
The US digital service - S4M
http://blog.samaltman.com/the-us-digital-service
======
ritchiea
I really wanted to work for the digital service and my experience applying was
horrendous. The recruiter scheduled an appointment to call me and didn't at
the scheduled time. She followed up weeks later and I finally got my phone
screen. Phone interview went well, she said we would schedule another
interview. The followup from her didn't happen until another month later. Then
I had a technical interview where the interviewer talked over me and asked
whether I would use a list or an array for a particular data structure, to
which I replied I use Ruby & Python so I don't know what you're asking because
it would be a question of semantics, to which he finally clarified he meant a
linked list and chided me for not "knowing the difference between the
properties of a linked list and an array." How can you expect me to know the
difference between two data structures if you're using unclear shorthand to
refer to one of them? And the interviewer was an ex-Google engineer so I
imagine he had some familiarity with Python (where a "List" is what many
languages refer to as an array) since it's an official Google language.

And then of course I didn't get the job (and no feedback on why). The whole
thing was maddening, took 3 months total just to get railroaded by an
aggressive and imprecise technical interviewer. It sounds like great work
though, wish them the best of luck. Wish I could work on their projects.

~~~
sown
Not to be a jerk but I'm going to sound like a jerk, but know it is from a
position of love: linked lists and arrays are both fundamental data
structures.

At the very least you now learned about them. I want you to read this:
[http://mikerowe.com/2015/08/otw-rejection/](http://mikerowe.com/2015/08/otw-
rejection/)

And let me relate to you: I get turned down for jobs all the time. It is not
because of capricious reasons that I wish were the case, but it's because of
me not knowing something. Yes, it's maddening because they throw out good
candidates along with the bad to minimize risk to them. The same facts happen
to me and you, but try to have the perspective on them be as positive as you
can.

~~~
jmckib
It sounds like he knew what a linked list was, but he was confused by the
interviewer referring to it as a "list".

~~~
blazespin
Well, the appropriate response is to politely ask for clarification. Sometimes
asking a dumb question is a useful way to see how someone treats someone less
experienced. I find treating interviewers with deep respect no matter how dumb
they sound generally puts me in the drivers seat going forward.

------
rasmi
Also check out 18F [1], which focuses on pushing forward how tech and the
government work together. They run a 12-month Presidential Innovation Fellows
program [2] which works more intensely on innovating with specific groups
within the federal government. USDS is more focused on modernizing and
ensuring some basic technical functionality of a lot of the core aspects of
the government (which is incredibly important and impactful, but is less about
innovation -- see a comparison here [3]).

[1] [https://18f.gsa.gov/](https://18f.gsa.gov/)

[2]
[https://www.whitehouse.gov/innovationfellows](https://www.whitehouse.gov/innovationfellows)

[3] [http://ben.balter.com/2015/04/22/the-difference-
between-18f-...](http://ben.balter.com/2015/04/22/the-difference-
between-18f-and-usds/)

~~~
nacin
18F uses the same hiring pipeline -- applying through
[https://www.whitehouse.gov/digital/united-states-digital-
ser...](https://www.whitehouse.gov/digital/united-states-digital-service) will
get you considered for both!

~~~
konklone
Yep, and we have some extra 18F-specific information here:

[https://pages.18f.gov/joining-18f/how-to-
apply/](https://pages.18f.gov/joining-18f/how-to-apply/)

------
paulsmith
At the risk of being self-promotional, there's another part of the rebel
alliance of which USDS and 18F are the main players, and that is better
technology contractors. ("Better" meaning, engineering practices and outcomes
that the audience of this site would recognize.) There's Nava, and the company
I co-founded, Ad Hoc. Greg and I were on the original HealthCare.gov rescue
squad with Mikey et. al. We're still working on HealthCare.gov, but instead of
helping to prop up the bad old code (which was necessary work to save the site
and help actual people), we're rebuilding parts of the site from scratch,
using things like Go, AWS, Angular. During the last open enrollment period
over the winter, our code (healthcare.gov/see-plans/) had 100% uptime, served
~ half a billion page views, and had a mean response time of well under 100ms.
(And _no_ garbage hiding in the 99th percentile.)

One thing I'll say about government work -- you're not really breaking new
ground, from a technology perspective. (Unless you're at DARPA I suppose.)
Don't come into thinking you're going to innovate in some bleeding-edge area.
But government was left so far behind the consumer technology curve that
basic, competently-executed, well-designed software that's fast is an
_enormous_ leap forward. 2008-era web tech is sorely needed across government.
In a way, that is the innovation: dependable software that reliably delivers
services to people for whose user-experience has never been put on the same
playing field as consumer online services.

If you're interested in being part of the rebel alliance, and for whatever
reason USDS or 18F aren't right for you, consider contracting. There's
enormous opportunity to make real change and see your code help others.
Believe me, small teams can have a big impact on government, even from outside
government. If you want to know more about Ad Hoc, get in touch
([http://adhocteam.us/](http://adhocteam.us/)). We also have projects with the
Department of Veterans Affairs, and state Medicaid programs.

I never thought I'd be a government contractor. I did the startup thing, and
just happened to get roped into the HealthCare.gov rescue. I can tell you it's
sometimes frustrating, but always satisfying work. And there are several
avenues in.

~~~
plonh
Do the contractors offer senior engineer pay (10+ years experience) that is
more competitive with private sector? The direct employment jobs max out at
mid-level engineer wages.

~~~
greggersh
I'd say we're on par with the private sector.

------
brandonb
As Sam alludes to, many YC alums have joined the government in some
capacity—healthcare.gov, US Digital Service, Nava, Presidential Innovation
Fellows—and are on HN.

Jason Shen from YC S11 recently wrote about the concept of a "Tour of Duty":
[http://www.jasonshen.com/2015/when-did-you-do-your-tour-
of-d...](http://www.jasonshen.com/2015/when-did-you-do-your-tour-of-duty/)

If anybody has questions, feel free to ask and I'm sure one of the alumni will
reply!

~~~
roymurdock
Why doesn't the government allocate more funding to pay skilled technical
workers at least close-to-market wages for the crucial work they are doing in
bringing government organizations and systems into the 21st century?

~~~
brandonb
There's plenty of funding, but salaries are capped by law:
[https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/pay-
admi...](https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/pay-
administration/fact-sheets/maximum-gs-pay-limitations/)

So Congress would have to pass a law to fix that particular problem.

~~~
reagency
That problem was solved decades ago by government contracting. See above, the
healthcare.gov folks formed contracting companies so they could go back to
work for the govt at double the salary.

~~~
vinceguidry
That's not a solution. At all. The contracting companies end up pulling up the
ladder so that nobody else can compete in the particular vertical they've
managed to commandeer. And then they lose all incentive to work hard. They
wind up hiring less and less competent workers and pocketing the difference.

Contractors are a big reason why the US government has the reputation it does
today.

------
sarciszewski
If I were to dedicate any time to helping anyone, I feel like my time would be
better spent helping the Tor Project than helping the US Government.

I know I'm not alone here, either.

~~~
ritchiea
It's really not fair to lump all of government in with the NSA. "Helping the
US government" in the case of the digital service means things like making it
easier for immigrants to apply for a green card by building a web application
that replaces paper forms. What the digital service is actually doing is
helping US citizens receive government services more efficiently. Which is
completely different from "helping the government" the way you phrase it.

~~~
dnesting
The broader USDS family is focused on delivering better services. But one area
we're starting to focus more on is policy itself. One thing that struck me
about the federal government is just how little internal harmony there exists
between agencies. Just because the NSA does or says something doesn't mean
everyone here agrees with them or even really has to support them. Because the
USDS HQ team is located in the White House (and OMB), there exists the ability
to engage directly with decision-makers and influence policy and (at least
sometimes) the behavior of agencies.

------
twright
The USDS Playbook[1] reminded me a lot of the GDS Design Principles[2] and
even shares a few points. I think they also set a feeling for each of the
Governments they're related to.

[1] [https://playbook.cio.gov/](https://playbook.cio.gov/)

[2] [https://www.gov.uk/design-principles](https://www.gov.uk/design-
principles)

~~~
liyanchang
Sharp eye! We are indeed indebted to the work that the UK has done! They are a
couple years more senior (USDS just had it's 1st birthday this Tuesday; GDS is
coming up on 3) and while there is much tailoring for each country's unique
circumstances, we've certainly benefited from their experience.

~~~
robin_reala
We’re over 4 years old now, officially formed in April 2011.

------
rdl
I've met a lot of the U.S. Digital Service people and it is an amazing
organization. I had a list of concerns (how they work with contractors already
in place, how things would evolve with a new administration, whether they
would get sucked into long term staffing at agencies, etc) and they had
addressed all of them.

There are a few negative things as overhang from the rest of government
(requirement for citizenship: so many of the great people I know are non
citizens, even if many have green cards; drug testing, which doesn't really
serve a meaningful purpose), but those are the reality, and don't diminish the
value of the program in any way.

I would strongly recommend looking into USDS to anyone who who wants to make a
difference in tech. It is a great place to go in the middle of a longer career
at a post IPO company like Google/FB, or are between projects.

~~~
konklone
> (requirement for citizenship: so many of the great people I know are non
> citizens, even if many have green cards; drug testing, which doesn't really
> serve a meaningful purpose)

As an 18F employee, I can't speak for USDS, but I know 18F can (and does, I
think) employ non-US citizens who are already authorized to work (we can't
sponsor). I've also never taken a drug test.

~~~
tricolon
> employ non-US citizens who are already authorized to work (we can't sponsor)

Doesn't that just mean permanent residents?

~~~
bradleyjg
Not necessarily. For example a L-1A visa is a non-immigrant visa for intra-
company executive or manager transferees. Spouses of L-1A visas are in L2
status, which allows them to apply for work authorization.

------
jordigg
Really happy seeing these initiatives and the way the White House is thinking
about bringing technology to the government.

I just can't understand why other government bodies and countries still give
all their work to big corporations asking for ridiculous amounts of money for
delivering questionable work quality. Their only thinking is how we can
deliver the worst software ever that require us to maintain it for as many
years as possible.

Give the work to smart folks who are willing to make it happen because they
believe in that country and how they can make a true impact and you'll get
wonderful software at a reasonable price that will just work.

~~~
jasonshen
You bring up a great point and a big challenge is the way government purchases
things. There have been a lot of laws passed to ensure that the gov't buys
things in a fair way (as not to just give the contract to a friend) but over
time those laws and policies have resulted in an extremely complex and time
consuming process that only huge companies can devote the resources to "apply"
for a job and win it. Once a law is passed and a policy is in place, it can be
very hard to unwind (power of inertia) which is why it can take a crisis like
Healthcare.gov to make sweeping changes. Teams like 18f are designed to help
the gov't build the right tech in house, skipping the procurement process, and
using agile methods and modern tech to build faster and cheaper.

~~~
sailfast
To be clear, 18F is not be "skipping the procurement process" and has released
their own Agile BPA which is great. Skipping the procurement process would be
the sign of a bad workaround.

A critical part to fixing "the problem" is both creating vehicles for new
kinds of companies to access government and reduce the overall risk of
government officials purchasing from those companies.

"Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM / Accenture / Whatever" applies in
government as well, but the appetite for risk can be even lower than in the
private sector, with higher costs of entry.

Top-level butt-coverage from the White House / OSTP and another agency
demonstrating that it is possible and creating the contract vehicles to get
more agile / lean / innovative businesses in the door goes a long way to
solving this problem.

~~~
Lawtonfogle
It isn't just taking on risk by trying something new. Even a known better
solution can result in assuming risk.

Take a long existing systematic problem which produces 100 bad effects a day
(people getting double billed, database errors, what have you). Someone thinks
of an improvement to reduce this to 10 bad effects a day instead. A major
improvement. But they don't do it.

Why? Because anyone who approves of the new system is now the person
responsible for the 10 errors a day. It goes from 100 errors per day because
that is just how the system works to 10 errors a day because of Bob two cubes
over. Bob ends up being blamed for the 10 errors far more than being
congratulated for the 90 that no longer occur.

------
niels_olson
Navy doc here. One project where a huge difference could be made, now, would
be if smart people could hold Leidos to task with the new military health care
system. It's something like $16 billion dollars and "integrating with the VA
proved to be too expensive".

Many thanks to the folks at 18f and the US Digital Service.

How far behind is government IT? I'm trying to get the Navy HPC systems (the
cutting edge, right?) to "modernize" to Python 2.7.

~~~
philsnow
What's new in python 2.7 that requires upgrading ?

I prefer writing python in the least-clever way I can, which doesn't require a
lot of language features.

~~~
kingkilr
Wearing my python core dev hat: a litany of security fixes, python3
compatibility stuff, useful stdlib modules, dict and set comprehensions,
probably more stuff I can't remember.

------
jcnnghm
Did the people that charged $200 million to build healthcare.gov get to keep
the money after the project failed? What about the people that allocated that
money, do they still have their jobs?

It seems kind of disingenuous to ask engineers to do a "tour of duty" at a
substantially reduced rate, when they could instead contract at normal rates
and actually deliver working software. If you want to help the government,
contract at normal rates and actually deliver high-quality, working software -
don't take a pay cut to do it.

~~~
s73v3r
If you do something and the client doesn't like it, do they get their money
back? Of course not.

~~~
jcnnghm
There's a big difference between not liking something, and it not functioning.

------
nightski
Did he take his own advice? Also regarding the rewrite of HealthCare.gov - I
don't know the specifics but aren't re-writes always way cheaper and far
easier than the initial implementation? Is it really a fair comparison?

~~~
vippy
The main problem with the original healthcare.gov was that it was built by
contractors under the old contracting model of "fill as many seats with bodies
as you can, win the contract, and charge by the hour". That business model
creates a perverse economic incentive that doesn't leave a lot of room for
creativity, and certainly doesn't do anything to create trust between the
federal agency that requires software and the team that ends up building it. I
would also say that the hiring bar for contractors, compared to 18F, the USDS,
etc, is, frankly, pitiful.

~~~
vbtemp
> "fill as many seats with bodies as you can, win the contract, and charge by
> the hour"

THIS MAN knows what he's talking about. I wish more people would be aware of
this.

What's even more perverse? When contracts are awarded based on the above while
factoring in "diversity points" \- different minorities count for different
numbers of points. I will leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out
what perversity follows.

~~~
vippy
Oh, you mean the preference for women, minorities, and veterans? Yeah, that's
an interesting issue. It's great in theory, but in practice ends with quite a
bit of additional bench stuffing to increase preference. And then to start a
company and compete for contracts, even if you're a rockstar engineer who just
happens to be white and a man, good luck competing against an 8A. It's hard to
complain, because I see the value, but at the same time, UGH.

~~~
vbtemp
Quite honestly, it creates a class of "tokens". They nominally have jobs, but
their real job (for the sake of the company being awarded the contract) is to
simply be a token. Certain minorities count for more than others.

~~~
vippy
I definitely wouldn't go that far in describing the problem, but yes, there
are issues with the model.

------
aerovistae
Can we vote on what they work on?

I just want to be as sure as possible that they never get around to fixing the
traffic ticketing system.

God forbid the state cops ever realize how many times the local cops have
pulled me over, or vice versa, and that's before we even get out-of-state
violations involved.

Good lord, keep them away from the traffic tickets. COBOL is just fine for
that.

~~~
batbomb
I've had a lovely problem of having a Dutch last name and the officer writing
my middle name as "Van", then trying to inquire about said ticket in a system
which apparently you can only search by name or ticket number (which I lost),
only to be told "no record found" and later getting a notice that my license
was suspended from the DMV.

------
ekianjo
> serving your country

Erm. Serving your country does not equal to serving the government. Often the
government in place actually has an active role in destroying the country or
making it worse. Look at the NSA - are the NSA folks really serving their
country or their goverment first ?

~~~
forloop
Saying, "Help the monied interests who control governments." doesn't sound as
convincing.

Serving your country/honour/helping the group are rhetorical tools used
convince people to sacrifice themselves (their human capital, and sometimes
their bodies) for this group.

Governments are extremely powerful (obviously), and part of that power comes
from co-opting people. A metaphor can be seen in the Matrix. To quote
Morpheus:

> The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're
> inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers,
> carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we
> do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our
> enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be
> unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the
> system, that they will fight to protect it.

The hacker culture is being co-opted wholesale. Technology is powerful—both as
an economic driver and a competitive advantage against other groups—, so it's
not unexpected that the human capital which are tech savvy are targeted.

People can't be forced to do anything—unless they break the law at which point
they will have the full force of law brought down upon them, with no mercy
applied (if members of the gov choose!). As such, people with skills need to
be _convinced_ to work with government, and that's where the rhetorical tools
are implemented.

When you read comments about how governments help the people they preside
over, you're reading the grass-roots propaganda from those which Morpheus
talks of. The _businessmen_ , teachers, lawyers, carpenters, _coders_!

Do as you like, but it's important to know the message conveyed in the blog
post is from a member of the business-class who has been fully co-opted, and
doesn't follow the _very_ advice he gives! And why would he? It's much more
profitable (in the board sense of the word) to use his platform as a tool of
marketing and persuasion for said establishment—I.e. getting others to make
sacrifices, so those with control can live with impunity and in-group-largess
(with the cost borne by society).

------
fitzwatermellow
They even run a kissmetrics-style real-time analytics page:

[https://analytics.usa.gov/](https://analytics.usa.gov/)

Between immigration and weather one can cover 70% of queries right there ;)
And thanks to sama for the write up.

~~~
liyanchang
Yup. I want to give a shout-out to 18F who did a really great job with this.
This project is really important for two reasons.

1\. It brought analytics to the minds of agency communications and policy
folks. Having 18F going around adding Google Analytics to as many government
websites as possible also opened up lots of other opportunities to help people
better understand their users.

2\. It's an example of a shared service - one that doesn't require extra
procurement, is super reliable, and doesn't require every agency to duplicate
work. The sheer size of the government makes the fact that sometimes the left
hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing is understandable - the way
we've set up a federal system actually makes this an intentional feature.
However, if we reduce rebuilding, either by sharing services or code would be
a big win for the budget and for quality.

~~~
konklone
> I want to give a shout-out to 18F who did a really great job with this.

Thanks! We loved the opportunity to assist the Digital Analytics Program (DAP)
with the dashboard. They've been around since ~2012 and have been doing the
legwork to get agencies to participate in the program for years:

[https://www.digitalgov.gov/services/dap/](https://www.digitalgov.gov/services/dap/)

~~~
liyanchang
Oh! Thanks for letting me know. Had no idea about that particular team. Will
happily give you both credit next time!

------
neves
Will this scale? For me it looks like a kind of organizational anti-pattern.
Imagine you are working in your project, then comes the "Know it all" guys
trying to redo everything you know about. After rebuilding everything they
will leave, take all the credits and leave the bomb with you.

~~~
dnesting
It is an explicit goal to create lasting Digital Service teams in every
federal agency specifically to ensure longer projects (those that actually
involve (re)building something) have long-term support. Generally the short-
term engagements USDS has are either to help agencies put a fire out, or to
provide recommendations that the agency can then choose to implement with
their own people.

------
jchendy
Any idea what the compensation is like? Would the "tour of duty" be considered
a sacrifice or is it a viable way to make a living for a talented engineer?

~~~
liyanchang
I'm currently at the US Digital Service so figured I'd add some color. There
are many subtleties about how government hires that makes this a really
interesting question.

We are brought in either under Intermittent Consultants or Schedule A hires.
This means that in exchange for being able to hire you by name rather than
going through a more structured process through USAjobs.gov, you can only work
for 2 years. Therefore, no matter what the pay, it's probably not a viable
long term career.

It's also important to note that this is probably a good thing - I've been at
Healthcare.gov and USDS since Jan of 2014 and I'm finding that I'm getting
adjusted to some of the bureaucracy. It's therefore actually key to balance
experience with fresh perspectives.

I'd also say that the salary ranges - it's in part based on what you used to
make in the private sector but has a hard ceiling. For everyone who comes,
it's more than enough to survive but not a long term career move for anyone.
And of course, there are no stock options or equity stakes :D.

~~~
jchendy
Thanks for the info, that's pretty interesting. Are you ever allowed to go
back and do another 2 years?

~~~
liyanchang
I'm not certain about the exact intricacies of the Schedule A hiring authority
so I may be corrected by someone later - but my understanding is that this
would not be possible to be rehired under the same hiring authority. People
have joked about doing both a Schedule A and an Intermittent Consultant[0],
which would allow you to do 4 years (2x2) - as we've just hit our 1st
birthday, no one has tried it yet!

[0] There are some slight differences in how pay, retirement, and some other
benefits are distributed, so they are mostly but not entirely interchangeable.

~~~
walshemj
Do you get 2 years worth of pension? ie 2 40ths (or whatever the accrual rate
is )

~~~
liyanchang
Pensions have a 3 year cliff - but you're only allowed to work for 2 as a
schedule A and you don't accrue years as an IC so one can conclude with very
high confidence that I will not have a pension :D.

~~~
walshemj
Ah sneaky if a highly unfair to the people taking a paycut to work for their
country.

------
clebio
Honest question, because I can't find it in the copy on the USDS page, but
have seen comments here about this:

Do you treat this as a job with a certain known tenure, or rather as a
sabbatical? It seems like they want specific periods of work, but how does
that fit with a regular job where you're vaguely working for a company
indefinitely?

How does relocating to the DC-metro area fit in with that? Relocation is
expensive and a hassle, after all.

------
adamkochanowicz
Is it me or does $4M annually still seem like a high cost?

~~~
tikhonj
It's expensive in an absolute sense, but that's what happens when you pay
people to work on something. Salaries and benefits add up really quickly.

By a rough estimate, a fully loaded developer costs at least $200-250k/year,
counting salary, benefits and incidental expenses (ie supplies, offices...
etc). So a team of 12 people would cost ~$3M/year and have $1M/year left over
for all their other business expenses.

The government might end up paying somewhat less per person, but they'd also
need additional people to deal with bureaucracy, coordinate with other
agencies, deal with state governments and so on, so they likely want more than
12 people running a system like this.

~~~
walshemj
Your forgetting the costs of the FS pension

------
ilaksh
Technology makes government and other traditional institutions irrelevant.
Focus you efforts on decentralizing technologies that replace giant outdated
systems entirely.

The US government, like all traditional states, is just a really official type
of organized crime. The DNA of the state is past its expiration.

------
tunesmith
I would have been all over this a few years ago, but being married to someone
who can't also move to DC for a multi-month period makes it unworkable. For my
career, I work 100% remotely - I would love to do some work for the digital
service if they had opportunity for remote working.

~~~
toomuchtodo
18F is structured to support remote workers. You'd need to be on site in DC to
work at the USDS though.

~~~
nacin
Yep. 18F is great, and the teams work together on a lot. Here's more on why it
works that way:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9802888](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9802888).

------
lifeisstillgood
I attended one of the UKs GDS road shows this week. I have been trying on and
off for a while to get better OSS into local government
([http://www.oss4gov.org](http://www.oss4gov.org)) and am impressed still by
the focus there is in government in doing the right thing.

The big wins they are having is enforcing OSS licenses for bespoke
development, pooling purchasing into rolling 6-9 month call-off frameworks and
generally waving the agile and cheaper flags.

I am not convinced that the idea of a sort of Peace Corps couple of years will
be the solution - if we get government software based on an infrastructure of
OSS then it's likely both private and public developers will be familiar with
those Eco systems anyway.

------
worldadventurer
Sam wrote "I often get asked about what people can do for a year or two to
make a big impact between projects." If the US government isn't the right fit
(especially if you're not an American), consider doing a Fellowship with a
non-profit which may also have a big impact. MovingWorlds.org is one place to
find those opportunities. We (engageSPARK, a not-for-profit business building
the "Twilio for non-techies" for NGOs & Governments) also have a Fellowship
program:
[https://www.engagespark.com/about/#join](https://www.engagespark.com/about/#join)
. :)

------
u14408885
I wonder if there is an equivalent in Australia (or other countries).

~~~
robin_reala
The DTO in Aus has hired a few ex-GDS employees and seems to be doing good
work: [https://www.dto.gov.au](https://www.dto.gov.au)

------
navahq
If this resonated with you, check out:

Mikey Dickerson (head of USDS) at SXSW: Why we need you in government
[https://medium.com/@USDigitalService/mikey-dickerson-to-
sxsw...](https://medium.com/@USDigitalService/mikey-dickerson-to-sxsw-why-we-
need-you-in-government-f31dab3263a0)

Previous HN discussion on USDS:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8988819](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8988819)

------
nphyte
yes government needs good tech but we as a global community also need good
leaders that understand implications of new tech , policy and innovation.

~~~
jasonshen
Absolutely - and a lot of what USDS, 18f and PIF do is bring technical people
into gov't not only to design and code software, but to make sure the right
solution gets implemented, and help policy makers understand how effective
technology gets built.

~~~
nphyte
implementing the right solutions is very subjective. There are many approaches
to solving a single problem.Lets take the energy example where we have
different solutions in renewables, hyro and nuclear amongst others . Now it
seems that the people working on renewables dont talk to people from hydro nor
with those working on nuclear. IMHO might be better for the global community
where people working on a single problem communicated amongst themselves and
policy makers to self select what works best.

------
finkin1
According to this talk, the work hours were pretty insane to fix
healthcare.gov. From the 2014 Velocity Conference in New York City, Mikey
Dickerson's keynote: "One Year After healthcare.gov: Where Are We Now?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Vc8sxhy2I4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Vc8sxhy2I4)

------
binoyxj
Here's Todd Park's (White House Technology Advisor) talk during the recently
concluded Twilio Signal devcon. He's then followed by the co-founder of
Twilio, newest avenger in the USDS team
[https://youtu.be/4QXZl4cFw24?t=50m33s](https://youtu.be/4QXZl4cFw24?t=50m33s)

------
hippich
I agree that you should stop complain about anything IT-related in government
and instead try to make a change (and complain about, let's say, bogus process
of winning government contract)

That been said, I don't believe USDS/18F/GSA in big need for engineers from my
own experience. So don't afraid to apply :)

------
javadocmd
Is anyone aware of any similar programs in the charity space? I would imagine
there are charitable organizations out there in need of some solid tech but
lacking the infrastructure to build it.

------
vippy
I'm a contractor under the GSA's OCSIT, sharing a floor with 18F, the PIFs,
and occasionally members of the USDS that come to hang out. It's great to see
the feds hiring awesome technologists and doing great things, including some
of the technologies that are currently only available to teams with, as the
developers of them say, "a reasonable pain tolerance". My only advice to 18F
is that they should figure out pathways to provide the services they intend to
provide, create a management plan, and stick with it. I would recommend them
to check out the business models of Peter Corbett's iStrategyLabs, who is
right here in Washington D.C. and doing great work for some really big brands,
and VICE's Carrot Creative, from Brooklyn, if they want to see the agency
model in action.

------
tomjen3
The government spends millions on shitty contracts and programs that goes
billions over budget. Don't work for them unless you are getting at least
market price.

------
notsony
_> I think it’d be great if it became a new tradition that people from the
tech world do a tour of duty serving our country at some point in their
careers. We need better technology in government._

STOP. WAIT. THINK. As an entrepreneur, you don't want to lose opportunities
down the road, or have doors close on you. Look how Huawei gets blasted
because the founder served in the Chinese army. Or they may be some open-
source projects you want to help out on and people don't want to trust you.

~~~
kctess5
"We want to hire you, but we see here that you improved the digital systems
affecting the lives of millions, so I'm afraid we won't be moving your
application forward at this time"

Right...

------
TheMagicHorsey
We definitely do need better government. But I don't think this digital
service thing is going to work out. Early reports from similar programs like
the Presidential Fellows program, shows that government bureaucracy is pretty
calcified, and the private contractors that provide the current dated
technology aren't going to go quietly either.

A bunch of young guns parachuting in isn't going to have much effect unless
someone with a lot of political capital, spends that capital forcing change.

Otherwise, the young guns will just get sidelined. I've talked to people in
the Presidential Fellows program, and they get sidelined a lot. Nothing
actually changes.

And forget about bringing in new, better vendors for government contracts.
There is an entire skillset required to bid on and get government contracts,
and the people that know how to build good technology, have no idea how to get
the contracts. And the people that know how to get the contracts, specialize
in that, and have no idea how to build good technology.

How do you think that garbage-ass company from Canada (that isn't even allowed
to build tech for the Canadian government) gets recruited to build
Healthcare.gov at some huge inflated expense.

And BTW, you can't even get people in the know to talk about this stuff,
because anyone that does is shitting on their own career prospects if they
tattle on the system.

The Healthcare.gov fix worked because the President supported that
intervention. Can every place that Digital Service serves get that kind of
support? If it does, then that will be amazing. But I sort of doubt the
President can micromanage and give support to a thousand interventions in a
thousand different departments, all with their own little fiefdoms.

------
mtgx
I'm not against it, but my worry is that the US government will use this
"attracting of top tech talent" to help with government services as a
"backdoor" (pun intended) to recruiting some of them into the NSA later on,
especially now that they seem to have a problem with recruiting hackers post-
Snowden revelations.

First they get them to "feel patriotic about helping the government" and then
getting them to spy on everyone seems like just another next step.

Hopefully, though, it will work the other way around and this top tech talent
will manage to convince the old people in the government to do less of that.

------
brandonmenc
> I think it’d be great if it became a new tradition that people from the tech
> world do a tour of duty

I really can't stand this language.

"Tour of duty" means fighting in combat, for years, at low pay. Getting
$130k/yr [1] to pad your resume isn't a "tour of duty."

[1] [http://fcw.com/articles/2014/10/27/red-tape-holding-back-
hir...](http://fcw.com/articles/2014/10/27/red-tape-holding-back-hiring.aspx)

~~~
vippy
One of my team members is a former Army Captain and Iraq veteran. He doesn't
seem to mind.

And the only way anyone would be making $130K is if they landed at the top
step of the GS-15 scale. I know most offers are made around the GS-13 level.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Your pay is determined by your paystub from your previous/current employer by
the Office of Management and Budget (edit: they _do not_ take into account
equity grants nor intangibles). You're also required to pass a drug test, as
well as a background check and security clearance.

I'm somewhat turned off by the idea that people _shouldn 't_ be paid
~$130K/year for their service. You're asking them to pick up and move to DC,
covering none of their moving, travel, or new living expenses.

~~~
djcapelis
And this is why the government has trouble attracting good people. It's not
the pay that bothers me, personally. It's the bullshit policies, lack of
workplace flexibility and the idea that intrusions into my own private life is
at all acceptable. Oh and I have to move to the central government swamp while
we're at it?

So then they pitch this as the only way people can help make things better
offering below market pay along with all these trade offs?

Good luck with that.

~~~
vippy
Except the USDS, 18F, PIFs, and OCSIT are all attracting really great people.
Now, HTTPS everywhere is a dubious project, sorry Konklone, but its difficult
to deny that the problem of talent in government has always been one of the
hiring process being controlled by contractors and the perverse economic
incentives of the traditional bodies-in-chairs contracting model.

~~~
konklone
> Now, HTTPS everywhere is a dubious project, sorry Konklone

Well, I like it. =)

~~~
vippy
OH NOES! Hey Eric! :P

The problem we have with our project is that we're dealing with a ton of
subdomains and not a lot of data I would consider "sensitive" enough to really
necessitate encryption. While I appreciate the sentiment of the project, and
value your commitment to privacy, for our use case it's definitely a bit of a
pain in the butt.

That, and I know getting IT departments to move to install certs on their old
infrastructure for things that might not require encryption is definitely
painful. And the errors generated by expired certificates and "insecure
content warnings" are confusing, and don't add value to projects that don't
benefit from encrypted connections. We've been hearing all about it.

~~~
djcapelis
Honestly, now that I read down the thread, it kinda sounds like you don't have
your shit together and you want to blame someone else who created something
awesome for it.

It's not important whether _you_ consider the data sensitive enough to bother
doing your job. It's actually your users, which, if they've installed HTTPS
Everywhere, they do.

So get your shit together! :)

~~~
konklone
FWIW, vippy's not referring to the browser extension, but to the federal
policy:

[https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/06/08/https-
everywhere-...](https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/06/08/https-everywhere-
government)

~~~
vippy
Yes, thank you konklone. My primary complaint with the policy, and I'm
hesitant to complain because, let me be clear, it is a good policy, is that
we're now held accountable to a metric that adds engineering complexity and
additional costs to our small team, and has created some confusion amongst our
hundreds of customers who, arguably, don't serve content that, in my
professional opinion, requires an encrypted connection to meet the needs of
their millions of users.

