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You're not wrong - there are a lot of crappy contractor teams out there working for the government... just like in the private sector. But I've never seen a go

You're not wrong - there are a lot of crappy contractor teams out there working for the government... just like in the private sector. But I've never seen a gov. contractor purposefully add analytics code. It's far more likely that one of those free frameworks, ui-kits, or fonts, benevolently provided by one of the privacy-invading Silicon Valley behemoths, ended up in the code base. Anyway, there's a good reason that the government doesn't hire their own developers. Hiring a GS14 (at least), who writes code all day, is going to end up being far more expensive than a contractor after paying the lavish benefits, pensions, etc. which federal employees receive. Furthermore, most government projects are only a few years long. The government uses contractors because they can get rid of the dev teams when they're finished with the project. Can't do that with gov workers. Every decade or so, there is a push to use less contracts and hire more in-house Federal workers. And then the payrolls become bloated, and the next administration goes back to less feds, more contractors.

rrcaptain 9y ago
>after paying the lavish benefits, pensions, etc. which federal employees receive. Federal benefits are not that lavish on an international scale. You get things that are considered human rights in other countries and a good pension. And while the benefits may cost the government more in the long wrong, the subcontractor is still taking a profit off what they're paying developers. I'd rather tax dollars go to the actual worker than some corporation. >Furthermore, most government projects are only a few years long. The government uses contractors because they can get rid of the dev teams when they're finished with the project. Can't do that with gov workers. That's part of the problem though. If you're on a contract, you know you're expendable. You have no skin in the game other than doing the bare minimum to not get fired because the actual client (the government) is several layers removed from you. And getting rid of contractors after you're done with them doesn't really add up to software. For one, many contractors work as contractors for years, moving from project to project. You can do the exact same thing in-house. Groups like 18F and USDS mean that you can move employees around as necessary.

rrcaptain 9y ago

>after paying the lavish benefits, pensions, etc. which federal employees receive. Federal benefits are not that lavish on an international scale. You get things that are considered human rights in other countries and a good pension. And while the benefits may cost the government more in the long wrong, the subcontractor is still taking a profit off what they're paying developers. I'd rather tax dollars go to the actual worker than some corporation. >Furthermore, most government projects are only a few years long. The government uses contractors because they can get rid of the dev teams when they're finished with the project. Can't do that with gov workers. That's part of the problem though. If you're on a contract, you know you're expendable. You have no skin in the game other than doing the bare minimum to not get fired because the actual client (the government) is several layers removed from you. And getting rid of contractors after you're done with them doesn't really add up to software. For one, many contractors work as contractors for years, moving from project to project. You can do the exact same thing in-house. Groups like 18F and USDS mean that you can move employees around as necessary.