7 ms·

In goodbye message, Chaillan unloads over DoD’s technology culture, processes

64 points by mmhsieh 5y ago

commandlinefan 5y ago
> IT is a highly skilled and trained job; staff it as such He's going to be disappointed by the private sector too - I haven't been trained on or even given time to learn anything in at least 20 years. Any learning I (or anybody I've ever worked with) undertake is strictly on personal time only.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jrochkind1 5y ago
> Chaillan added that DoD remains stuck in the outdated water-agile-fall acquisition processes... Wait what?
- markdjacobsen 5y ago
  I can't speak for Chaillan, but as a military member who led an agile software development team similar to his during the same timeframe, I think he's referring to DoD's fondness for buzzwords. Because "agile" is the new hotness, every DoD office and vendor tries to slap the language of agile onto a waterfall model. See this wonderful report from the Defense Innovation Board on "Detecting Agile BS": https://media.defense.gov/2018/Oct/09/2002049591/-1/-1/0/DIB_DETECTING_AGILE_BS_2018.10.05.PDF https://media.defense.gov/2018/Oct/09/2002049591/-1/-1/0/DIB...
- tarkin2 5y ago
  I read it as water-agile-fail at first. Made more sense. I think most of my experience with "agile" has been: we'll make a vague plan that came from god-knows-where, you'll do lots of releases, testers will test incrementally, you'll update us once a week, and at the end we'll release it and you'll do it all again when the users tell us they don't like it or (more likely) when management goes on a new whim. It turned out making a huge plan at the start was a mistake. It also turned out that no one wanted to ask the users what they thought.
  - AtlasBarfed 5y ago
    It would be funny if the DoD is attached to waterfall still. The entire organizing principle of modern US warfare is as fast and adaptive a battlefield loop as possible for: get information -> adapt strategy -> deliver orders. I believe it goes back to Napoleon, who basically conquered all of Europe using those principles and superior organization.
    - gumby 5y ago
      The whole F-35 is a waterfall project gone horribly, horribly wrong, then eventually shipping without most problems being addressed.
      - Pokepokalypse 5y ago
        Lockheed called that process "Spiral". (which DOES have some features of Agile; because development is iterative). Now; aircraft are very different than software. You don't go and manufacture 1000 birds based on a partially completed design. So there's that. The other important thing to note is the F-35 concept was meant to address the sharply rising costs of building warplanes. By taking advantage of "economies of scale" in manufacturing, to build a multi-purpose plane that all three services could use. (so instead of building say; 100 of one design for the USAF, 100 of a completely different design for the Navy, 100 of a third design for the Marines, they'd build 300 planes - but manufacture variants off the same assembly line.) Adding to that scale was the baked-in "deal" to get NATO partners to commit to buying these planes as well. In that regard, it was kind of a stunning success (that they're actually serviceable; even if all three variants have shortcomings due to engineering trade-offs made for this manufacturing flexibility). At the end of the day, there were flaws that arose in the concept; like, the main central titanium bulkhead, which turned out to be FAR more costly to manufacture than was revealed when they built the prototypes. They just kind of "hoped" that the process for that part would end up being cheaper when scaled. And it wasn't cheaper-enough. This makes is sufficiently different to the software development process discussion, that I think it's really an apples-to-oranges comparison.
- dryst 5y ago
  Contracts are written up front for two plus years of work. Waterfall. The DoD and contractors pretend to do agile in the middle by running everything through sprints, even though you can't change the plan. Water-agile-fall
Wonnk13 5y ago
> Living in Maryland, I've met several young people who put in a few years at the agency (including TAO) who then left for industry. Millenials don't care about a government pension, especially when you're in a windowless SCIF hacking Perl. > The US Government as a whole has a massive talent retention problem. Only the mediocre will stay at NSA / CIA now and we'll probably see more of these leaks / hacks. That's a verbatim comment I made on this site back in 2017 and it's still relevant. I don't mean to toot my own horn as much as to highlight the braindrain out of DoD / the alphabet soup agencies and into other sectors. It HAS and WILL CONTINUE to bite the United States in the ass.
- mistrial9 5y ago
  I like the all-caps yellling here, because it simulates someone talking in detail while the other person is not really willing to change no matter what you say.. so the volume increases .. it will ALSO BITE YOU when you treat intelligent people that way COMMANDER
- lumost 5y ago
  The US Government doesn't believe that inflation exists and also doesn't believe that a software engineer or similar professional should make more than 170k per year in the DC metro (GS-13) with 10+ years of experience. This is only 15% higher pay than 10 years ago, meanwhile home prices are up 3x in the DC metro area.
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    Tbf, $170k is also the max that Amazon pays (more or less) in cash. I think the issue here is that the government is overweighting the value of pensions over stock, and underweighting quality of life concerns.
    - jjeaff 5y ago
      Are they overweighting pensions? Retirement after that salary would be pretty valuable. Not to mention the security.
wolverine876 5y ago
Larger discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28408399 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28408399
AtlasBarfed 5y ago
"creation of an enterprisewide DevSecOps managed service featuring more than 800 hardened containers for software development" An infosec manager/exec/director that made software solutions rather than a bunch of policy and powerpoint drivel? AND he was in the federal government? I can't believe it. My #1 complaint about practically all infosec orgs in large corporations is that they set policies and review barriers, but don't offer solutions.
eeiac928 5y ago
If engineering made more money than lawyering would the outcomes be better?
Abishek_Muthian 5y ago
> There are 100,000 software developers in the DoD. We are the largest software organization on the planet, Tata Consultancy Services, India employs more than 500,000 people. They manage the IT stack of companies from Walgreens to Ferrari. I'm not the person to nitpick, But I'm particularly proud of TCS's employment figures because I've personally witnessed many move from being poor to wealthy(by Indian standards) after being employed by them(often the first degree holder in the family). [1] https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/15/economy/tcs-india-it-remote-intl-hnk/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/15/economy/tcs-india-it-remo...
- gaadd33 5y ago
  Just to clarify, TCS seems to only have 500,000 people employed, the whole DOD has roughly 2.86 million as of 2018, of them 100,000 are software developers. I don't think that the entirety of TCS is made up of software developers.
  - Abishek_Muthian 5y ago
    Obviously entirety of 500,000 couldn't be SW developers, But definitely >100,000 are in IT and could be in U.S. alone. >TCS Recognized as the #1 Top Employer in the United States for 2020[1] >more than 327,000 employees were trained on multiple new technologies, and over 404,000 trained on Agile methods. They recruit thousands every year from Engineering colleges in India specifically for SW role. Have been doing that for at least two decades. Their target for FY22 is 40,000 freshers. It's late in India otherwise I could get the exact figures of IT employees in TCS as every Engineer here knows someone who is working in TCS be it Computer Science or Civil Engineer or even Bio Tech(All of them go to work in IT there). [1] https://www.tcs.com/tcs-recognized-as-number-one-top-employer-in-the-united-states-2020 https://www.tcs.com/tcs-recognized-as-number-one-top-employe... [2] https://www.livemint.com/companies/news/tcs-to-hire-40-000-freshers-from-campuses-in-fy22-11625827277025.html https://www.livemint.com/companies/news/tcs-to-hire-40-000-f...
- Pokepokalypse 5y ago
  I attended an interview with them once. (I think it was for one of their clients; American Express). It started in a large conference room, where I was one of about 200 other people. Weirdest interview ever, and also totally inappropriate for my skillset - due to the recruiter not giving a crap, apparently.

64 points by mmhsieh 5y ago

> IT is a highly skilled and trained job; staff it as such He's going to be disappointed by the private sector too - I haven't been trained on or even given time to learn anything in at least 20 years. Any learning I (or anybody I've ever worked with) undertake is strictly on personal time only.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

jrochkind1 5y ago

> Chaillan added that DoD remains stuck in the outdated water-agile-fall acquisition processes... Wait what?

markdjacobsen 5y ago
I can't speak for Chaillan, but as a military member who led an agile software development team similar to his during the same timeframe, I think he's referring to DoD's fondness for buzzwords. Because "agile" is the new hotness, every DoD office and vendor tries to slap the language of agile onto a waterfall model. See this wonderful report from the Defense Innovation Board on "Detecting Agile BS": https://media.defense.gov/2018/Oct/09/2002049591/-1/-1/0/DIB_DETECTING_AGILE_BS_2018.10.05.PDF https://media.defense.gov/2018/Oct/09/2002049591/-1/-1/0/DIB...
tarkin2 5y ago
I read it as water-agile-fail at first. Made more sense. I think most of my experience with "agile" has been: we'll make a vague plan that came from god-knows-where, you'll do lots of releases, testers will test incrementally, you'll update us once a week, and at the end we'll release it and you'll do it all again when the users tell us they don't like it or (more likely) when management goes on a new whim. It turned out making a huge plan at the start was a mistake. It also turned out that no one wanted to ask the users what they thought.
- AtlasBarfed 5y ago
  It would be funny if the DoD is attached to waterfall still. The entire organizing principle of modern US warfare is as fast and adaptive a battlefield loop as possible for: get information -> adapt strategy -> deliver orders. I believe it goes back to Napoleon, who basically conquered all of Europe using those principles and superior organization.
  - gumby 5y ago
    The whole F-35 is a waterfall project gone horribly, horribly wrong, then eventually shipping without most problems being addressed.
    - Pokepokalypse 5y ago
      Lockheed called that process "Spiral". (which DOES have some features of Agile; because development is iterative). Now; aircraft are very different than software. You don't go and manufacture 1000 birds based on a partially completed design. So there's that. The other important thing to note is the F-35 concept was meant to address the sharply rising costs of building warplanes. By taking advantage of "economies of scale" in manufacturing, to build a multi-purpose plane that all three services could use. (so instead of building say; 100 of one design for the USAF, 100 of a completely different design for the Navy, 100 of a third design for the Marines, they'd build 300 planes - but manufacture variants off the same assembly line.) Adding to that scale was the baked-in "deal" to get NATO partners to commit to buying these planes as well. In that regard, it was kind of a stunning success (that they're actually serviceable; even if all three variants have shortcomings due to engineering trade-offs made for this manufacturing flexibility). At the end of the day, there were flaws that arose in the concept; like, the main central titanium bulkhead, which turned out to be FAR more costly to manufacture than was revealed when they built the prototypes. They just kind of "hoped" that the process for that part would end up being cheaper when scaled. And it wasn't cheaper-enough. This makes is sufficiently different to the software development process discussion, that I think it's really an apples-to-oranges comparison.
dryst 5y ago
Contracts are written up front for two plus years of work. Waterfall. The DoD and contractors pretend to do agile in the middle by running everything through sprints, even though you can't change the plan. Water-agile-fall

Wonnk13 5y ago

> Living in Maryland, I've met several young people who put in a few years at the agency (including TAO) who then left for industry. Millenials don't care about a government pension, especially when you're in a windowless SCIF hacking Perl. > The US Government as a whole has a massive talent retention problem. Only the mediocre will stay at NSA / CIA now and we'll probably see more of these leaks / hacks. That's a verbatim comment I made on this site back in 2017 and it's still relevant. I don't mean to toot my own horn as much as to highlight the braindrain out of DoD / the alphabet soup agencies and into other sectors. It HAS and WILL CONTINUE to bite the United States in the ass.

mistrial9 5y ago
I like the all-caps yellling here, because it simulates someone talking in detail while the other person is not really willing to change no matter what you say.. so the volume increases .. it will ALSO BITE YOU when you treat intelligent people that way COMMANDER
lumost 5y ago
The US Government doesn't believe that inflation exists and also doesn't believe that a software engineer or similar professional should make more than 170k per year in the DC metro (GS-13) with 10+ years of experience. This is only 15% higher pay than 10 years ago, meanwhile home prices are up 3x in the DC metro area.
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  Tbf, $170k is also the max that Amazon pays (more or less) in cash. I think the issue here is that the government is overweighting the value of pensions over stock, and underweighting quality of life concerns.
  - jjeaff 5y ago
    Are they overweighting pensions? Retirement after that salary would be pretty valuable. Not to mention the security.

wolverine876 5y ago

Larger discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28408399 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28408399

AtlasBarfed 5y ago

"creation of an enterprisewide DevSecOps managed service featuring more than 800 hardened containers for software development" An infosec manager/exec/director that made software solutions rather than a bunch of policy and powerpoint drivel? AND he was in the federal government? I can't believe it. My #1 complaint about practically all infosec orgs in large corporations is that they set policies and review barriers, but don't offer solutions.

eeiac928 5y ago

If engineering made more money than lawyering would the outcomes be better?

Abishek_Muthian 5y ago

> There are 100,000 software developers in the DoD. We are the largest software organization on the planet, Tata Consultancy Services, India employs more than 500,000 people. They manage the IT stack of companies from Walgreens to Ferrari. I'm not the person to nitpick, But I'm particularly proud of TCS's employment figures because I've personally witnessed many move from being poor to wealthy(by Indian standards) after being employed by them(often the first degree holder in the family). [1] https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/15/economy/tcs-india-it-remote-intl-hnk/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/15/economy/tcs-india-it-remo...

gaadd33 5y ago
Just to clarify, TCS seems to only have 500,000 people employed, the whole DOD has roughly 2.86 million as of 2018, of them 100,000 are software developers. I don't think that the entirety of TCS is made up of software developers.
- Abishek_Muthian 5y ago
  Obviously entirety of 500,000 couldn't be SW developers, But definitely >100,000 are in IT and could be in U.S. alone. >TCS Recognized as the #1 Top Employer in the United States for 2020[1] >more than 327,000 employees were trained on multiple new technologies, and over 404,000 trained on Agile methods. They recruit thousands every year from Engineering colleges in India specifically for SW role. Have been doing that for at least two decades. Their target for FY22 is 40,000 freshers. It's late in India otherwise I could get the exact figures of IT employees in TCS as every Engineer here knows someone who is working in TCS be it Computer Science or Civil Engineer or even Bio Tech(All of them go to work in IT there). [1] https://www.tcs.com/tcs-recognized-as-number-one-top-employer-in-the-united-states-2020 https://www.tcs.com/tcs-recognized-as-number-one-top-employe... [2] https://www.livemint.com/companies/news/tcs-to-hire-40-000-freshers-from-campuses-in-fy22-11625827277025.html https://www.livemint.com/companies/news/tcs-to-hire-40-000-f...
Pokepokalypse 5y ago
I attended an interview with them once. (I think it was for one of their clients; American Express). It started in a large conference room, where I was one of about 200 other people. Weirdest interview ever, and also totally inappropriate for my skillset - due to the recruiter not giving a crap, apparently.