81–90 of 125 posts
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Look the domain up in domaintools, they run on top of AWS govcloud. https://whois.domaintools.com/cloud.gov
I wonder if they are just reselling: https://aws.amazon.com/govcloud-us/
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For what it's worth, I applied to work with 18F late last year. I'm a web developer with a wide array of skills - front-end, back-end, and even UI/UX design, product design, and some marketing and management - with about 8 years of experience, mostly doing independent consulting with a couple years at a SF startup in there. I'm also very civic minded, doing a bunch of pro-bono work and (since) getting involved in com…
If your in it for the mission, not the money consider applying as a Code For America fellow: https://www.codeforamerica.org/do-something/work-with-us There are a lot of cities that could use your help. I am in no way connected with them but am a huge fan of their mission.
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What is a Google-sized team?
My experience has all been with teams and companies The startup I worked on had 12 people at its height (before it was bought by a large tech company), and I was the first employee hire so I was in a position of some leadership. He kept asking me strange questions that presupposed I knew how to negotiate with large entities like government agencies... as a developer. That interview - plus the other two "groundhog day…
Perhaps that's part of the skills that are needed to succeed at 18F. It sounds like these folks are in a sort of consulting position where they help other government agencies with technical projects and policy efforts. Take a look at the 18F Innovation Specialist GS-14 and -15 roles: https://pages.18f.gov/joining-18f/pay-grades/ - based on your background, they might have expected you to fall somewhere around, I'm guessing, GS-14 (1). Some of the qualifications required are:
> Knowledge of and expertise in driving and implementing technology solutions that overcome significant challenges resulting from complex or bureaucratic environments, or technically difficult problems
> Skill in oral communication to present sensitive recommendations to higher authority, to obtain compliance with policies from activities nationwide, to articulate positions/policy of vast technical complexity, and to represent the agency on task forces
> Comprehensive knowledge of and expertise in all stages of product or business development, and ability to lead complex technology and policy initiatives from inception to implementation
Bureaucratic environment is right there in the job description :-) More seriously, this sounds like a reasonably senior technical role in which one would likely interface with other agencies in the way you're describing. GS-15 is even more demanding. While it's disappointing that the interview expressed condescension at your lack of expertise in this area (and expressed anything other than professionalism), I can understand given these qualifications why they'd probe into those skills. It appears they're looking for technical leaders, and not exclusively heads-down individual contributors -- this makes sense to me given their mission. These positions seem to be about influencing the government through policy and technology initiatives, and influencing other government agencies (which is harder than influencing one's local environment), not just delivering technical projects.
I am not trying to excuse the interview experience that you had, just to be clear. I'm just making an observation about the kind of challenges they appear to have, and the kind of qualifications they might be looking for in candidates to tackle them. Innovation Specialist GS-14 and GS-15 sounds like pretty interesting roles. I am personally glad that they expect such leadership from technical specialists; this kind of broader influence is key to career growth as a technical person past a certain point. Organizations that don't expect this and foster this in individual contributors are organizations where you need to move into management in order to keep moving up.
However, it sounds like they could have done a lot better job communicating with you respectfully and professionally, as well as conveying what they're looking for.
(1) I know nothing about 18F beyond what I've read on these sites, nor about government pay grades. I'm just taking a guess based on your industry experience, and by comparing the 18F job role levels to the qualifications expected of candidates with similar background in private industry.
I'm the product lead on cloud.gov... Thanks for noticing us! There are other Cloud Foundry deployments, but what makes cloud.gov special is the focus on ensuring federal agencies are actually able to use it. Federal compliance for a cloud service provider is a tough bar to clear, and without it most agencies are simply unable to take advantage of capabilities the rest of the world now takes for granted. That in turn…
Yep, I just got Azure Gov FedRamped on my project and it was some serious gnashing and pulling of teeth. Writing all those CMS and IRS procedure docs was a great, but arduous experience. There's a larger story here though involving application outside the US, which is what I'd like to pursue after my current project. It definitely will not include Azure unless that becomes a more cost effective platform. Would love t…
If you're pulling teeth in regards to FEDRAMP, you can join ##GRC on irc.freenode.org with fellow teeth grinders. Its a chat channel with 20+ Security Auditors and System Administrators dedicated to discussing enforcement, regulations, and systems administration for FEDRAMP and other compliance frameworks.
There's also the brand new subreddit called /r/FEDRAMP that started a few days ago.
https://www.reddit.com/r/FEDRAMP.
Check the sidebar for other compliance frameworks too like /r/SOC2, /r/HIPAA, /r/ISO27001, and /r/PCICompliance.
https://www.reddit.com/r/HIPAA
https://www.reddit.com/r/PCICompliance
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My experience has all been with teams and companies The startup I worked on had 12 people at its height (before it was bought by a large tech company), and I was the first employee hire so I was in a position of some leadership. He kept asking me strange questions that presupposed I knew how to negotiate with large entities like government agencies... as a developer. That interview - plus the other two "groundhog day…
> He kept asking me strange questions that presupposed I knew how to negotiate with large entities like government agencies... as a developer. Perhaps that's part of the skills that are needed to succeed at 18F. It sounds like these folks are in a sort of consulting position where they help other government agencies with technical projects and policy efforts. Take a look at the 18F Innovation Specialist GS-14 and -15…
My experience does include running front-end at the startup I worked at, and even being part of the three-person group that decided on the direction of the product (with the two founders). My communication skills are battle-tested from years of contracting (and a liberal arts university background), but I do lack experience dealing with huge bureaucracies and I lack experience with business development. So maybe that was it.
That said, if your theory is right that they were slotting me in as a GS-14, they could have communicated with me about that difficulty. I would have been totally fine with whatever role they wanted to give me - which I made clear in the "groundhog day" interviews - because I just wanted to help. :-D
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We're recruiting actively across many disciplines. 18F employs a huge range of amazing people with diverse histories from both inside and outside of government. Everyone is an impact junkie. Salary is competitive with industry through a special hiring authority although capped at government levels without bonus, stock, etc. There are intangibles that come from actually being able to improve the way government approac…
For what it's worth, I applied to work with 18F late last year. I'm a web developer with a wide array of skills - front-end, back-end, and even UI/UX design, product design, and some marketing and management - with about 8 years of experience, mostly doing independent consulting with a couple years at a SF startup in there. I'm also very civic minded, doing a bunch of pro-bono work and (since) getting involved in com…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For what it's worth, I applied to work with 18F late last year. I'm a web developer with a wide array of skills - front-end, back-end, and even UI/UX design, product design, and some marketing and management - with about 8 years of experience, mostly doing independent consulting with a couple years at a SF startup in there. I'm also very civic minded, doing a bunch of pro-bono work and (since) getting involved in com…
What is a Google-sized team?
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See: https://pages.18f.gov/joining-18f/ I'll let @bmogilefsky describe the jobs. @18F as a whole hires engineers, designers, product managers, content writers, journalists, folks with non-traditional cross-functional backgrounds, etc. Salary depends on job grade. See [1] for an explanation of the grades within 18F. Then see the GS pay scale [2] to figure out the pay for your grade in your region. [1]: https://pages.1…
Nothing says "we employ the best" like "fixed salary based on tenure and job function"
When I applied, they had a table of salaries, adjusted for location, so at least they were transparent about it.
I'm the product lead on cloud.gov... Thanks for noticing us! There are other Cloud Foundry deployments, but what makes cloud.gov special is the focus on ensuring federal agencies are actually able to use it. Federal compliance for a cloud service provider is a tough bar to clear, and without it most agencies are simply unable to take advantage of capabilities the rest of the world now takes for granted. That in turn…
What sorts of jobs are available there and what's the salary like? I currently do devops at a large Internet content company near Dulles and I've got federal government experience from many years ago.
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Good luck with that. I was only a government contractor and the amount of blue badges that argue how the other agency is doing it wrong / stupid and they would never use their stack is insane.
You're right, everyone is on the hook for their own agency, and with such strict regulations they are very conservative about using each other's stuff, which is effectively delegating decisions and responsibility to others that may get them in trouble. This is a major reason for cloud.gov going after the FedRAMP JAB P-ATO recognition. "JAB" is the Joint Authorization Board comprised of the CIOs of the Department of D…