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This is a bizarre thing that keeps popping up here. This assumption that as soon as somebody learns how to code, they pack up and move to the Bay Area. Since wh

This is a bizarre thing that keeps popping up here. This assumption that as soon as somebody learns how to code, they pack up and move to the Bay Area. Since when was Silicon Valley the only place with competent software developers? We exist all over the planet, often getting paid very different amounts, and usually, yes, very much less than Bay Area developers. In reality, the USAF here is competing against the cost of defence contractors. Which it turns out, is pretty easy because they've been charging megabucks for everything for two decades because their only competition has been other defence contractors. Thanks to politics, right or wrong, they've had no capacity to ramp-up on in-house development and submit their own bids to really compete on price. I really hope we're entering into an age of reality where public organisations (military, government, healthcare in the civilised world, etc) —and more, the people funding them— realise that in-housing development work is so much cheaper than farming it out.

mattmanser 8y ago
To be fair on them, one of the reasons it got so expensive was probably also because it all followed waterfall and the USAF would pile on every conceivable, often contradictory requirement, rather than start with an MVP and iterate. Plus it would take huge amounts of salesman/consultant hours to get through the bidding process, plus each successful bid has to effectively pay for all the costs of other bids that failed for the consultants to be profitable.
- oliwarner 8y ago
  Oh most definitely. The tender process is awful from start to finish, regardless of market. If nothing else, as you say, it funnels huge amounts of resource away from where it needs to go (the product, developers and engineers) and into the pockets of salesmen, managers and shareholders. It just doesn't make sense for public money. But MVPs aren't always themselves a viable development target... Especially here in a military scenario where the finished product tends to be the MVP. Safe enough and hopefully effective.
- mcculley 8y ago
  For the Air Force, the MVP is often something that can do a lot of damage. Some things require expensive upfront design. One cannot just iterate through two week sprints until the crew survives.
  - mgkimsal 8y ago
    however, that MVP - used in a test environment - can lead to much more useful feedback from real people on the ground in days or weeks, vs years to build then deploy then getting ignored because it doesn't do what the users need. There's a balance to be found, and it sounds like some of these skunkworks approaches are starting to get more formalized.
TheCoelacanth 8y ago
Government pay scales don't apply to government contractors, though. It would definitely be possible to develop things at a lower cost than defense contractors do, but not with the artificial limits on salaries imposed by the law.
- oliwarner 8y ago
  I've had several reads of this now, and don't understand which way you're arguing. The current US Government pay scales are more than enough to match average developer salaries in much of the US. No, they're not going to get super-rich but they could get paid more than enough, help their country and have a stable job that doesn't rely on finding ways to monetise faddy bullshit ideas.
leetbulb 8y ago
Honestly, I'd much rather work for the US Govt. than some snazzy SV company, regardless of pay.
jrochkind1 8y ago
> This assumption that as soon as somebody learns how to code, they pack up and move to the Bay Area... In reality, the USAF here is competing against the cost of defence contractors. Exactly. The airmen that can leave, will leave to defense contractors, not silicon valley.
- oliwarner 8y ago
  The armed forces training people to go into private versions is nothing new. The difference here —that you don't see in military engineering or mercenary work— is the USAF can control both supply of and demand for developers on its internal projects and undercut contractors. And if they have transferable skills on exit, all the better for them.
  - jrochkind1 8y ago
    Why couldn't they do the same with any other kind of military contracting?
    - oliwarner 8y ago
      The cost to get up and running. You're taking hundreds of millions in capital expenditure for an engineering R&D lab. Double that if you want to actually produce something. Compared to a pile of consultants, laptops and whiteboards. Software is cheap to make.

mattmanser 8y ago

To be fair on them, one of the reasons it got so expensive was probably also because it all followed waterfall and the USAF would pile on every conceivable, often contradictory requirement, rather than start with an MVP and iterate. Plus it would take huge amounts of salesman/consultant hours to get through the bidding process, plus each successful bid has to effectively pay for all the costs of other bids that failed for the consultants to be profitable.

oliwarner 8y ago
Oh most definitely. The tender process is awful from start to finish, regardless of market. If nothing else, as you say, it funnels huge amounts of resource away from where it needs to go (the product, developers and engineers) and into the pockets of salesmen, managers and shareholders. It just doesn't make sense for public money. But MVPs aren't always themselves a viable development target... Especially here in a military scenario where the finished product tends to be the MVP. Safe enough and hopefully effective.
mcculley 8y ago
For the Air Force, the MVP is often something that can do a lot of damage. Some things require expensive upfront design. One cannot just iterate through two week sprints until the crew survives.
- mgkimsal 8y ago
  however, that MVP - used in a test environment - can lead to much more useful feedback from real people on the ground in days or weeks, vs years to build then deploy then getting ignored because it doesn't do what the users need. There's a balance to be found, and it sounds like some of these skunkworks approaches are starting to get more formalized.

TheCoelacanth 8y ago

Government pay scales don't apply to government contractors, though. It would definitely be possible to develop things at a lower cost than defense contractors do, but not with the artificial limits on salaries imposed by the law.

oliwarner 8y ago
I've had several reads of this now, and don't understand which way you're arguing. The current US Government pay scales are more than enough to match average developer salaries in much of the US. No, they're not going to get super-rich but they could get paid more than enough, help their country and have a stable job that doesn't rely on finding ways to monetise faddy bullshit ideas.

leetbulb 8y ago

Honestly, I'd much rather work for the US Govt. than some snazzy SV company, regardless of pay.

jrochkind1 8y ago

> This assumption that as soon as somebody learns how to code, they pack up and move to the Bay Area... In reality, the USAF here is competing against the cost of defence contractors. Exactly. The airmen that can leave, will leave to defense contractors, not silicon valley.

oliwarner 8y ago
The armed forces training people to go into private versions is nothing new. The difference here —that you don't see in military engineering or mercenary work— is the USAF can control both supply of and demand for developers on its internal projects and undercut contractors. And if they have transferable skills on exit, all the better for them.
- jrochkind1 8y ago
  Why couldn't they do the same with any other kind of military contracting?
  - oliwarner 8y ago
    The cost to get up and running. You're taking hundreds of millions in capital expenditure for an engineering R&D lab. Double that if you want to actually produce something. Compared to a pile of consultants, laptops and whiteboards. Software is cheap to make.