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> It's the poster-child definition of "big slow bureaucracy" and it's asked to pull off high complexity feats at large scale, with little, uncompetitive money t
by wolfgke 10y ago
> It's the poster-child definition of "big slow bureaucracy" and it's asked to pull off high complexity feats at large scale, with little, uncompetitive money to offer to recruits (in comparison to the private sector)
If you have good reasons why you cannot offer so much money, there are still options available to attract smart people for the job: Just give them a lot more intellectual freedom to do "the right thing" (instead of having to implement political compromises) and give them the authority to be really allowed to do so. Also not every smart person who can, say, program really well "is a startup guy". There are people who prefer a "more safe, plannable career" - here public service has something to offer. Also it might be a good idea to have the job at still attractive places that have a very low cost of living: What is interesting is "salary minus cost of living". So these jobs can still enable a higher standard of living than, say in SF or NY, while paying much less.
TLDR: There are lots of other ways to attract smart people if you have serious reasons why you cannot offer so much money. But you have to be willing.
- aianus 10y agoWhy can't government outbid Google in salary? They can certainly afford it.
- nradov 10y ago"Right" is usually a matter of opinion in IT. In my experience IT professionals often have passionate opinions on the right technical approach which aren't based on any actual hard data and fail to account for critical business issues. So just giving people intellectual freedom is unlikely to produce good results in the long run; there has to be a structure and process in place to prevent serious problems.
- CountSessine 10y agoJust give them a lot more intellectual freedom to do "the right thing" (instead of having to implement political compromises) and give them the authority to be really allowed to do so That's exactly the one thing that working in the public service CAN'T provide you. If you screw up, you and everyone in the chain of responsibility right up to the people who directly report to your ministry's cabinet member have their necks on the line; public service employees typically enjoy very posh pensions and no one is looking to lose that by getting sacked. I think we incentivize public service employees to do the safe thing rather than the right thing when those two things are not the same. Losing a public service pension is a terrible cost for failure, and I don't think we equivalently reward the success-side of risk for these people. It would be interesting to know what government could accomplish if the public service gave compensation that was more in line with the private sector.
- wolfgke 10y ago> That's exactly the one thing that working in the public service CAN'T provide you. Counterexample: In Germany university professors are part of the public service. They (as probably every tenured university professor nearly anywhere worldwide) do have lots of freedom in the research they do etc.