Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Join the U.S. Digital Service

whitehouse.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 239 posts

Re: Join the U.S. Digital Service

#121

Post by datashovel »

kalvin wrote: post #75

(I've been working on Healthcare.gov for the past year and know some of the people at USDS; I was also YC S11 and appreciate the great parts of startup culture even more now) PSA: I know it's not easy to tell from the outside, or from a website, but this is the real deal. Things are starting to change; by government standards, at ludicrous speed. The Healthcare.gov crisis really started a useful fire. Todd Park, Mike…

There's also alot of money to be made in bureaucracy. Those who are making the most currently will not be happy to see their ability to extort the govt become more and more difficult.

Re: Join the U.S. Digital Service

#123

Post by jgallag8 »

growupkids wrote: post #104
sloanesturz wrote: post #77

I would love to see a program like ROTC -- the government pays for you to get a CS degree and then you work for the Digital Service to start your career. You end up being 26 with a great education and a solid work experience under your belt. Seems like a win-win!

Most ROTC cadets do not have scholarships, and for their first two years they recieve no money. Of those students, only during their 3rd and 4th years do they recieve any funding at all, which is a stipend of approx. $300-500 a month and only once they have signed a contract to commission.

At my university everyone in ROTC had full tuition as well as room and board paid for for all 4 years. And they received the stipend on top of that. They did have to commit after the end of the first year though.

Re: Join the U.S. Digital Service

#124

Post by jrochkind1 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #85
kalvin wrote: post #75

(I've been working on Healthcare.gov for the past year and know some of the people at USDS; I was also YC S11 and appreciate the great parts of startup culture even more now) PSA: I know it's not easy to tell from the outside, or from a website, but this is the real deal. Things are starting to change; by government standards, at ludicrous speed. The Healthcare.gov crisis really started a useful fire. Todd Park, Mike…

> Imagine if you could help "fix" the IRS with auto-prepped tax returns (definitely seems like the hardest one on this list-- but it's also one that everyone wants to see happen Actually, its mostly hard politically, because not everyone wants to see it happen. Particularly, tax preparation firms and tax software sellers want tax returns to be difficult so that their business stays in demand, and lobby heavily agains…

Yep. http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2013/04/15/tax-preparers-...

Re: Join the U.S. Digital Service

#125

Post by johngd »

aidanfeldman wrote: post #78
_cudgel wrote: post #47

Does joining the US Digital Service require a clearance, and if so does occasional marijuana consumption automatically disqualify you?

Member of 18F here. Not sure about USDS, but we get "public trust", which is basically the step below clearance. Basically means "stuff that isn't public yet". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_clearance#Public_Trust...

I am not sure about medium-risk public trust positions, but for high-risk public trust positions (think access to PII, social security # type stuff) they require an in depth personal history, including a meet and greet with an investigator (usually ex-law enforcement, so I was told).

Protip: Contractor or FTE, make sure you specifically ask HR whether or not there will be an additional screening, and whether or not it is a 'public-trust' position and what level that would be following your hiring.

I was pretty miffed when 'they' told me after the fact that my position required an additional background check and that my continued employment would be predicated on the outcome.

Re: Join the U.S. Digital Service

#126

Post by johngd »

BrandonY wrote: post #70
ipsin wrote: post #40

Two 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 da…

I have no expertise here, but here's my understanding: 1) Yes, especially if you've worked for some big name, non-government tech companies. 2) Absolutely not. The salary is MISERABLE compared to what you could get in the private sector. That's the real problem. The government desperately needs world class software engineers, but the private sector can effectively buy them all away. Who would try and fix the busted o…

Re #1: Correct.

Re #2: Unless you are a contractor. I was shocked to learn how much the about-to-retire ~20-30 year guys were making compared to my mid/senior level long-term contractor position was paying.

Re: Join the U.S. Digital Service

#127

Post by joshwa »

ipsin wrote: post #40

Two 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 da…

1) I was offered a job with the USDS (well, the VA's in-agency team) and I don't have a degree.

2) The max was 155k, but I couldn't make the finances work to relocate from SF with my family... and 155k wasn't enough to support our family comfortably in DC (even living in northern VA).

Re: Join the U.S. Digital Service

#128

Post by arh68 »

eastbayjake wrote: post #83
hkmurakami wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but as we all know, continuity has inherent value that we would lose under say, a drastic replacement of staff.

I get what you're trying to say but literally every department, bureau, and agency replaces leadership and huge numbers of staff when the White House changes parties. We can argue about whether that's a good thing, but those organizations do seem to weather the change and continue on with their core functions. The State Department is vastly more complex than a tech company yet manages to keep itself in order when one…

The State Dept can't be replaced by a federal contractor. USDS can; why not award Raytheon or L3 (or Halliburton) a contract, acquihire the best devs from the old team, and lay the rest off?

Re: Join the U.S. Digital Service

#129

Post by bsbechtel »

dragonwriter wrote: post #85
kalvin wrote: post #75

(I've been working on Healthcare.gov for the past year and know some of the people at USDS; I was also YC S11 and appreciate the great parts of startup culture even more now) PSA: I know it's not easy to tell from the outside, or from a website, but this is the real deal. Things are starting to change; by government standards, at ludicrous speed. The Healthcare.gov crisis really started a useful fire. Todd Park, Mike…

> Imagine if you could help "fix" the IRS with auto-prepped tax returns (definitely seems like the hardest one on this list-- but it's also one that everyone wants to see happen Actually, its mostly hard politically, because not everyone wants to see it happen. Particularly, tax preparation firms and tax software sellers want tax returns to be difficult so that their business stays in demand, and lobby heavily agains…

There's also a whole mess of HUGE conflicts of interest and moral dilemmas with the issue of taking a private company's tax dollars, and using those tax dollars to develop and sell a competing product, which would then presumably reduce the revenue (and thus tax revenue) of the private company.

Re: Join the U.S. Digital Service

#130

Post by chiph »

nether wrote: post #51
tdaltonc wrote: post #31

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.

Try applying for a hiking permit. Some CA ranger stations take only snail mail or, wait for it, fax.

> hiking permit

Wait, what? Is this like a yearly state park pass? Or is this paid every time you want to go take a walk in the woods?

Post reply on HN