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US Tech Force

techforce.gov

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Re: US Tech Force

#251

Post by zbentley »

ethbr1 wrote: post #180
ivanech wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the new grad DOGE employees were GS-15s. So yes, it seems likely that they plan to hire at GS-14 or GS-15.

Nothing like putting in a multi decade civil service career and coming in one day to find a 20-something installed over you whose primary qualification was being hired at a "friendly" tech company and making the right kind of joke around the CEO. ... although that seems depressingly like it would also be the experience with new administrators being installed in executive agencies every 4 years, except they're slightl…

> Nothing like putting in a multi decade civil service career and coming in one day to find a 20-something installed over you

GS grade does not correspond directly to manager/managee relationships at plenty of federal agencies. Someone getting hired at a higher GS grade is not automatically “over you” in the formal reporting hierarchy. That’s not to say this never happens (GS:org chart level is the case more often than not, I’d guess), but it’s not a given.

Now, if your issue is that agencies sometimes offer high (by the standards of current employees) GS grades to attract talented hires, then I agree that is a problem! The solution to that is to improve government pay scales and fix fed hiring more generally: https://www.eatingpolicy.com/p/dear-mr-kupor-please-fix-fede...

Until that is done, (good) policies like the Pendleton Act cannot help that much.

Re: US Tech Force

#252

Post by mbesto »

tptacek wrote: post #137
mbesto wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you think otherwise, you're in a filter bubble. Belittling. Excellent way to get your point across. > They actively recruit on elite engineering campuses over it. It is super fucking interesting work and candidates compete for the opportunity to do it. This seems like it should be an easy thing to verify with some sort of reference. This is exactly what the parent comment is suggesting and you still flippantly a…

I don't really care in this instance, because the information I'm relaying here is obviously, verifiably correct. It's not like, a persuasion challenge for me here. I'm just relating basic facts.

Flippant again. Nice.

Re: US Tech Force

#253

Post by tptacek »

mbesto wrote: post #252
tptacek wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really care in this instance, because the information I'm relaying here is obviously, verifiably correct. It's not like, a persuasion challenge for me here. I'm just relating basic facts.

Flippant again. Nice.

If you have something to say, I think you should say it. This is vacuous. I understand why it's unpopular to relate the fact that applications for serious surveillance/espionage CNE work at NSA are competitive, and that the USG is very open about soliciting those applications. It remains a fact. Feel free to challenge me on that; we can go deeper.

What I'm not going to do is write you an apology for confronting you with that information.

Re: US Tech Force

#254

Post by zbentley »

ipython wrote: post #223
sheepscreek wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not being dismissive of your experience (or that of a civil servant with 10s of years of experience). I have a deep respect for that kind of work and folks who give up more lucrative opportunities in order to serve their country and fellow citizens. > whose primary qualification was being hired at a "friendly" tech company and making the right kind of joke around the CEO That’s being awfully dismissive of the individ…

For DOGE specifically? Would be interested to hear of those DOGE employees who truly deserved to be GS-15s due to their extensive experience in both tech and government.

> extensive experience in both tech and government.

The USDS (group that was renamed to a part of DOGE) has previously hired with an emphasis on non government experience: http://govciomedia.com/usds-developing-innovative-approach-t...

Re: US Tech Force

#255

Post by gcanyon »

jotux wrote: post #58

>What is the expected compensation for participants? Compensation varies based on experience level and agency placement. Annual salaries are expected to be in the approximate range of $150,000 to $200,000. Benefits include health insurance, retirement plans, paid time off, and eligibility for performance-based awards. >Tech Force will primarily recruit early-career technologists So "early-career" but they're going to…

Serious question: what makes you think team “hold my beer” won’t find a way around past norms, or just ignore them? Not that they actually care enough to do it, but I don’t think they wouldn’t/couldn’t if they did care.

Re: US Tech Force

#256

Post by johnwatson11218 »

exceptione wrote: post #213
johnwatson11218 wrote: post #28

If you want to know what you are up against I highly recommend - https://www.amazon.com/Recoding-America-Government-Failing-D... This book discusses the IT systems at the IRS and VA and shows the kind of push back you can expect from entrenched players.

I don't know the book, but I hope it isn't yet another complaint about bureaucracy in need of "business thinking". I.e., how deep are they digging to find the real players? Because you can bet your home this "AI" initiative is just another instance of Elite Capture¹ here. The last thing any government needs right now is letting its policies and implementations being steered by (and made dependent on) hallucinating "A…

They talk about the specific systems in terms of legacy code and how far removed government agencies are from automated testing and other modern, best practices. It has been a couple of years since I read it but I recall a part about a business process at the IRS that that people don't start learning until they have been there for about 17 years - due to the complexity. It talks about how there had been failed attempts to migrate to a new database, some of the data is now duplicated but the upgrade is de-funded so all the new code has to be aware that data may be duplicated.

I'm not sure if this book got into it but I've also read that the IRS has assembly code from the 1960s that is very optimized and only a few devs can work on it. ChatGPT knows a lot about this history as well.

Re: US Tech Force

#257

Post by fivre »

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46277687 mentioned Recoding America as "what you're up against", omitting the important "people had learned what they were up against and were well into the process of building collaborative effort between civil servants

the book _is_ good, but it's rather disheartening that all the people discussed (and many more that couldn't fit into the book) on the federal side were summarily fired to clear space for sycophants and toadies round one (the DOGE broccoli hair kids siphoning off sensitive data and doing some casual corruption) are putting out this as sycophants and toadies round two: _lasting_ corruption in partnership with the least scrupulous bits of private industry

the people in the book are https://18f.org/ and spent the last decade building useful relationships, familiarity with public sector quirks, and standard software toolkit items for government tech. they got tossed for the crime of working with the Biden admin and wanting to work towards building tech entirely for public good under the auspices of the law.

whatever branding and whatnot this comes wrapped in i don't trust this admin nor whatever bits of the private sector are looking to work with it in the slightest to not stand up something that works in the public interest. we're gonna get new and exciting forms of graft and revolving door exploitation of sensitive data

Re: US Tech Force

#258

Post by zbentley »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #247
ethbr1 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing like putting in a multi decade civil service career and coming in one day to find a 20-something installed over you whose primary qualification was being hired at a "friendly" tech company and making the right kind of joke around the CEO. ... although that seems depressingly like it would also be the experience with new administrators being installed in executive agencies every 4 years, except they're slightl…

That’s the life of a civil servant though By function a GS will ALWAYS be subordinate to a political appointee and there’s nothing they can do about it I posted elsewhere that I left a govt career as a military officer precicely because of this reality. It’s like a old boring joke now that politicians are corrupt and worthless. I will tell you from the inside that not only is it true but it’s 10 times to 100 times wo…

> a GS will ALWAYS be subordinate to a political appointee

It’s worth being specific about what is meant by “political appointee” here. That term has specific legal meaning in the context of federal staffing, and (as I understand it, not a lawyer) is not the same thing as “GS employee who was hired as part of an administration’s political agenda”.

Re: US Tech Force

#259

Post by zbentley »

lowkey_ wrote: post #156
jotux wrote: post #58

>What is the expected compensation for participants? Compensation varies based on experience level and agency placement. Annual salaries are expected to be in the approximate range of $150,000 to $200,000. Benefits include health insurance, retirement plans, paid time off, and eligibility for performance-based awards. >Tech Force will primarily recruit early-career technologists So "early-career" but they're going to…

(1) Are you saying it's bad if they're upping engineer pay to be more competitive, or you're just skeptical that they will? (2) I'd actually like the American government to pay better wages for its engineers, and optimize for hiring the best, rather than those desiring a stable, low-paying bureaucracy — I don't think that attracts the best people. (3) On talent and recruiting: This is being done by the National Desig…

> I'd actually like the American government to pay better wages for its engineers, and optimize for hiring the best

Yes, and a big part of this involves changing the way agencies rely on contractors for specialty work (including tech work).

Re: US Tech Force

#260

Post by zbentley »

exceptione wrote: post #213
johnwatson11218 wrote: post #28

If you want to know what you are up against I highly recommend - https://www.amazon.com/Recoding-America-Government-Failing-D... This book discusses the IT systems at the IRS and VA and shows the kind of push back you can expect from entrenched players.

I don't know the book, but I hope it isn't yet another complaint about bureaucracy in need of "business thinking". I.e., how deep are they digging to find the real players? Because you can bet your home this "AI" initiative is just another instance of Elite Capture¹ here. The last thing any government needs right now is letting its policies and implementations being steered by (and made dependent on) hallucinating "A…

It’s not that. It’s a several-years-old (and still very good) book by one of the original leaders of the USDS, a group which put many of the proposals described therein into practice.
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