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The UK's “Chief Digital Officer” job has been open for over a year

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Re: The UK's “Chief Digital Officer” job has been open for over a year

#91

Post by vkou »

WoefullyInept wrote: post #90
vkou wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> minimum wage for being CEO of a S&P 500 company, blindfolded and without a steering wheel I'd personally take that job offer in a heartbeat (And would recommend anyone else to do so as well), because I'd have ~50/50 odds of failing upwards or downwards. Heads, I win, and my next job would be the C-whatever of a S&P 500 company for real wages. Tails, I lose, and my next job would be the C-whatever of a Fortune 5000…

You'd take it because you're not qualified to do it. And neither am I. Anyone that would meet their expectations of experience would already be working in the C suite at another company for significantly more.

Well, sure, that's the reason why the CDO position isn't being filled.

But the parent poster I was responding to was painting it as a terrible job. I was pointing out that for those of us that don't have the privilege of being in the C-level of the Fortune 500 club (Which is, to some approximation, some large number of nines of the userbase of HN), this sort of job would actually be pretty good, not because of what you do in it, but because of the doors it opens.

I've seen too many political animals fail upward from one disaster to another to imagine that there's nothing career-boosting that can be salvaged from that job posting.

Re: The UK's “Chief Digital Officer” job has been open for over a year

#92

Post by nvarsj »

armagon wrote: post #4
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #2

>the UK is recruiting a Government Chief Digital Officer (GCDO), who will be working at the highest levels of the Cabinet Office to lead the digital transformation of public services in the country. All of this and more, for £200,000 a year. Maybe the reason they can't find anyone to do this is that they are underpaying for the position. The responsibilities described sound at least at the level of a Senior VP, if no…

That's a quarter million USD per year. You are telling me that senior VPs make 2.5 million USD each year?

Not in the UK. Only in Silicon Valley, at a handful of companies, is this kind of comp normal. Seems silly to compare a government job to inflated stock-based salaries.

Re: The UK's “Chief Digital Officer” job has been open for over a year

#93

Post by sjg007 »

aahortwwy wrote: post #85
sjg007 wrote: post #54

Hmm.. maybe I will apply.. I think the thing a Chief Digital Officer would do would be to map out each organizations data needs and mandate that their product be provided via a SaaS interface to their customers and/or exportable into something like Snowflake or Palantir or maybe a UK provider. Interfaces are the first thing that Bezos mandated for AWS. The latter is probably more risky politically but maybe there's a…

What will you do when your "mandate" is ignored?

What if the world ends?

Re: The UK's “Chief Digital Officer” job has been open for over a year

#94

Post by ionwake »

sjg007 wrote: post #64
ionwake wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well said. I’m going to cut and paste this in my application.

Sure, go ahead, but I would advise you to rephrase it in your own words. Otherwise you run the risk of rejection due to a few Google searches!! But.. none of this is special sauce, this is the playbook for every "scalable" organization. I would avoid the word "interoperability" though. That's verbiage from the last major IT/govt push.

I was mostly joking though I’ll consider applying for fun

Re: The UK's “Chief Digital Officer” job has been open for over a year

#95

Post by aahortwwy »

sjg007 wrote: post #93
aahortwwy wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What will you do when your "mandate" is ignored?

What if the world ends?

There's no comparison.

The challenge is these jobs is not setting the strategy. It's getting everyone involved to actually listen to you and follow through. Just because you have "chief" in your job title doesn't mean established bureaucrats will listen to you without question.

Re: The UK's “Chief Digital Officer” job has been open for over a year

#96

Post by sokoloff »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #20

I have some experience with government IT (state and municipal, not national). Anyone in this space knows that changing the bureaucracy essentially requires a legislative or executive mandate. My team once got intense push-back trying to change an extract file's date format from MMDDYY to MMDDYYYY. I suspect the person in this role won't have the power or authority to do that. Clerks are notoriously protective of 'th…

If you're changing it anyway, why not push for YYYYMMDD?

Re: The UK's “Chief Digital Officer” job has been open for over a year

#97

Post by BitwiseFool »

sokoloff wrote: post #96
BitwiseFool wrote: post #20

I have some experience with government IT (state and municipal, not national). Anyone in this space knows that changing the bureaucracy essentially requires a legislative or executive mandate. My team once got intense push-back trying to change an extract file's date format from MMDDYY to MMDDYYYY. I suspect the person in this role won't have the power or authority to do that. Clerks are notoriously protective of 'th…

If you're changing it anyway, why not push for YYYYMMDD?

That was my original request! But there are "readability" concerns with a "non-standard" date format. I died a little inside when I heard those words.
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