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Back to SF After the U.S. Digital Service

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Re: Back to SF After the U.S. Digital Service

#11

Post by acdha »

gkoberger wrote: post #3
_nqbv wrote: post #2

I didn't catch this part- why did the author leave? Was it just a term end and he chose not to renew it?

They do "tours of duty", since I think they found people had a hard time moving to DC permanently. Using this, they've managed to get a lot of people to take sabbaticals from their Google/FB/etc jobs. "Quit your high paying job and indefinitely work for the government" is a hard sell; "come do something awesome for 6 months then go back" is much easier.

If anyone reading this is looking for a more permanent job working for the government, check out https://18f.gsa.gov/ which is trying to build up a modern software group which provides services for the rest of the government. Ben Balter, Github's Government evangelist, summarized the difference between the two here:

http://ben.balter.com/2015/04/22/the-difference-between-18f-...

(Disclaimer: I don't work there but know a number of people who do and, as a taxpayer, am cheering them on)

Re: Back to SF After the U.S. Digital Service

#12

Post by gkoberger »

_nqbv wrote: post #10
gkoberger wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do "tours of duty", since I think they found people had a hard time moving to DC permanently. Using this, they've managed to get a lot of people to take sabbaticals from their Google/FB/etc jobs. "Quit your high paying job and indefinitely work for the government" is a hard sell; "come do something awesome for 6 months then go back" is much easier.

So I was aware of their tours of duty, but I thought that was not a carrot for outsiders to come in, but rather a way to circumvent the traditional hiring process. Probably doesn't hurt that the commitment is temporary. From what I understood, rather than go through the job listing process with position writeups, giving veteran and disability preferences, dealing with HR on the certification process, getting various…

I'm sure there's a bunch of reasons they went with tours of duty. I do also know that a manageable hiring process was really important to them.

Re: Back to SF After the U.S. Digital Service

#13

Post by dragonwriter »

dnautics wrote: post #8
angersock wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good part of the reason that they spend that money is because they've been discouraged and hamstrung from developing those expertise in-house.

Don't forget the mechanism by which government spends money - it issues a bond, which gets converted to dollars. The bond comes with interest, and the interest payments go to rich people (banks).

That's the mechanism by which government borrows money; the mechanism by which government spends money is that it takes money out of the pile which it has either borrowed or received in revenue (taxes, user fees, proceeds of government-run enterprises) and spends it. (This ignores the possibility of government receiving grants directly for the particular spending, which also happens, more for some governments than others...)

Marginal increases in spending once revenues are completely used may be, in effect, equivalent to increases in borrowing, but spending in general is not equivalent to borrowing, so the mechanism for government borrowing money should not be presented as the mechanism for government spending money.

Re: Back to SF After the U.S. Digital Service

#14

Post by steven777400 »

acdha wrote: post #11
gkoberger wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do "tours of duty", since I think they found people had a hard time moving to DC permanently. Using this, they've managed to get a lot of people to take sabbaticals from their Google/FB/etc jobs. "Quit your high paying job and indefinitely work for the government" is a hard sell; "come do something awesome for 6 months then go back" is much easier.

If anyone reading this is looking for a more permanent job working for the government, check out https://18f.gsa.gov/ which is trying to build up a modern software group which provides services for the rest of the government. Ben Balter, Github's Government evangelist, summarized the difference between the two here: http://ben.balter.com/2015/04/22/the-difference-between-18f-... (Disclaimer: I don't work there but kn…

Interestingly, they say 18F jobs are capped at four years. I wonder if this is a harbinger of change overall in government employment from being "lifers" to a more mobile workforce where people perform "civil service" at all levels as a more temporary thing (like elected positions are intended to be). On the other hand, it also strikes me a possible way to select for younger (less encumbered/tied down) applicants without explicitly performing age discrimination.

Re: Back to SF After the U.S. Digital Service

#15

Post by walshemj »

rayiner wrote: post #9
jacobolus wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, “the revolving door” refers to people spending time working as legislators/executive officials, and then going to work in the same industry they were regulating, and basically getting time-shifted favors/salary in return for their help while in office. Spending 6 months or whatever working as a programmer for the US Digital Service and then going back to a job in industry is something quite different.

Won't argue that doesn't happen, but it's overstated. People from industry go into government for the same reason people join the digital service: because they think that the skills and knowledge they gained in industry can let them do the job better than the government can without them.[1] And these appointments are temporary for the same reason digital service appointments are temporary: people are only so willing…

That's a big ask Googles software requires a different mind set than say correctly calculating veterans pensions.

From googles perspective having 2 or 3% suboptimal query's is fine but that wont pass muster for other types of work.

Try building billing systems for a global Telco and have one of Vint Cerfs reports nudge you and say this had be right otherwise we are both out of a job :-)

Re: Back to SF After the U.S. Digital Service

#16

Post by carlosdp »

I think the US Digital Service is a great initiative and I'll consider taking a tour myself in the future. That said, I don't really like these kinds of thinkers who believe the only companies that are doing something "that matters" are non-profits working directly on a specific problem in healthcare or poverty.

I have yet to work for a company, from non-profit internet companies to product-oriented SaaS startup powerhouses, that didn't enable some great initiative or program that could not have existed without that company creating and improving their product and making it accessible, via availability or cost, to the non-profit that needed to worry about doing their actual work.

Take the author's old company, Google, for example. They don't do anything "that matters"? I assure you there are many non-profits, charities, and important initiatives around the world that would have a much harder time if they didn't benefit from technologies that Google ushered in to the world. Mass, cheap communication via free email that is highly-available and untied from specific ISPs. Free, globally available document storage to safely store records and share documents across the globe, saving on the cost of having an entire department to handle the same task.

These products may seem frivolous and unnecessary to us, because we can (maybe) live without them. But there are organizations directly doing important, charitable work that can't. Saying product companies that don't directly work on the world's poverty, social, or health (etc.) problems are not working on "things that matter" is just pretentious, in my opinion.

All that said, the author has the right to feel the way he feels and work wherever and on whatever he wants to. Just don't tell everyone else what they do doesn't really matter.

But that's just my two cents =)

Re: Back to SF After the U.S. Digital Service

#17

Post by akilism »

steven777400 wrote: post #14
acdha wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anyone reading this is looking for a more permanent job working for the government, check out https://18f.gsa.gov/ which is trying to build up a modern software group which provides services for the rest of the government. Ben Balter, Github's Government evangelist, summarized the difference between the two here: http://ben.balter.com/2015/04/22/the-difference-between-18f-... (Disclaimer: I don't work there but kn…

Interestingly, they say 18F jobs are capped at four years. I wonder if this is a harbinger of change overall in government employment from being "lifers" to a more mobile workforce where people perform "civil service" at all levels as a more temporary thing (like elected positions are intended to be). On the other hand, it also strikes me a possible way to select for younger (less encumbered/tied down) applicants wit…

Yeah both USDS and 18F are capped at the same length of time. There's a pretty good article about USDS @ http://www.fastcompany.com/3046756/obama-and-his-geeks

Re: Back to SF After the U.S. Digital Service

#18

Post by colechristensen »

dnautics wrote: post #8
angersock wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good part of the reason that they spend that money is because they've been discouraged and hamstrung from developing those expertise in-house.

Don't forget the mechanism by which government spends money - it issues a bond, which gets converted to dollars. The bond comes with interest, and the interest payments go to rich people (banks).

This poorly represents where the US national debt goes.

About 30% of the debt is owned by federal agencies ... that is the government owes itself that money. Social Security is the easiest (and largest) example. It owns about $3 trillion of the federal debt which it is saving (for now income>expenses for SS) for when it is needed as the population ages.

40% is owned by foreign governments. Being indebted to foreign countries isn't so bad. It means they have faith in you and are rooting for your success. It supports peace and cooperation.

The federal reserve owns about $3 trillion. This is the institution that creates dollars out of thin air. The interest paid to the fed goes right back into the treasury – the fed uses this as a control mechanism to keep the currency stable growing and shrinking the money supply. Lots of mildly ignorant people really hate the idea of the fed, but few of them have even the slightest understanding of how it works.

State and Local governments own another trillion – interest paid here is just like a different route to funding state and local governments, not something you can complain about all that much.

As for "rich people" mutual funds and banks own together about $1.5 trillion. A lot of those are pretty average folks. Even then this is only ~%10 of the $18 trillion debt.

There are a few other owners of us debt... Saving Bonds and insurance companies account for another few hundred billion together. The rest are odds and ends significantly smaller than anything mentioned above.

To summarize, the majority of the US debt is owned domestically, much of it by domestic government. Only a small minority of the interest goes to "rich people".

Re: Back to SF After the U.S. Digital Service

#19

Post by linkregister »

walshemj wrote: post #15
rayiner wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Won't argue that doesn't happen, but it's overstated. People from industry go into government for the same reason people join the digital service: because they think that the skills and knowledge they gained in industry can let them do the job better than the government can without them.[1] And these appointments are temporary for the same reason digital service appointments are temporary: people are only so willing…

That's a big ask Googles software requires a different mind set than say correctly calculating veterans pensions. From googles perspective having 2 or 3% suboptimal query's is fine but that wont pass muster for other types of work. Try building billing systems for a global Telco and have one of Vint Cerfs reports nudge you and say this had be right otherwise we are both out of a job :-)

I'm pretty sure that a billing error in Adwords would cause a fairly large controversy!
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