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As one of the "Federal IT managers" actually doing this, there are too many broad statements here that the overall message ends up being misleading. If you wer
by AndrewKemendo 7y ago
As one of the "Federal IT managers" actually doing this, there are too many broad statements here that the overall message ends up being misleading.
If you were completely cynical, then you could find enough examples to make anything in here seem true.
For example, this entire paragraph is wrong:
Here’s something that will surprise you a lot: when it comes to government, cloud computing represents a huge shift of money from the public sector to the private sector. It’s the privatization of of government data. Lock-in is completely ignored: how will government departments ever get their data back out of the cloud? “Not my problem,” says the federal IT manager, “besides, there’s nothing about lock-in in these Powerpoint slides.”
There is realistically too much here to unpack in a comment, but I would say that the overall thesis of the article is pointing in the right direction.
However it's not like failure is a forgone conclusion, if competent people (like a lot of you reading this are) join the government to actually help fix these things then we can actually do things correctly. I posted in the Who's Hiring Thread last month so we're ready whenever you are.
- irrational 7y agoI've never actually looked into government tech jobs, but my assumption is that they would pay much less than a competent person could make in the private sector. Other than pay or patriotism, what would motivate a competent person to want to work for the government?
- simplify 7y agoSame reason competent people work for non-profits.
- booleandilemma 7y agoThey might do this specifically to filter for patriotic people.
- AndrewKemendo 7y agoPatriotism is the wrong word. If you think that your government should be doing things a different way, and you feel you know how to do it better then you have a couple of avenues to participate. One of them is joining the government in a capacity that allows you to affect change directly. It's true, you aren't going to get paid $500,000 a year for being a software engineer. However, the USG does not pay subsistence wages. For entry level Data Science jobs in Boston we pay better than the market, and with better benefits, a union, matching investment accounts, low cost health insurance, stability and many other things you don't have elsewhere. We also have opportunities to work on things that you just can't elsewhere.
- ntsplnkv2 7y agoLet's be honest - working for the government is a very poor way to affect change in it. The decision makers are also very far removed compared to private corporations and certainly so compared to smaller more agile companies like startups.
- freepor 7y agoBut in the federal government sometimes the decision makers are so absent that you become the decision maker. As in, the President appoints his golf buddy to run a big agency, that guy spends all his time with hookers and drugs and your agency is left to its own devices.
- ntsplnkv2 7y agoWhich is insanely scary. I'm sorry, I don't want people in the government unilaterally implementing change they happen to think is the right thing, anymore than I want a dictator.
- freepor 7y agoWell that’s what happens when the elected leadership isn’t held accountable for performance.
- AndrewKemendo 7y agoI am sitting here, as a government employee, telling you that you can actually make change. And at least for this problem set, you can make it in an extremely impactful way. Whether you believe me or not is up to you.
- ianandrich 7y agoI'm intrigued. What are some of your favorite stories about effecting change from within the government?
- 7y ago
- axguscbklp 7y agoIf the government wants to attract competent people, maybe it should first get rid of mass NSA domestic surveillance, purge the CIA of everyone who was responsible for extraordinary rendition, and try harder not to murder innocent people overseas. As things currently stand, I feel morally disgusted just paying taxes in the US. I definitely would never work in anything that even somewhat came close to the military or intelligence agencies.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- intrepidhero 7y agoI couldn't find your post in "Who's Hiring? [March|February] 2020". Link?
- AndrewKemendo 7y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22227109 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22227109
- jkaptur 7y agoThe link says “ March 3-4 hiring event applications are close and we...” Should that be “closeD”? Or is it meant to inform that the event applications are imminent?
- intrepidhero 7y agoThanks!
- frequentnapper 7y agocan canadian citizens apply?
- AndrewKemendo 7y agoIn some cases absolutely. We have Canadian partners today.