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Inside the Obama Tech Surge as It Hacks the Pentagon and VA

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Re: Inside the Obama Tech Surge as It Hacks the Pentagon and VA

#41

Post by jdeibele »

whybroke wrote: post #26
cs702 wrote: post #7

The federal government hires a team of young, talented, motivated engineers and managers, puts them in charge of failed software projects, gives them the resources and authority they require to turns things around, and -- surprise! -- it turns out they do a GREAT job. In hindsight, this shouldn't be too surprising. What might be surprising is that the same logic should apply to ALL government functions, not just soft…

>...young... This the first and presumably most important requirement in you opinion? Interesting. May I ask, how did you extrpolate it was a property of the team at all let alone responsible for its success let alone the first component of that success?

As an old guy, I have other committments besides work. Family, non-profits, etc. It's helpful not to have to worry about those things as well as moving across the country for a lot less pay in a job that might not succeed.

Re: Inside the Obama Tech Surge as It Hacks the Pentagon and VA

#42

Post by sliverstorm »

tonysdg wrote: post #34
cs702 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for posting here. The same logic applies to all those regulations that seem bonkers. If you think of all those regulations as a type of source code (which dictates what government employees and citizens can and cannot do, when, and under what conditions), it's clear that a lot of regulatory code needs major refactoring. To use your example with travel regulations, those 1400 pages designed to prevent fraud…

My guess is that most of those 1400 pages consist of the corner cases - things that will 95% of the time never pop up, but when they do will wreak havoc unless properly dealt with. Granted, I'm not sure travel fraud can wreak that much havoc, but I'm sure someone somewhere gets annoyed over it. My (admittedly limited) experience in coding/engineering has taught me that it's unwise to look at technical problems and pe…

Not in government, but I understand the biggest problem with travel to be the expense account, which has a history of being abused to disgusting proportions.

Re: Inside the Obama Tech Surge as It Hacks the Pentagon and VA

#43

Post by Poiesis »

pjungwir wrote: post #20

I'm curious if anyone here from USDS or 18F has deployed Postgres in a FIPS 140-2 environment, and if so what challenges they had. The VA seems to be saying that Postgres should not be used: http://www.va.gov/TRM/ToolPage.asp?tid=5692&tab=2 contrast that with Oracle: http://www.va.gov/TRM/ToolPage.asp?tid=9&tab=2 (Don't miss the difference in tone on the "Analysis" tabs.) I'm sure some of that is due to lobbyists, bu…

Contractor here, not USDS or 18F. I usually see Postgres configured to use PAM auth, often against LDAP. This can it make it easier to meet password complexity requirements (don't get me started) and lockouts after incorrect attempts (same).

Re: Inside the Obama Tech Surge as It Hacks the Pentagon and VA

#44

Post by sliverstorm »

DannyBee wrote: post #33
liyanchang wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclosure: I'm an engineer at USDS and these are my own opinions. So in my admittedly short time in the government [0], I've witnessed how all of these problems are due to good intentions. That's what makes this all really tough because everything you think is bonkers actually has a reason. The 1400 page travel regulations is a result of trying to prevent fraud - every single issue that comes up results in a new rul…

"The 1400 page travel regulations is a result of trying to prevent fraud - every single issue that comes up results in a new rule." This seems like a serious inability to understand that no process designed to prevent future things you can't forsee is 100% effective (by definition). At some point, you have to declare "good enough", and live with it until the error rate becomes unacceptable overall again, then modify…

People are pretty sensitive about government financial workers committing fraud, similar to how they are rather sensitive to government police committing murder.

Re: Inside the Obama Tech Surge as It Hacks the Pentagon and VA

#45

Post by macintux »

sbov wrote: post #27
impostervt wrote: post #22

"U.S. Digital Service salaries are set in accordance with the General Schedule Pay Scale, which is capped at $160,300." That's not bad, but not great for really high talent employees. I wonder how many people get that rate though. https://www.usds.gov/join#compensation

Even if I made more than that in the private sector, I would be willing to take a minor pay cut for this sort of position. If you think about it, you're helping put taxpayer dollars to more efficient use, which includes your own.

Not sure how many people are going to take a 10% pay cut in hopes that 5 years from now their taxes might be a few bucks cheaper (which of course they won't be because the money would just be spent elsewhere).

Admirable intent, I'm suspicious of its prevalence.

Re: Inside the Obama Tech Surge as It Hacks the Pentagon and VA

#46

Post by ryanmarsh »

Klonoar wrote: post #37
ryanmarsh wrote: post #28

It's my dream to work at USDS. First I need to save enough money to cover the difference in salary for 2-3 years.

Mmmm, I've been through the process and gotten an offer, and it wasn't that far off what the industry standard is (and honestly beats regular DC rates). They're really solid overall. Granted everyone's got their own experiences, so YMMV I guess. Just curious where your data comes from?

I read (sorry I don't recall where) a comment on GS levels for USDS. It was like half my current income. Perhaps I should just apply and find out for sure though.

Re: Inside the Obama Tech Surge as It Hacks the Pentagon and VA

#47

Post by saosebastiao »

pjungwir wrote: post #20

I'm curious if anyone here from USDS or 18F has deployed Postgres in a FIPS 140-2 environment, and if so what challenges they had. The VA seems to be saying that Postgres should not be used: http://www.va.gov/TRM/ToolPage.asp?tid=5692&tab=2 contrast that with Oracle: http://www.va.gov/TRM/ToolPage.asp?tid=9&tab=2 (Don't miss the difference in tone on the "Analysis" tabs.) I'm sure some of that is due to lobbyists, bu…

I'm pretty sure the only OS that is approved for electronic voting systems is Windows XP, which has obviously become a problem, but a new OS would likely take two or more years to go through the approval process. Ubuntu changes so much in two years that by the time it is approved, it would have lost 2/3rds of its life even as an LTR.

I would assume that the main reason that Oracle is preferred is due to lobbying, but also the fact that they don't really innovate anymore so it is non-trivial for them to provide support and bug fixes for a decade or two.

Re: Inside the Obama Tech Surge as It Hacks the Pentagon and VA

#48

Post by ryanmarsh »

macintux wrote: post #45
sbov wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if I made more than that in the private sector, I would be willing to take a minor pay cut for this sort of position. If you think about it, you're helping put taxpayer dollars to more efficient use, which includes your own.

Not sure how many people are going to take a 10% pay cut in hopes that 5 years from now their taxes might be a few bucks cheaper (which of course they won't be because the money would just be spent elsewhere). Admirable intent, I'm suspicious of its prevalence.

They call it a tour of duty for a reason. $163k would be a massive paycut for me but I'd do it and happily burn savings to make a difference for the lives of my fellow veterans.

Re: Inside the Obama Tech Surge as It Hacks the Pentagon and VA

#49

Post by ryanmarsh »

impostervt wrote: post #29
vonmoltke wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that's much of an issue, since it is pretty good money (even in DC) for the 99% of us who aren't "really high talent employees".

True, but I wonder what the "normal" rate is. As in, do they really get that much, or by stating that rate on their website are they really just trying to say "if you make a lot more than this and care a lot about money, don't bother".

Which is basically why I'm saving to go work there.

Re: Inside the Obama Tech Surge as It Hacks the Pentagon and VA

#50

Post by [deleted] »

jdeibele wrote: post #41
whybroke wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>...young... This the first and presumably most important requirement in you opinion? Interesting. May I ask, how did you extrpolate it was a property of the team at all let alone responsible for its success let alone the first component of that success?

As an old guy, I have other committments besides work. Family, non-profits, etc. It's helpful not to have to worry about those things as well as moving across the country for a lot less pay in a job that might not succeed.

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