there's a lot of cool stuff folks could do. Great idea. Let's go do it.

I am completely concerned about the idea of both automating enforcement and
the collection/cross-indexing of data. I have a choice whether or not I let
Facebook rape my privacy and anonymity online. I do not have a choice about
what I report to the IRS. I'm extremely unhappy with the Facebook situation,
and the government is a completely different animal.

Laws and regulations -- centuries of them by now -- were made to be enforced
by humans, not computers. That's why we have so many of them and they overlap
so much. Anything that takes us closer to automatically fining me when I drive
5 mph over the speed limit, schedules an audit if I make a math mistake on my
taxes, or tells me what I can do or not do based on data processing that was
impossible ten years ago? Screw that. I want no part of it. In fact, I would
make a strong case that such activity is antithetical to a free and just
society.

I'm also concerned over the difference between a PR move and something
tangible. Show me the next idiot in the White House of a different party
that's doing this, and I'll be much happier. Otherwise, not only do I have the
reservations that I currently have, I've now added a new one: that all of this
automation and assistance is only happening by supporters of one political
party. Not good.

Don't get me wrong: I like the idea. I want to see some clear ethical
guidelines and permanence across political parties before I could support
this, however. Right now it looks like a bunch of political BS.

------
netman21
I am of two minds here. On the one hand making the onerous task of complying
with government regulations, paying taxes, and receiving benefits is all good.
It even has the potential of reducing the overal burden the government imposes
on our everyday life. On the other hand, anything that reduces the frustration
of dealing with the government puts off the time when there will be fewer
government bodies, regulations, and inefficiency. I hope that the smart people
employed by US Digital Service ask the question: "Do we really need this?"
Before they set about fixing particular inefficiencies.

------
mattdeboard
Too bad the VA positions are only open in DC and Boston. I'm a veteran and a
software developer. I'd love to be able to help out but I'm in Austin and
unwilling to move my family again. Bummer.

~~~
DeadeyeDuck
Not so! Not so! Don't let what they say in the advertisement dissuade you. I
just completed the full interview process and was offered a position at the
end of it. I declined because I'm a Feddie (& like you, a Veteran) and they
offered no reinstatement provision if I jumped ship from my current agency to
theirs -- i.e., I'm could be completely out of a job anywhere between one pay
period to at most six years after joining USDS. THAT was the problem -- no job
security. They are severely limiting the type of folks they're attracting with
that model (i.e., the unemployed, risk-takers, or those who a family is not
relying on for income).

BUT... I was told three times during the interview that teleworking would be
o.k. and that I might have to travel about once a month or so.

~~~
mattdeboard
If you ever come back to check up on this, please contact me at the email
address in my profile. THanks.

------
kzahel
I would seriously consider joining as a developer. If it didn't mean moving to
DC. I couldn't determine if there were any remote opportunities or positions
in the Bay Area.

~~~
marteki
There's a two-year fellowship with renewable terms through the Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau. I hear that they and their workers are always
interested in talking to good developers and designers, and that a large
majority of their tech folks work from around the country.
[http://www.consumerfinance.gov/jobs/technology-innovation-
fe...](http://www.consumerfinance.gov/jobs/technology-innovation-fellows/)

Source/disclaimer: I'm a UX designer with the CFPB who just started said
fellowship, who lives and works remotely from Chicago.

------
canterburry
While I do not doubt the intentions are honest and government is waking up to
the new reality of digital, until the new CTO has any kind of budgetary
powers...this is just a dream.

~~~
lorenyu
As luck would have it, USDS is connected to the Office of Management and
Budget =)

Time to dream big.

------
jrochkind1
But does it require a drug test?

~~~
jqm
Maybe. But they should do congress first.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yT48wiRue4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yT48wiRue4)

------
karmacondon
I just find the name "U.S. Digital Service" to be god damn inspirational. It
reminds me of Kennedy creating the Peace Corps. "Ask not what your country can
do for you" and all that. I understand that in reality this is essentially a
rebranding of the traditional government job, but it seems like it could be so
much more.

I know that during the Healthcare.gov debacle, many people with software
experience legitimately wanted to help. We look around at our communities,
cities and states and see problems that could be fixed and software that's
dying to use common sense modern best practices. But government bureaucracy is
an impermeable wall, sometimes for the right reasons but often due to turf
protection, intransigence and lack of funding. I would be happy to volunteer
my time and experience, to work collaboratively with others and to work within
strict standards and specifications in order to improve the quality of
government technology for everyone. But the information about how to do so is
hard to find and the process isn't very encouraging. I understand that this is
a bit off topic, but when I hear "US Digital Service" I think "Peace Corps"
for technology.

From wikipedia: "The stated mission of the Peace Corps includes providing
technical assistance, helping people outside the United States to understand
American culture, and helping Americans to understand the cultures of other
countries."

WTF aren't we doing this for technology? Provide assistance, help the
government to understand tech culture and help tech people understand
government culture. If we train volunteers then we don't need to give high
priority projects like Healthcare.gov to the contracting firm with the lowest
bid and the snazziest powerpoint presentation. Government agencies would have
their pick of people who'd proven their technical skills and reliability on
projects at the local, state and federal levels. Citizen programmers could
feel like they were making a difference for their country, even just a small
one, which is something you can't put a price on. Government at all levels
would reap huge benefits and improve services for a fraction of the cost,
which would increase the general satisfaction of millions of non-technically
inclined citizens.

The obvious problem with volunteer labor is that it's hard to hold someone
accountable if things go wrong, and the speed and quality of ongoing
maintenance and support can vary. But my thought is, the current system isn't
exactly working out great either. We have catastrophic disasters at the
national level and outdated and incomplete software at the local level. There
are millions of people who could help, and working together they can do more
good than harm. The greatest asset of the United States has always been the
ingenuity and dedication of its human resources. If technology isn't the
greatest opportunity and threat of the 21st century then I don't know what is,
and it seems like a good time to marshall those resources to make the most of
it.

~~~
mattlutze
> From wikipedia: "The stated mission of the Peace Corps includes providing
> technical assistance, helping people outside the United States to understand
> American culture, and helping Americans to understand the cultures of other
> countries." > WTF aren't we doing this for technology?

It's frustrating that the national face of US technology for so many years now
is the NSA and related intelligence agencies.

It would be very, very cool if something like the US Digital Service were
externally philanthropic, showing the States is more than what sells
newspapers.

------
coin
-1 for disabling zoom on mobile devices

------
zedpm
Are there any specifics anywhere regarding the positions, desired skill sets,
or anything other than generic descriptions? I've seen a few people comment
here about positions being in D.C., but I can't find any details like that.

------
bowlich
As someone whose gone through the hiring process for the USDA and Dept. of
Interior, how is it that the USDS is bypassing the normal usajobs hiring
process?

~~~
DeadeyeDuck
I just went through it in VA (had to turn it down, though). That was my
question as well.

------
mcguire
I notice the two magical questions on the application page:

"Are you eligible for veteran preference?

"Are you a current or former federal employee?"

Are these civil service positions?

~~~
tvanantwerp
These questions are typical for any application for a US Federal job.
Preference is always given to current Federal employees and veterans.

------
einrealist
That is great. I wish my country has something like that. Is there a way to
join as a foreigner and become a US citizen after a time? ;)

------
tsaoutourpants
Will work for fedgov once fedgov stops using tech to violate the people. Until
then, GFYS.

~~~
sukilot
The oppressive part of government is plenty funded. Hurting the non-oppressive
part is just spiting yourself.

~~~
tsaoutourpants
Spiting myself? I'm sure I make more money in private sector.

------
ancarda
I'm guessing it's not possible for non-US citizens to join this?

------
in3xes
Really BIG, COMPLEX, DIFFICULT problems! :-o

------
piratebroadcast
Looks like the entire whitehouse.gov site is built in Drupal, which is about
as insecure as a site can possibly be.

~~~
raimondious
What's insecure about Drupal?

~~~
piratebroadcast
[http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-29846539](http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-29846539)

~~~
aasarava
Or, you know, you spent five minutes to apply the free, open source patch when
it was released in mid-October and your sites were protected.

Or are you arguing that any software that has ever required a patch is
horribly insecure?

------
jinushaun
I'd imagine that this is a hard sell given the govts track record. They want
to recruit us, but they still don't get it. Why would we want to work for the
bad guys? Why would we want to be second class citizens to clueless
politicians that dictate directives from above instead of working in an
industry that respects us and views us as leaders?

~~~
technologia
Bad guys? What a myopic view of the world. Having seen first hand both
industry and government IT, both worlds have their faults.

I'm not going to get sucked into a debate about which is worse, but I'll give
you my perspective on working with federal gov't IT. Yes, policy sucks, thats
not going to change any time soon but it __is __moving towards something
halfway decent. There are plenty of skilled, intelligent and motivated IT
professionals who you would actually be working for. You don 't do the bidding
of every politician out there, but you do follow directives from offices
higher up such as the white house. Btw, the respect these people proffer to
devs is immense because they know you could have worked anywhere else and make
more money but you decided to work for a cause they believe in as well.

So please be considerate when you make these sweeping assumptions about the
govt.

~~~
victorhn
> Btw, the respect these people proffer to devs is immense because they know
> you could have worked anywhere else and make more money but you decided to
> work for a cause they believe in as well.

At best they could be as clueless as you and believe in "the cause", at worst
they see how it is in reality and they see you as a sucker working for less
than you deserve.

~~~
technologia
By far the people I've interacted with have not been clueless. They haven't
been disillusioned to think that everything is perfect. Also if you think that
they consider us as suckers for working for less, you might want to consider
that is the case for a lot of federal employees [not the suckers bit, but the
less money part]. Its not the money that attracts a lot of devs, its the
opportunities they present to work with interesting data, people, traveling to
different places, etc. If you're going to judge us, don't cast us on the
extremes.

------
ekianjo
> XXX NAME > Engineer, Healthcare.gov

Not sure you actually want to put that on record with your own picture there.
Knowing what a massive mess the whole thing is.

~~~
tdicola
Actually the team that fixed healthcare.gov got quite a bit of rockstar
treatment (deservedly so) and were even on the cover of TIME magazine (sadly
the article is behind a paywall now I think: [http://time.com/10228/obamas-
trauma-team/](http://time.com/10228/obamas-trauma-team/)).

I think the guy that lead them is now the director of the US Digital Services
too: [http://www.wired.com/2014/08/the-white-house-
dickerson/](http://www.wired.com/2014/08/the-white-house-dickerson/)

~~~
technologia
I think he might have been referencing the initial build team.

~~~
kmunoz
That's not this team.

------
elnate
For curiosities sake, I decided to take a look at healthcare.gov, put in a
random ZIP code picked from New York in google maps. When I tried to look at
individual cover I got an ACCESS DENIED. Is it restricted to US IPs? Seems
like an odd thing to lock down.

[http://nystateofhealth.ny.gov/individual](http://nystateofhealth.ny.gov/individual)

[edit] I got to that link from this working site:
[http://healthbenefitexchange.ny.gov/](http://healthbenefitexchange.ny.gov/)
which I got to from Healthcare.gov

~~~
geofft
Try picking a zip code in a state that doesn't have its own state marketplace.
The input element suggests 60647, in Illinois, which lets me continue on
healthcare.gov instead of getting redirected.

Edited to add: healthcare.gov, unsurprisingly, is a fair bit nicer than the NY
site. I live in NY and was looking at the individual marketplace out of
curiosity, and I've (somewhat) read up on how US health insurance works, and I
got a bit lost at the website. Healthcare.gov's UI explains a the Obamacare-
specific parts (such as the "metal levels") right when you log in, and also
lets you filter/sort by monthly cost (premium), which for some reason NY's
doesn't let you do.

