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.
Join the U.S. Digital Service
31–40 of 239 posts
Re: Join the U.S. Digital Service
#32> 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.
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/ ). 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/
I think he might have been referencing the initial build team.
Re: Join the U.S. Digital Service
#33I'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?
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 moti…
> 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.
Re: Join the U.S. Digital Service
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 moti…
> 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.
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.
Re: Join the U.S. Digital Service
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is kind of my initial reaction. "Bad guys" mentality aside, do I really want to put my skills to use battling some bureaucratic middle-man telling me how to do my job? I mean, hopefully the program is really effective and creates a very concrete high-level goal and lets the tech creators go wild and do their thing, but I really do imagine it being bogged down by nonsense.
I asked about this very thing, and the people I talked to definitely recognize there's a chicken-and-egg problem. To get good people, they need good environments. And to get good environments, they need good people. I know they're working on it. I don't know enough to say whether they'll make it, but I have a lot of hope. Also, long ago I did a contract for a state government. There was definitely some nonsense. But…
Thanks for your perspective, makes me rethink my position a bit. I'll keep my eye on the program. I do think it's good that our government is asking for help to essentially improve citizen engagement.
Everyone is glued to their phones so much they don't have the mental bandwidth to even think about where the country is going. This would make the problem a lot more approachable if successful.
Re: Join the U.S. Digital Service
#36Will work for fedgov once fedgov stops using tech to violate the people. Until then, GFYS.
That's like saying that you'll start working with human beings once human beings stop being criminals.
You can work on projects that have absolutely nothing to do with the human rights violations via technology. The US federal government is _huge_ and, in some of its functions, does real, measurable good.
Re: Join the U.S. Digital Service
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why? "You can do a hell of a lot more damage in the system than out of it." - "Stevo", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oi2y9-Mxq-0 But seriously, government is what we make of it. We can sit here as sheep and accept the way that we're governed or we can take the leap and try to change it by joining it. I can't promise that it will ever get better if you sign up to help but I can promise that it won't if you don't.
engineers don't set policy
You'd be surprised how much of a difference a single person, engineer or not, can make on the inside, with enough persistence and vision.
If you care about policy, you put in the time, and you know what you're talking about -- you'll make your mark.
Re: Join the U.S. Digital Service
#38I 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…
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".
If I have the chance to work with talented industry veterans, I'd absolutely love to do a tour of duty after I graduate.
Re: Join the U.S. Digital Service
#39While 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 2…
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 (Disclosure: I work for 18F.)
The Federal Register site was developed by the same people that developed Gov Pulse: 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...
Re: Join the U.S. Digital Service
#40Two 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?