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I met some of the former Googlers working for the USDS. They seemed to be many pre-IPO SREs who decided that improving government was more important than being
by philip1209 10y ago
I met some of the former Googlers working for the USDS. They seemed to be many pre-IPO SREs who decided that improving government was more important than being an LP at a VC fund. They were motivated by getting tens of millions of people healthcare, and along the way they encountered huge challenges - like figuring out how to reconcile VA and Pentagon records. Their passion was inspiring, and the work they do affects millions without much glamor.
If you think healthcare.gov was a mess, in the USA there are more branches of federal government, 50 state governments, and countless local governments whose technology is inadequate for serving its constituents.
Things like healthcare, visas, and electricity all rely on aging software projects. Yet, some of these systems don't have strong backups, are not automated, and may run on infrastructure like Windows XP. Some parts are ticking timebombs in terms of security and upkeep costs.
- theDoug 10y agoI don't feel this gets enough focus. When you're working at a place of high prestige and global impact, you're going to want to keep that up where you skills can continue to benefit many (whether your original employer is one or ther other).
- alexose 10y agoThanks for this. In my experience at USDS over the last year, it's absolutely true.
- TheSageMage 10y agoSo I'm a software engineer in SF who would love to work on projects like you mentioned. Where do I look and what do I look for?
- philip1209 10y agoI'm not associated with USDS, but email me (see profile) and I'll get you an intro.
- alexose 10y agoUSDS is hiring! https://www.usds.gov/join https://www.usds.gov/join If you want to work remote from SF, check out 18F: https://pages.18f.gov/joining-18f/ https://pages.18f.gov/joining-18f/
- Abundnce10 10y agoIt looks like 18F isn't hiring currently: https://pages.18f.gov/joining-18f/open-positions/ https://pages.18f.gov/joining-18f/open-positions/ We're briefly pausing accepting new applications while we evolve how 18F plans for open roles.
- rmason 10y agoYou might also want to try becoming a Code For America fellow for a year working in cities: https://www.codeforamerica.org/do-something/work-with-us/fellowship-application https://www.codeforamerica.org/do-something/work-with-us/fel...
- hiram112 10y agoLooks interesting. Unfortunately they are not currently accepting applications.
- gkop 10y agoBinti makes software that is transforming child welfare services administration. We work together in SF and are growing rapidly. Info in profile.
- asimuvPR 10y agoWhat's your stack like?
- gkop 10y agoBinti's main SaaS web product is a conventional monolithic Rails/Postgres app that delivers value in heaps and heaps, and remains super fun to hack on. We're building the monolith up higher and higher, and looking forward to soon chipping off a service or two (perhaps in Elixir?). Specific engineering roles we have open are for someone that is highly-opinionated on the front-end stack/practices, a security specialist, and a UX/a11y specialist. We're using Kubernetes for cluster management. Also hiring in sales and customer success.
- asimuvPR 10y agoInteresting. Thanks for the info. Is no recent rails experience an issue? I have django experience (years worth) but anything recent with rails (nothing after rails 2).
- mattybrennan 10y agoAlso check out adhocteam.us. I don't work there, but they're doing important work for HHS and VA.
- asimuvPR 10y agoThanks for linking to them. I found their code challenges and they are interesting (I do them as a hobby).
- navahq 10y agoAlso check out Nava-- we're a part of the original team and continuing to improve Healthcare.gov and work on other projects, and we're actively hiring for software engineers in SF and DC. See profile for details!
- asimuvPR 10y agoThis seems really interesting! Is there a way to learn more before applying? :)
- nxzero 10y agoEmail: jobs@navahq.com Background: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/07/the-secret-startup-saved-healthcare-gov-the-worst-website-in-america/397784/ http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/07/the-se... Jobs: http://navahq.com/careers http://navahq.com/careers
- asimuvPR 10y agoThanks for the info.
- Thaxll 10y agoThe problem with gov is that everything is slow has hell / old tech on top of corporate contracts with the like of Oracle / SAP. I don't expect to improve things there because of all thoses problems + layers of bureaucracy.
- philip1209 10y agoI think that it's a problem of "outsource" vs "in-house." Government is like a microservice architecture where each service being built by a different corporation with a non-technical PM leading integrations. Then, it gets maintained by basically nobody and is expected to work in perpetuity. From what I have observed, having an in-house technical team at the government - even small - aids all of these projects. In fact, that's basically what this team is - SREs - professionals at running and maintaining code. A small integrations / uptime team that understands the implications of design decisions aids everything.
- hoorayimhelping 10y agoThat's one problem, and it's a total drag. Another one I encountered was the sheer weight of the crushing mediocrity. Everybody just punching in, staring at their computers, going through the motions, and punching out to commute home. Nobody cared enough to try to make anything better, it's just keep your head down, collect your pension in 40 years, don't cause too much of a kerfuffle.
- danielrhodes 10y agoI would imagine that silo'ing all these projects in outsourced contracts and agencies really exacerbates this whole mess. It would be far better to centralize the IT infrastructure of the federal government, perhaps even into its own agency. For compliance, cross-integration, security, and just efficiency, doing it in house would make far more sense. I've seen the distributed approach done at a university and it was a total bureaucratic don't step on my toes mess - when they centralized, things got organized very quickly.
- giancarlostoro 10y agoI've seen it do the opposite at a college. I would say always allow room for external auditing. Every few set of years. To disallow for coderot and even "developermold" which essentially produces coderot. I believed the same. I think we need maybe either a tech branch or sub-branches per branch of government. Contracting is great and all but we need consistent development not one time fixes. I'm sick of hearing about how our government got hacked here or there every now and then.
- gnu8 10y ago> Your specific background, including current salary and years of experience, will ultimately determine your pay. U.S. Digital Service salaries are set in accordance with the General Schedule Pay Scale, which is capped at $160,300. All of the Googlers you've met who work for USDS are already well funded from their previous companies. Who in their right mind would go to work for the government, for minimum wage, unless they were already independently wealthy?
- nowarninglabel 10y agoNot everyone is motivated solely by money.
- trentmb 10y agoHow many people in USDS don't have substantial wealth from prior gigs though?
- johnchristopher 10y ago$13,000 a month is minimum wage ?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- gnu8 10y agoYou're going to see closer to $4000 per month after tax.
- w1ntermute 10y agoThat is false. A single person making $160k/year and living in northern VA would receive $9k/mo in after-tax income.
- eropple 10y agoI would love to see your math for this.
- noobermin 10y agoI feel okay hearing about improving backups, may be some automation, etc, but "age" should not only imply these things. Age seems can often also imply "understood."
- _yosefk 10y agoTFA mentions ex-Googlers in the FCC, the FTC and the DOD, which are different branches of government from the USDS. TFA also says "there have been at least 15 moves between Google and its lobbying firms and those commissions." The "lobbying firms" probably had people doing less, um, technical things. "Amey said he’s not as concerned about programmers moving over – and quite a few data engineers who worked on Obama’s re-election campaign have ended up in White House jobs – but top level executives changing jobs can raise “red flags.”"
- DannyBee 10y ago"TFA mentions ex-Googlers in the FCC, the FTC and the DOD," FWIW: Some of the folks they are counting are interns, AFAICT. Otherwise, i have trouble seeing what the hullaboo is about. For example, Matthew Bye (Disclaimer: i've worked closely with Matthew for years) is someone they claim went from the FTC to Google. He got a job at the FTC out of law school for a few years. Then he went to Wilson Sonshini for 3 years. Then he went to Google, where's he's been 7 years (started regular counsel, now a director). Not sure what is supposed to be wrong with this. Moving between private law firms and corp counsel is common, people trade off "partner track millions with crazy hours" for "sane hours and reasonable pay". Moving between government and private law firms is common too (note: there are specific legal ethics rules that cover this in both directions. I make no claim they are perfect, but they do exist!). People often start out idealistic, or in government, because they have a ton of jobs. Especially in a tough legal market, it's a good place to be. They get tired of the politics or whatever, and go elsewhere. Some to private firms, some to corp counsel. If you want a more mundane example: Eric Hysen is listed in the data. I hired him (first as an intern, then as a regular employee) and he worked for me until I left the DC office. He left mainly because he specifically wanted to help government get better, and USDS was a very hard thing to turn down in that regard. Again, don't see what is wrong with that. Staring at the actual US data, i'm also not sure who the "lobbying firms" are supposed to be. Because the data doesn't list any[1] So either they are incorrectly marking those folks as "Google" (they aren't. The lobbying firms are not exclusive to Google in any way, shape or form. It also doesn't even claim the folks who went from the lobbying firm ever handled google as a client), or it's not in the data they give. The data also doesn't say when they left google vs when they joined government. If you click the linked in links, there are often multi-year gaps here where they worked for others. [1] Edit: Oooh, finally found one person they list from a "Google lobbying firm" : http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/227736-obama-hires-of-former-senate-staffer-to-deal-with-new-congress http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/227736-obama-hi... Not sure what that has to do with Google in any way (here's the linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marty-paone-90853718 https://www.linkedin.com/in/marty-paone-90853718)