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The United States Digital Corps

362 points by tomrod 5y ago

sumobob2112 5y ago
why not work with an innovative contractor supporting the government instead?
- andreisbc 5y ago
  Exactly. Seems like the US is pulling a PR stunt, most likely being a contraption of a whatever-congressman-and-his-friends with a plan to get richer, trapping nice kids into a yummy trap
giaour 5y ago
Really happy to see this on the front page! One thing to keep in mind if you're interested in joining: the Digital Corps is for early career technologists, so if you have much experience in tech, you might want to apply to USDS (https://www.usds.gov https://www.usds.gov) or 18F (https://18f.gsa.gov https://18f.gsa.gov) instead.
- dmead 5y ago
  Sadly, I had to turn down an offer from usds a few years ago. Seemed like really great people to work with :(
- xxpor 5y ago
  Until the GS salary cap is something that doesn't look like a bad offer from a decade ago, it'll be extremely hard to swallow the pay cut of working for the feds. I get the "public service" discount, but it'd have to be something like 30%, not 70%.
  - jvanderbot 5y ago
    Have you seen NASA salaries? Gov spending on salary and perks is really hard for congress to swallow (except for their own salaries). It just hits wrong during election season.
    - dweekly 5y ago
      Congressional members (House and Senate) earn $174k/year, which is rather less than leadership of comparable scope is paid in private industry. Of course, having powerful people who control trillions of spending be not be very well paid themselves above the table has...myriad exciting ways to go wrong. As a taxpayer I'd rather government leadership paid extremely well and heavily fund GSA audits to ensure strong oversight (and jail time) for those that abuse the position. Fun fact: GSA saves taxpayers $10 for every $1 spent.
      - omginternets 5y ago
        You forgot to factor in all the benefits and "perks", not the least of which is insider trading.
        ethbr0 5y ago
        Insider trading is probably the least perk, if one wanted to abuse their government authority and access. There are myriad ways to go much bigger with corruption.
        throwaway0a5e 5y ago
        Insider trading is a perfectly legal perk to them. Corruption isn't.
        wpasc 5y ago
        I'd bet the insider trading pales greatly in comparison to hiring ex-congresspeople for their access and contact sheet
      - chrisseaton 5y ago
        Are member of congress leaders? Which people do they lead? They have teams of assistants but they're not huge teams. They seem more like individual contributors.
    - OrvalWintermute 5y ago
  - tristor 5y ago
    I didn't think it could be that bad, and then I went looking. Apparently to get a pay level that aligns with typical base salary in tech for senior level IC positions, you'd have to be an agency director of a large agency or in the Cabinet. And that doesn't even take into account losing RSUs and smaller bonus payouts. This actually goes a long way in my mind of explaining why the US government does so much contracting of people for work as well. It's probably not possible in the current legal framework to pay high quality tech workers a fair compensation for the market, but they could hire a firm as contractors for a project and that firm could pay fair compensation. I just wish more firms were honest rather than milking the government.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      The current system also incentivize quid pro quo via revolving door for high level government employees. You accept under market pay with the government, but expect to be repaid for favors to the governed entities by taking a job with them afterwards. Or selling your services to them. Or getting a niece or nephew hired. Etc.
    - killjoywashere 5y ago
      This is one of the great accomplishments of the "small government" efforts in politics: all the money leaves the system. Imagine a business that losses all it's money, every year, by design.
      - teaearlgraycold 5y ago
        Not weighing in on small/big gov. But a government isn’t a business.
      - dylan604 5y ago
        So, Uber? Or really any tech startup with aggressvie growth only surviving because of VC investment.
    - giaour 5y ago
      There are a few ways to get an IC role that pays more than the GS salary cap, but they are fairly rare. Some jobs have an "ST" level that is classified above GS for senior individual contributors in scientific or technical roles, and some agencies (like the CFPB) have their own pay scales that go beyond what the GS schedule allows. I only worked with one computer scientist in an ST role during my two years at USDS. He was an ACM Fellow and had a PhD from MIT, so it's not something anyone should expect to get just because they had "senior" in their title at a FAANG. Contractors don't have the same statutory caps on how much an individual role can pay, but salaries are part of contract bids, and a bid can be rejected if an individual salary is too high.
  - brimble 5y ago
    As someone not in FAANG, I was super-interested in their remote option, since it'd have been much more like that 30% cut (for me) than a 70% cut—until I saw the weird "term of service" limitation. Half the point of taking a government job is the retirement, and stable health benefits et c. over the long haul! Taking that out of the equation ruins the value prop.
    - lastofthemojito 5y ago
      Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but I'm seeing this as an analog to the Peace Corps or AmeriCorps (maybe the name is swaying me there?). Something specifically for people right at the beginning of their career to have an opportunity to perhaps do something meaningful. And once they have that experience on their resume, it'll help them do the next thing.
      - brimble 5y ago
        The program I looked at back then read like it was targeting established professionals.
      - giaour 5y ago
        The US Digital Corps (a new program) is meant to be for people at the beginning of their careers. GP was referring to the US Digital Service, which is for mid- and senior-level tech folks.
        brimble 5y ago
        Yes, absolutely correct and I should have been clearer about this, this was the (at this point) long-running USDS program, not this new thing.
    - giaour 5y ago
      Plenty of people move from USDS to permanent civil service roles, but they do need to plan for it and apply. Your time in USDS counts towards government retirement benefits, but you can't stay in that particular position for longer than 4 years.
  - CobaltFire 5y ago
    Unfortunately the GS salary bands are pretty below market for everything and the quality of people that is resulting in shows. I recently got offered a GS-11 (with promotion to GS-12 after a year) position and it's just not worth it. This wasn't for tech either; this was for a rather odd skill set.
    - giantg2 5y ago
      "This wasn't for tech either; this was for a rather odd skill set." Well this sounds like a story.
      - CobaltFire 5y ago
        Security Manager. I deal in Personal, Physical, Communication, and IT Security as an Active Duty member, and since I'm retiring they wanted me to shift to a Personal/Physical SecMan that handles thousands of clearances and multiple TS assets spread around a couple sites. Odd, but not that exciting. :)
        giantg2 5y ago
        So what I'm hearing is that you're Sam Fisher and this is your cover story.
    - pclmulqdq 5y ago
      I was offered a GS-15 a while ago and even that was a lot lower than a starting FAANG salary for a new grad. I would happily work for the USDS or a TLA for a 20% pay cut, but the process of getting anywhere near that is a nightmare. It seems like the path is generally to work your way to GS-12 or higher, then quit and become a contractor for the same group.
      - CobaltFire 5y ago
        Essentially yes. Lockheed already has jobs posted for higher pay than was on offer for that skillset and has asked me if I'd be interested in talking to them. Since that skill is odd but required by every single contractor that does classified work there's a whole lot of opportunity out there I wasn't aware of until recently. The lack of quality people doing it in the GS ranks now makes a whole lot more sense to me. Prior to me understanding that it was just an annoyance.
  - aikiplayer 5y ago
    It's definitely steep and getting steeper by the month. The other downside, that's actually more significant than the base salary difference, is the lack of upside from stock, etc. (which a sibling also commented on). However, there are a couple of significant things that are often overlooked. There's a strong mission that really speaks to some people. Additionally, there's a lot of structure applied which helps to enforce a work/life balance. Some people really want to dive in and work a lot of hours (which is generally allowed) but others (like me) struggle to turn work off w/o that structure.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    Your comment seems out of touch with reality for most people. The US median dev salary is $110k and it looks like you can hit that as a GS-12 in most locations.
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      > The US median dev salary is $110k I don’t doubt you’ve looked that up and it’s true if you say it is, but that number completely baffles me. How are so many devs so poorly paid?
      - tick_tock_tick 5y ago
        There is a lot of country between the two coasts. Hell most of the southern coast is still quite cheap.
      - omginternets 5y ago
        I suspect it's because "dev" is a fairly broad category that encompasses everything from "Wordpress CSS-twiddler" to "Big Tech Hotshot".
      - mciancia 5y ago
        I wouldn't be surprised if those statistics are not really worth anything. Like, it's possible they don't take under account people who are contracting, RSUs/options, yearly bonuses and whatever alse companies are offering now. Median base salary at 110k might be possible then ;)
      - Goronmon 5y ago
        How are so many devs so poorly paid? Maybe you are just out of touch with what your average software developer is paid?
      - verisimilidude 5y ago
        You may be living in a bubble. That’s a normal (and still very good) salary for devs working in quieter metro areas. I left the Bay Area five years ago. My salary is now $100k, a substantial pay cut from my SF years. But quality of life is soooooo much better here, in so many ways. It’s worth the drop in pay.
  - jacobian 5y ago
    If you're a software developer, and your goal is to maximize income, then yeah, don't work for the federal government. If your goal is to do meaningful work that has a tangible positive impact on average people's lives, while being paid a fair living wage, then these jobs are unbeatable.
    - stirfish 5y ago
      What are some government software projects that have a tangible positive impact on average people's lives?
      - prepend 5y ago
        Healthcare.gov is the project that kicked off USDS (because the site was so horrible and the contractors charged billions). That site impacts millions of lives. There’s lots of important government projects. I actually think the rate of BS/meaningful may be higher in government than private given the number of cow clicker/BS-type projects.
      - xxpor 5y ago
        The SSA has to be able to get checks out to everyone every month. The IRS has to process tax returns and get out refunds. The USGS has to be able to detect earthquakes. The NWS has to be able to deliver critical weather data. I could go on and on.
    - time_to_smile 5y ago
      I did a stint in the government working for a team that eventually had a lot people go over to 18F. I joined on hoping to see exactly what you describe, willing to take a pay cut for meaningful work. My experience was very different than yours has been. My impression was that it was largely bureaucrats looking to further their own position in the massive bureaucracy. It was virtually impossible to do any "meaningful work". The handful of people passionate about doing good for the world were constantly blocked by other bureaucrats who were only interested in maintaining (or expanding) their tiny island of power they had accrued. I vividly recall needing data from another agency to help solve a problem we were working on and being told that it would be virtually impossible to get any cooperation because it would make them look bad if we succeeded using their data. My entire time as a Federal employee was filled with similar such moments. All of the work I did, which ended up proving some seriously privacy vulnerabilities in another project, was dismissed because people didn't want to hear it. The experience forever changed my view on government. The plus side is I did meet some fantastic, although terminally frustrated, people while I was there. It is a great place to meet people who have similar ambitions. For someone looking for meaningful work I would advise staying far away from the federal government.
  - omginternets 5y ago
    What's the salary cap?
    - giaour 5y ago
      $176,300 (per https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/salary-tables/pdf/2022/DCB.pdf https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries...)
      - l33t2328 5y ago
        And people consider that a bad offer a decade ago? I consider that a dream offer today.
        omginternets 5y ago
        I think this depends a great deal on industry and seniority. What kind of programming do you do and how long have you been doing it?
  - tdhz77 5y ago
    Former Fed for 10 years. Loved working for the Federal Government. I made 100k+ as a software engineer. I left Federal Service in February 22 because the private sector doubled my salary. My work is much easier in the private sector and I work a lot less. I’m getting paid double. I have a team now I can rely on. I didn’t have this in Gov. Many Gov IT positions will go unfilled for months. I had one organization offer me 25k, fully remote to work there and I declined. Why? The amount of work is insane for a individual developer. This idea that we shouldn’t pay people because they work in Government is insane. Peoples mistrust of government, but really it’s misguided.
    - tehwebguy 5y ago
      > I had one organization offer me 25k, fully remote to work there Per year? That is $12.50 / hr
      - the_only_law 5y ago
        I worked for state government, in a very red state (read, does not like to spend on government) for my first “real” job at around $37k, circa 5-6 years ago.
        toomanyrichies 5y ago
        This gets to the heart of a contradiction in red state philosophy which is actually quite hard to solve, at least in my mind. On the one hand, it's understandable if someone doesn't trust the government to spend their money wisely, and if they use that as a justification for voting for smaller government budgets. I get that part completely. Governments have little if any internal motivation to spend your money wisely. If anything, they have a vested interest in spending 100% of their budgets, regardless of whether it's spent wisely, so that their budgets don't decrease in the following fiscal year. At the same time, "if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys". If red states don't pay competitive salaries in competitive fields, their citizens shouldn't be surprised if they end up scraping the bottom of the barrel to source their public servants. The service they experience while interfacing with this dreck then further reduces their faith in government, and the whole thing becomes a vicious circle. Again, this is a hard problem to solve. I don't know what the answer is, but it seems to be rooted in a mis-alignment of incentives in government spending.
  - prepend 5y ago
    The max GS15 salary is like $175k and there’s lots of government benefits. Max GS14 is $150. Max GS13 is $125. And there’s lots of benefits (23 paid days off, 13 sick every year), pension, etc etc. This won’t compete with FAANG or with HCO, but in most areas of the country (or full remote) this is fine for a programmer’s pay. I hear the complaint that fed doesn’t pay for tech and I think that’s not true. The BLS has median programmer pay $90k in 2020 [0] so government pay is certainly competitive. This is median too, while the lowest possible GS13 pay is $100k. [0] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/mobile/computer-programmers.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...
    - glowingly 5y ago
      From my experience, GS14 and above roles are allocated in limited numbers to each program/branch/division. Of course, many other companies do this to some degree, and one obviously can rotate in the government. However, not every program will have GS14, nevermind GS15 opportunities. GS is also (like all companies, etc, etc) adjusted per locality, so not every GS13 step 4 will be the same.
      - prepend 5y ago
        From my experience, ICs in technical fields like programming, data science, and cyber get hired in as Gs13-15 in non-supervisory roles. Yes, GS is adjusted for locality and it’s up and down. But $100k is the minimum for GS-13, step 1 in most localities and is higher in high cost of living areas like DC, NY, etc. But if you want a programmer job in government it’s not a big pay cut unless you’re a superstar working for Google or something. If it’s a decision of random Fortune 500 or government, government will usually pay more, AND have more benefits and stability.
        glowingly 5y ago
        I am in a HCOL area on the locality chart :/ We get hired in at $70k and this seems rather common among my peers + contractors, so I don't exactly know how someone is getting $100k at the door. People who have been here ~5+ years are GS13 or equivalent. However, most of us aren't and I don't see any upward trends, as our GS14/+ slots are being slowly retired/transferred away. There seems to be a large age gap between the newer engineers and the older ones. Sounds silly, I know. I am wondering if most of us are going to wander off then come back for retirement? Or is the program doomed in the long run? Thanks. I think I just needed to see it from someone outside of my program.
  - gnicholas 5y ago
    Two things to keep in mind: the federal government offers a very good pension, which most private employers do not. Also, if you have student loans and work for qualifying employers (govt and/or nonprofit IIRC), you can have some of your loans discharged after a period of time. But both of these perks require you to work for 10 or 20 years, in one branch or another.
    - NtGuy25 5y ago
      Government pension is actually very bad. You pay 4 % of your salary per year, and get 1 % * years worked * avg(3 top highest salaries). You get far more money if you put that 4 % into a 401k or other investment vehicle. Also, with loans being discharged, you have to have made a ton of payments, to the point that most will pay off their loans before they're eligible in a stem position.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - nmeagent 5y ago
        You only pay 4.4% of your salary if hired after 2014 (I only pay 0.8%). If you retire with 20+ years of service at 62 or later, you get 1.1% per year of your high-three salary. That amount is adjusted by cost-of-living increases as well, though of course that may not keep up with inflation. Also keep in mind that TSP contributions are matched up to 5% of your salary. Consider the pension in the context of also maxing out contributions to TSP (which has the same yearly contributions cap as a 401k). A fair comparison should include the whole package.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  - kache_ 5y ago
    this a million times. I interviewed for the spooks, and the money they were offering was an absolute pittance compared to what I could be making just pay us, I'd be happy to come work. I know they have the money too, I pay double their offering salary in the taxes I paid in 2021
  - AtlasBarfed 5y ago
    Is it illegal to have "other compensation" like a second job or consulting gig while you have a gov job?
  - bradleyankrom 5y ago
    Oh man, let me tell you about the “working in sports” discount…
- tonymet 5y ago
  What does 18F mean? Our name is short for the address of the GSA building where we’re headquartered in Washington, DC: 1800 F Street. For those curious about the inappropriate-sounding name
  - ericmay 5y ago
    When I saw that, the first thing that came to mind was that it's the military occupation specialty (MOS) for US Army special forces (18x). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Special_Forces https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Special_For...
  - wmeredith 5y ago
    Am I naive? How is "18F" inappropriate?
    - z3c0 5y ago
      Eighteen-year-old female
- notreallyserio 5y ago
  Do you still have to be straight-edge to get hired by the feds?
  - solarmist 5y ago
    Depends on what you mean. But generally I’d say no felonies, no drugs (convictions and/or test results) and no strong ties to foreign governments. But the details will vary a bit.
    - notreallyserio 5y ago
      No drugs, specifically cannabis. I've heard that admitting to using cannabis in the past gets you tossed, despite it being common, safe, and legal in much of the country.
      - the_jeremy 5y ago
        Past drug use does not disqualify you. Source: have friends who smoked pot and got security clearances.
        solarmist 5y ago
        Lying about it (if caught) will absolutely get you disqualified though. But yeah use and conviction are very different.
      - tssva 5y ago
        In the late 80s to early 90s as I attended college and then spent a couple of years following the Dead, I smoked pot, ate mushrooms, dosed LSD, and snorted cocaine on a regular basis. I also sampled various other substances along the way. Several years later I applied for and received a Top Secret clearance. I fully admitted all prior drug use as part of the process. I was working for a government contractor at the time and was not a government employee. At the same time I had a couple of friends who worked for a 3 letter agency and had prior regularly smoked pot. They admitted their prior use during the hiring process. This again was during the late 90s when attitudes towards pot were more negative than they are today.
mistrial9 5y ago
gotta start somewhere.. empowering people is a big "yes" here.. on the other hand, government in the USA is plauged by an outsourcing addiction. Get the budget and signature authority, say whatever you have to say in any number of meetings to get that, and then it is off to margaritaville while pressured, less-authority people are required to make things happen, and they in turn hire outsourcing companies, who then in turn run modern-day "IT shops" which vary wildly, lets say .. What effect does this good-looking GSA program have, over time, on this addiction to outsourcing for USA government work ? on the culture of bosses who run that, and on worst yet, companies that thrive on failure in government contracting.. which apparently is endemic. Sincere good wishes to the people who are in this for the right reasons. I have to call the dark side though, since empowering that dark side with lofty words and new budgets, is worse than picking up litter in the park on volunteer day and going about your own business.
- the_only_law 5y ago
  > government in the USA is plauged by an outsourcing addiction. Favorite relevant story from recently: an old friend of mine who enlisted in the army told me he is unable to do the job they trained him to do rn, at least until the contractors doing it at the moment have their contract run out.
iaabtpbtpnn 5y ago
If I use cannabis, can I work for the United States Digital Corps?
- CobaltFire 5y ago
  Unlikely, as they require a background investigation and that's not legal at the Federal Level.
  - rythmshifter03 5y ago
    what?
    - apetresc 5y ago
      Marijuana is a Schedule 1 drug at the Federal level. What is your confusion?
- ar_lan 5y ago
  I torrented something when I was 17... I think I'm out :) When both the FBI and NSA came to my college they basically said that during a recruiting meeting and most of the students just left
  - a9h74j 5y ago
    There is understandable reason for them to ask a lot more about your past history of exilfrating infomation, than even drug use.
- faldore 5y ago
  Federal employees and contractors are subject to regular and random urinalysis. Until marijuana is legalized at the federal level (which has been passed by the house but is not yet law) you could be terminated for marijuana.
  - gavinray 5y ago
killjoywashere 5y ago
There's tremendous opportunity to make connections early. I have a colleague who is 23 years old and planning an urgent, high 8-figure R&D effort. Like, that's the project for this week. Make no mistake, there's a shocking amount of bureaucratic trench warfare because everything is Balkanized, but the impact can staggering if you can execute.
dimitrios1 5y ago
> Empower the next generation of technology leaders to launch careers in public service and create a more effective, equitable government. Can someone explain to me how this program will achieve this? The problem of government inequity is unfair and unbalanced representation as a result of valuing corporations and special interests over the citizenry.
WestCoastJustin 5y ago
Anyone know what the red-tape / pay is like there? It seems like government organisations are just at such a disadvantage in terms of red-tape and large pay gap between the private sector. I know some have more discretion in their hiring ability, particularly in the defence space, but does it come close to private sector? You're probably better off working for a contractor working for the US Digital Corps than for them directly. My experience is working with the Canadian Federal gov at a few national research labs. It was amazing work but joining the private sector is a major culture shock in that you can pretty much do anything and get paid 4x. So, what's the incentive to work there?
- ch4s3 5y ago
  I tried to apply about 5 years ago and the process looked like it was going to take longer than a full set of Google interviews and it was going to be a big pay cut so I dropped out. EDIT* It seems I was thinking of the United States Digital Service, which is a different thing.
  - CobaltFire 5y ago
    This program is new for this year; you didn't attempt to apply for it five years ago.
    - ch4s3 5y ago
      Ahh sorry, I was thinking of the United States Digital Service. I assumed they were related or maybe the same thing rebranded.
- killjoywashere 5y ago
  Sleeping well at night when you're older knowing you helped Grandma get her social security checks, your cousin in the Marines got the surgery he needed, the Post Office trucks got the maintenance they needed. A good career doesn't need any public service, but most great careers probably do.
  - 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
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lukemercado 5y ago
This seems like an EXCELLENT way for junior engineers to finally get out of the "no job can't get a job" box. Super curious to see what comes of it, and to recruit those who complete the fellowships.
- andreisbc 5y ago
  You are too romantic about it. Read the other comments. This is such an excellent idea, but it's a closed sourced system wrapped into sweet package. I don't doubt the output of it, but c'man man, we know better right ?
- cactus2093 5y ago
  Is this a real problem? The hiring market for engineers is really hot, and if anything tech really over-indexes on technical/coding interview questions and under-indexes on past experience and having a formal degree. If you can reliably solve medium Leetcode problems you can easily get a junior developer job at all sorts of companies (and hard Leetcode problems will get you a job at FAANG) without any past experience. I think the much more common problem for new folks trying to break into software engineering is "not very good at coding yet, can't get a job". Not sure if Digital Corps is optimizing for these people but they really should be (given that they can't compete with the private market on comp).
  - R0b0t1 5y ago
    If you're not in the right area yes it is a huge problem.
  - vmception 5y ago
    A lot of DC area people view federal public sector as the “amazing [stable] opportunity” and dont think FAANG opportunities as options, many dont know about them High five figure to low six figure salaries are the aspiration Everything else is too absurd or too risky Very risk averse dynasties there that will drill this into their neighbors and children their whole life Many contractors are also chasing a carrot on a stick hoping to convert to a federal employee if “mastuh is pleased” There is a whole industry there catering to that There are also a lot of opportunities for actually ambitious people such as making the contracting firm or selling something stupid to an agency that your friend working there signed off on
CobaltFire 5y ago
For those people thinking this is a huge opportunity: there are 30 spots total for this year. This is a very small program, so will be highly selective. Also, since it's Federal and requires a Background Investigation drug use will be an issue. Surprisingly they allow fully remote though, which is a huge plus.
- the_only_law 5y ago
  The clearance thing pisses me off. I saw a job listing, at actually decent pay, with some niche technologies that some people feel strongly towards (Haskell, etc.) albeit with a contractor not a gov agency. Form the description, it sounded like they had a contract to rip off QubesOS (or at least develop something which sounded eerily similar), which apparently requires one of the highest clearances possible.
- meatsauce 5y ago
  "Equitable" means it will only be open to people with connections in special interests.
  - cr__ 5y ago
    Do you have any proof?
- andreisbc 5y ago
  Being so selective means that only those with the highest credentials get approved - and we all know how these credentials can be harvestered: 90% nepotism and elitism, while only 10% skill. Those 10% will be the brains, while the 90% will bring the network onto which these solutions will be promoted
  - iJohnDoe 5y ago
    Normally I would agree with you. In this case, it was the opposite. They truly looked at the candidates skill set and capabilities. Unfortunately, the government agencies where the chosen candidates were supposed to be funneled to and hired is where the usual government dysfunction kicked in. Those agencies didn’t seem to be on board with the whole program.
sumitgt 5y ago
Unfortunately both this and USDS require the applicant to be a US Citizen. I wish there was a similar option for folks who are not yet citizens but currently work in the US tech industry (maybe in exchange for some sort of a streamlined path to citizenship). Similar to the (now paused) MAVNI program.
- lvl102 5y ago
  So now US citizens have to fight for US govt jobs too?
  - LadyCailin 5y ago
    Sure, and why not? I’d rather hire a competent foreigner over a lousy citizen any day. More generally though, I would support seriously beefing up the educational system, sparing no expense to ensure it’s the best in the world. Unfortunately, the ones who tend to be against immigration also tend to be against improving education, and you simply must pick one or the other, or perhaps even both, if the US wants to stay competitive in the world.
bayareabadboy 5y ago
- ohCh6zos 5y ago
  It’s a way to signal who they’re looking for without stepping into explicitly discriminatory language.
- president 5y ago
  To attract youth to a lowly paying government job, they need to appeal to emotion. Same way tech companies attracted college kids by telling them they were helping to "save the world".
- digisign 5y ago
  From experience with a school age kid, this kind of language is being drummed into youth, aka brainwashing, at least in "liberal" areas of the country. It's not the worst thing I've seen so don't worry too much, but agree that it is mildly annoying. Edit: censoring this perspective is counterproductive I think, where even noticing the obsession with diversity framing will get you blacklisted. From history we know that suppression of ideas tends to end badly. It's the new "Red Scare" except the color meaning has been flipped from Communist to Republican.
- killerdhmo 5y ago
  do you have a lot of experience with sophomore gender studies at "lower tier" ivies? Is there something specific you object to?
uhtred 5y ago
I've been thinking about tax payer funded public technology infrastructure recently with all the posts about the next google / improving web search. Why couldn't we have a tax payer funded but fully independent office that creates essential online services such as web search? I suppose the main argument against it might be privacy concerns or censorship / propaganda. But with no commercial interests I think privacy would be better protected. As for censorship / propaganda - the BBC manages to stay pretty neutral in the UK.
RosanaAnaDana 5y ago
The GS rates for all federal services are so laughably bad its a bit disgusting. Afaik, they're still expecting people with 4 year science degrees (BS) to start at ~16$hr
- Victerius 5y ago
  Good luck convincing 70 year old congressmen that 22 year old software engineers working for the government should be paid as much, if not more, than them. Government needs a pay raise across the board. The president should earn $10 million per annum. Senators, $2,000,000.00. Representatives, $1,200,000.00. Government employees, an average of $175,000.00. And entry level software engineers for the government, $200,000.00.
  - RosanaAnaDana 5y ago
    I got a BS in botany thinking I wanted to work for the Park Service, Forest Service, BLM, something like that. Not only was entry level a paupers wage, and strictly seasonal, but there was no clear way to get into a career tract position. I ended up going into industry and making 2x, and within 3 years was making 3x. I would much rather be out in the world counting plants, but I would have never been able to buy a home, or get ahead in any reasonable fashion had I continued that path.
  - renewiltord 5y ago
    No thanks. Doubt it would change performance. Gov jobs are already considered cushy jobs for the incapable. Everyone always wants to do these things with my money. Why don’t you form a Voluntary Taxpayers Union and you guys can go do that. I’m fine with government engineers being paid nothing because they’re going to deliver nothing irrespective of how much you pay them.
- lastofthemojito 5y ago
  It's not necessarily bad everywhere and for everyone - I think park rangers in East Nowheresville do ok. There's a base GS pay scale and then locality adjustments for different metro areas, and the big problem with the WASHINGTON-BALTIMORE-ARLINGTON, DC-MD-VA-WV-PA locality is right there in the name: WV-PA. They pretend that folks working in downtown DC ought to be paid the same as folks at some remote site in WV. So yeah, I believe that means a 31% adjustment compared to the base GS pay scale, when to be competitive with other DC area salaries, the adjustment probably needs to be more like 80%.
lvl102 5y ago
A word of caution: these programs sound great until you realize they’re mainly there for big govt consulting firms to take tax money. It’s the sad truth about tech and US govts. They don’t actually want to change. They just want to appear that way. My two cynical cents.
- wslack 5y ago
  I understand this viewpoint but in this situation its not accurate. There are huge communities of people working to improve systems. 18F's github repos are public if you want to see exactly what they are doing: https://github.com/18f https://github.com/18f
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- sophacles 5y ago
  I can't believe that you expect to be taken seriously while pretending the millions of people encompassed by "tech and Us Govt" are all a single hivemind with only the one motivation.
- jessriedel 5y ago
  Aren't things the opposite of how you describe? My understanding is that the big govt consulting firms exist to allow the govt to access competent developers who are paid market wages since the govt is constrained from paying govt employees adequately. The US digital corp is an attempt to hire good developers as govt employees who would replace some of the current developers working for the big consulting firms. Now, whether the strategy of providing a less terrible govt work environment, and a more inspiring story, will actually be successful in outweighing the still-extant salary limits is very unclear. But this is at least an attempt to reduce the reliance on consult developers and the corresponding middle-man fees taken by the consultanting firms.
- andreisbc 5y ago
  This is actually correct sir. We're not cynical, just rationalists
FinNerd 5y ago
They need a sexy website. Feels like boomer org made worse by being drowned in DEI woke language. No very high competency young people would want to work for this IMO
scotuswroteus 5y ago
This shit entirely understates the political bullshit that any truly innovative approach to service delivery would encounter. Show us the Memoranda of Understanding with the unions running the bureaucracy before you tell us we can make anything resembling change.
kbash9 5y ago
Mission: "...develop innovative solutions that make government work better for the American people." Values: Integrity, Inclusion, Impact Wouldn't hurt to add "Innovation" as a value for a team of technologists.
- mym1990 5y ago
  FWIW good things come in 3s and innovation could roll up under Impact.
- fortran77 5y ago
  And it's for recent graduates only. I'm 59 years old and they don't want me. This isn't "diverse" at all.
supernova87a 5y ago
I sincerely hope that this government office has an associated division (or function) that is not just responsible for developing/procuring/scoping the detailed technology solutions but also responsible for: -- Removing the incentives / disincentives for agencies to stick with old technology or processes (for legitimate, or even stupid reasons) -- Coming up with ways to motivate/enable government workers and leaders to want new technology tools and break out of resistance based on existing methods -- Advocate for budgets to properly fund the development of such tech initiatives rather than a) ignore the growing problem, or b) prefer to fund the old outdated methods -- Inform the policymakers why all of the above are important, and why (as appropriate) it is more cost-effective and real-outcome-beneficial in the long run Because I think what you'll find is that it is rarely the tech that is the bottleneck constraint. Put a good tool in front of anyone as an individual and unless they're stupid, they'll generally want to do it. Put it in front of them as a worker who has other constraints and interests in the system created to date, and they display many other behaviors. When you have a tool / method that is shown to be 10x greater in benefit, of course governments will start to adopt it. It's beyond objectionable when they see something that good. And citizens will put up with some temporary inconvenience to switch because it's nonsensical to stick to such blatantly inferior methods. But when some new solution is only 1.5x better, then you get a lot of resistance (sometimes legitimate) that people need to be able to rely on their existing solutions or it costs too much to change, etc, etc. And you start losing out on significant, but insufficiently better, efficient solutions that are needed to keep us out of lagging place in the world.
- giaour 5y ago
  I think USDS had stickers with "it is rarely the tech that is the bottleneck constraint" or something like that printed on them. I still have one that echoes your fourth point on a laptop. :) Those areas are honestly what USDS employees spend most of their time and energy working on.
- wslack 5y ago
  I work at a related office mentioned in this thread (but am posting personally here): You're 100% right about all of these, and I would emphasize that *the tech is not the hard part.* I would challenge you a little bit about something 10x greater being "beyond objectionable" - a benefit to users may not align with the incentives you named. For example, there's public evidence that some state governments deliberately made benefits harder to access to help even their budgets.
deleted 5y ago
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hans1729 5y ago
Public sector IT was an extremely frustrating experience for me. - incompetent administration (org flow chart, constantly changing paradigms, misnomers ("open source" == we tape together stuff from public git-repositories, push nothing upstream, and outsource lots of core development)) - administration's priorities change with every election (project funding as a flag in the wind depending on current political climate) - red tape everywhere - bureaucrats everywhere - the whole job-stack attracted incompetent people, the kind that values stability over deep understanding and progress. the kind where I thought "man, good that they are working here in [$current_politically_opportune_project] so they can't do actual damage somewhere else". this applied for the business administrators, the project managers, the "developers", the admins, even a large part of the contractors. - "you're working too fast! haven't been here for long, eh?" - compliance > security Never, ever ever ever again. Granted, this was in Europe, maybe the US sucks less in the public sector. I would bet a good amount of money that there is a large intersection of problem spaces among the regions though.
- behringer 5y ago
  This is true in all facets of government.
- rhexs 5y ago
  Same thing here friend! The trick is realizing that the federal salary and benefits package is absolutely astronomically generous for the amount of work that the average fed puts in per month. Then there’s the standard 10% of them that struggle to carry the load, burn themselves out, and leave to double their pay at the same workload. Work hard, deliver more? At best you’ll get a 1000$ yearly bonus. Slack off, deliver nothing? Same thing, still get promoted.
  - throwawaysleep 5y ago
    A ridiculous thing from my time in government was that promotions were interview driven only. If you aced the interview, you got a promo. Didn't matter if you did shit beforehand. A guy on my gov team got the promo over our by far most experienced and skilled developer as he spent his time practicing for the interview instead of working.
temp8964 5y ago
Why do I feel a strong anti-Asian sentiment on their homepage? Is it a shame to show Asian faces for them? Like they are shamed of the fact there are “too many” Asian male programmers?
- pelasaco 5y ago
  the only man being shown in the page is a disabled one...
noasaservice 5y ago
I've tried to apply to federal positions for years. I won't even get so much as a "fuck off". However when I apply to commercial, I'm snapped up in weeks. The most recent move was to a contractor. Again, 2 weeks to hire. 3 interviews total 2h. I have no degree, but my work expertise speaks for itself. Commercial sees that. The feds dont seem to care. It is with a contractor for the federal govt. $150k/yr. Generous benefits. But being a contractor, it is without federal protections, without school debt forgiveness, and others. Whatever. I prefer to stay for the length of the project. In this case, it's 2-3y. Would I work for the feds again? Absolutely. Will I even get a response when applying? Hardly.
- andreisbc 5y ago
  Why would you seek a job for a gov agency while working for a contractor doing the same thing pays better ? Status ? Benefits ? All day vacation ?
  - noasaservice 5y ago
    You only apply to 1 job at a time? I was applying to positions like 20-30 a day when I was looking. And that included fed jobs. I heard back from many companies. Only 1 total ever from feds.
- erdos4d 5y ago
  Every person I have ever met who worked for the feds has had an attitude that govt. employees are THE BEST WHO EVER DID IT!!!!!! Maybe you didn't give them the vibe that you would play along with this farce? I have often asked such people how this is true since they pay way less than private and recruit from a smaller pool. This just gets you dirty looks and some "I'm proud to serve" platitudes.
- wslack 5y ago
  > I've tried to apply to federal positions for years. I won't even get so much as a "fuck off". Am guessing that you get (eventually) a message that you were "qualified but not referred?"
vogt 5y ago
I like that the Digital Corps exists in theory. I applied many moons ago, I believe during the Obama administration. Service to our country is something I feel is important so I applied to at least see if there was a fit. When I got to the phone screen, I made a point to ask if recreational cannabis would disqualify you from joining and they confirmed that yes, even if it was recreationally used, a positive cannabis result on a drug test would disqualify you. Major bummer, but unsurprising. The entire reason I asked was due to how many posts on HN I’ve seen about government agencies having a hard time hiring tech folks for this reason. I have what I believe to be a decently desirable skillset and a lot of tangible experience working in startups AND enterprise companies, and if I had to guess, would have brought some good value to the team. I hope (but doubt) these policies have relaxed.
- nbaugh1 5y ago
  The U.S. Digital Corps was launched in August 2021 by the Biden administration
  - vogt 5y ago
    Yeah, another poster pointed out that I meant the Digital Service and this was correct.
- rsstack 5y ago
  Maybe you mean United States Digital Service? https://www.usds.gov/ https://www.usds.gov/
  - vogt 5y ago
    Yes, this is actually correct. My mistake. Their missions and names appear to be similar enough that it tripped me up. Thanks for the correction.
- quadcore 5y ago
  Not a US citizen but last I heard cannabis is illegal on the federal level, so yeah, cant be relaxed until its legal.
emilfihlman 5y ago
On top of the page there's a: "Official website of the USA, here's how you know", and they list "it's on a .gov domain and uses https. Well, is that really so? I doubt it.
- thfuran 5y ago
  The .gov tld is administered by the US department of Homeland security. That a site is on .gov doesn't necessarily mean it hasn't been compromised or something but it does seem a pretty reasonable guarantee that it's at least nominally affiliated with the US government.
kkfx 5y ago
Sorry but... I'm from EU and in my view USA Digital Corps have GAFAM as name, they are widespread in the world, the most effective intelligence system under the Patriot Act. They have many people coming from "official" USA intelligence... They even have uniforms, in the form of the casual suit and tie, more apt for their executive battlefields. Having a formal corps with military uniforms is just a kind of Barnum's Circle.
_8j50 5y ago
You need degrees (college debt) and get paid crap. Why is this popular?
- andreisbc 5y ago
  Because it gives unexperienced and young people the status they think they seek - also connections which are inevitable - while they will be ultimately transformed into the people of the deep state. And hey, that's fine - even the deep state needs new people right ?
- RachelF 5y ago
  Because you can get experience (and a clearance) work for 2 years, resign and come back to exactly the same job as a contractor at 2.5x the salary.
  - _8j50 5y ago
    Or just make 2.5x without college debt and gov red tape?
fn-mote 5y ago
Interested? Too bad. "Applications are currently closed." Huh? Maybe it's related to the FAQ: "Why is there a limit to the number of applications in each track?" Ok... so presumably they were not closed two hours ago when this hit HN? This isn't sending the message that the program is serious, it's sending the message that they cannot handle even the volume of applicants that they are getting right now - in spite of the majority of the posts here dumping on government jobs.
- pgcj_poster 5y ago
  I applied when applications opened in November. They were upfront about the fact that they would only look at the first 300 applications -- which they received in the first week. They had engineers review the resumes, which were allowed to be 3-pages, which I imagine is responsible for the low volume.
- tomrod 5y ago
  I submitted it because I find the effort interesting. I am not involved with it nor did I realize it was closed. My apologies.
lacoolj 5y ago
anyone know specifics on what they do? the page isn't very clear
andreisbc 5y ago
My only problem here is that some people seem happy about this - and they have the best intentions. My opinion is that you shouldn't forget about the people behind these kind of operations. They clearly seem elitist, and tech&gov history showed us that these initiatives are mainly rigged for purposes unknown. "For the people", right ?
IanDrake 5y ago
enchiridion 5y ago
Is anyone else frightened to see equity explicitly spelled out as a goal of a US government office? Equity implicitly requires enforcement of equal outcomes. I do not think the federal government is capable or benevolent enough to carry out that enforcement
- tomrod 5y ago
  It doesnt bother me that an employer wants to pay equal pay for equal work. Are you assuming something more is involved here?
  - enchiridion 5y ago
    Yes I am. What you describe is equality, which I think is great! What they are advocating for is equity, a much different goal. Equity involves giving preferential treatment to certain groups of people who are perceived as persecuted in the current social climate. It has no basis in law, and is antithetical to a meritocracy.
    - tomrod 5y ago
      Equity is semantically equality. I'm not sure I see your point. Are people being paid differently for the work? Or are you saying there is a policy driven filter attempting to offset some of society's pre-existing filtering (thus giving equality of opportunity)?
      - enchiridion 5y ago
        Semantically maybe they are similar, but in the sociological parlance they mean very different things. Yes, equality of opportunity is a good thing. If you have the qualifications, anyone should be given equal consideration. Changing or relaxing requirements in order to attempt some societal good is wrong. Those issues should be addressed upstream of any employment decisions, mainly by removing impediments to success, not by preferential treatment.
pelasaco 5y ago
What they want to sell: no white CIS men What is the reality: 90% white CIS men Crazy to see this virtue signaling in that level.
- hans1729 5y ago
  90% white CIS men is not the reality I experienced in public sector IT. It was 100%. (But presumably there are more POC represented in the US)

362 points by tomrod 5y ago

sumobob2112 5y ago

why not work with an innovative contractor supporting the government instead?

andreisbc 5y ago
Exactly. Seems like the US is pulling a PR stunt, most likely being a contraption of a whatever-congressman-and-his-friends with a plan to get richer, trapping nice kids into a yummy trap

giaour 5y ago

Really happy to see this on the front page! One thing to keep in mind if you're interested in joining: the Digital Corps is for early career technologists, so if you have much experience in tech, you might want to apply to USDS (https://www.usds.gov https://www.usds.gov) or 18F (https://18f.gsa.gov https://18f.gsa.gov) instead.

dmead 5y ago
Sadly, I had to turn down an offer from usds a few years ago. Seemed like really great people to work with :(
xxpor 5y ago
Until the GS salary cap is something that doesn't look like a bad offer from a decade ago, it'll be extremely hard to swallow the pay cut of working for the feds. I get the "public service" discount, but it'd have to be something like 30%, not 70%.
- jvanderbot 5y ago
  Have you seen NASA salaries? Gov spending on salary and perks is really hard for congress to swallow (except for their own salaries). It just hits wrong during election season.
  - dweekly 5y ago
    Congressional members (House and Senate) earn $174k/year, which is rather less than leadership of comparable scope is paid in private industry. Of course, having powerful people who control trillions of spending be not be very well paid themselves above the table has...myriad exciting ways to go wrong. As a taxpayer I'd rather government leadership paid extremely well and heavily fund GSA audits to ensure strong oversight (and jail time) for those that abuse the position. Fun fact: GSA saves taxpayers $10 for every $1 spent.
    - omginternets 5y ago
      You forgot to factor in all the benefits and "perks", not the least of which is insider trading.
      - ethbr0 5y ago
        Insider trading is probably the least perk, if one wanted to abuse their government authority and access. There are myriad ways to go much bigger with corruption.
        throwaway0a5e 5y ago
        Insider trading is a perfectly legal perk to them. Corruption isn't.
      - wpasc 5y ago
        I'd bet the insider trading pales greatly in comparison to hiring ex-congresspeople for their access and contact sheet
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      Are member of congress leaders? Which people do they lead? They have teams of assistants but they're not huge teams. They seem more like individual contributors.
  - OrvalWintermute 5y ago
- tristor 5y ago
  I didn't think it could be that bad, and then I went looking. Apparently to get a pay level that aligns with typical base salary in tech for senior level IC positions, you'd have to be an agency director of a large agency or in the Cabinet. And that doesn't even take into account losing RSUs and smaller bonus payouts. This actually goes a long way in my mind of explaining why the US government does so much contracting of people for work as well. It's probably not possible in the current legal framework to pay high quality tech workers a fair compensation for the market, but they could hire a firm as contractors for a project and that firm could pay fair compensation. I just wish more firms were honest rather than milking the government.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    The current system also incentivize quid pro quo via revolving door for high level government employees. You accept under market pay with the government, but expect to be repaid for favors to the governed entities by taking a job with them afterwards. Or selling your services to them. Or getting a niece or nephew hired. Etc.
  - killjoywashere 5y ago
    This is one of the great accomplishments of the "small government" efforts in politics: all the money leaves the system. Imagine a business that losses all it's money, every year, by design.
    - teaearlgraycold 5y ago
      Not weighing in on small/big gov. But a government isn’t a business.
    - dylan604 5y ago
      So, Uber? Or really any tech startup with aggressvie growth only surviving because of VC investment.
  - giaour 5y ago
    There are a few ways to get an IC role that pays more than the GS salary cap, but they are fairly rare. Some jobs have an "ST" level that is classified above GS for senior individual contributors in scientific or technical roles, and some agencies (like the CFPB) have their own pay scales that go beyond what the GS schedule allows. I only worked with one computer scientist in an ST role during my two years at USDS. He was an ACM Fellow and had a PhD from MIT, so it's not something anyone should expect to get just because they had "senior" in their title at a FAANG. Contractors don't have the same statutory caps on how much an individual role can pay, but salaries are part of contract bids, and a bid can be rejected if an individual salary is too high.
- brimble 5y ago
  As someone not in FAANG, I was super-interested in their remote option, since it'd have been much more like that 30% cut (for me) than a 70% cut—until I saw the weird "term of service" limitation. Half the point of taking a government job is the retirement, and stable health benefits et c. over the long haul! Taking that out of the equation ruins the value prop.
  - lastofthemojito 5y ago
    Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but I'm seeing this as an analog to the Peace Corps or AmeriCorps (maybe the name is swaying me there?). Something specifically for people right at the beginning of their career to have an opportunity to perhaps do something meaningful. And once they have that experience on their resume, it'll help them do the next thing.
    - brimble 5y ago
      The program I looked at back then read like it was targeting established professionals.
    - giaour 5y ago
      The US Digital Corps (a new program) is meant to be for people at the beginning of their careers. GP was referring to the US Digital Service, which is for mid- and senior-level tech folks.
      - brimble 5y ago
        Yes, absolutely correct and I should have been clearer about this, this was the (at this point) long-running USDS program, not this new thing.
  - giaour 5y ago
    Plenty of people move from USDS to permanent civil service roles, but they do need to plan for it and apply. Your time in USDS counts towards government retirement benefits, but you can't stay in that particular position for longer than 4 years.
- CobaltFire 5y ago
  Unfortunately the GS salary bands are pretty below market for everything and the quality of people that is resulting in shows. I recently got offered a GS-11 (with promotion to GS-12 after a year) position and it's just not worth it. This wasn't for tech either; this was for a rather odd skill set.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    "This wasn't for tech either; this was for a rather odd skill set." Well this sounds like a story.
    - CobaltFire 5y ago
      Security Manager. I deal in Personal, Physical, Communication, and IT Security as an Active Duty member, and since I'm retiring they wanted me to shift to a Personal/Physical SecMan that handles thousands of clearances and multiple TS assets spread around a couple sites. Odd, but not that exciting. :)
      - giantg2 5y ago
        So what I'm hearing is that you're Sam Fisher and this is your cover story.
  - pclmulqdq 5y ago
    I was offered a GS-15 a while ago and even that was a lot lower than a starting FAANG salary for a new grad. I would happily work for the USDS or a TLA for a 20% pay cut, but the process of getting anywhere near that is a nightmare. It seems like the path is generally to work your way to GS-12 or higher, then quit and become a contractor for the same group.
    - CobaltFire 5y ago
      Essentially yes. Lockheed already has jobs posted for higher pay than was on offer for that skillset and has asked me if I'd be interested in talking to them. Since that skill is odd but required by every single contractor that does classified work there's a whole lot of opportunity out there I wasn't aware of until recently. The lack of quality people doing it in the GS ranks now makes a whole lot more sense to me. Prior to me understanding that it was just an annoyance.
- aikiplayer 5y ago
  It's definitely steep and getting steeper by the month. The other downside, that's actually more significant than the base salary difference, is the lack of upside from stock, etc. (which a sibling also commented on). However, there are a couple of significant things that are often overlooked. There's a strong mission that really speaks to some people. Additionally, there's a lot of structure applied which helps to enforce a work/life balance. Some people really want to dive in and work a lot of hours (which is generally allowed) but others (like me) struggle to turn work off w/o that structure.
- giantg2 5y ago
  Your comment seems out of touch with reality for most people. The US median dev salary is $110k and it looks like you can hit that as a GS-12 in most locations.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    > The US median dev salary is $110k I don’t doubt you’ve looked that up and it’s true if you say it is, but that number completely baffles me. How are so many devs so poorly paid?
    - tick_tock_tick 5y ago
      There is a lot of country between the two coasts. Hell most of the southern coast is still quite cheap.
    - omginternets 5y ago
      I suspect it's because "dev" is a fairly broad category that encompasses everything from "Wordpress CSS-twiddler" to "Big Tech Hotshot".
    - mciancia 5y ago
      I wouldn't be surprised if those statistics are not really worth anything. Like, it's possible they don't take under account people who are contracting, RSUs/options, yearly bonuses and whatever alse companies are offering now. Median base salary at 110k might be possible then ;)
    - Goronmon 5y ago
      How are so many devs so poorly paid? Maybe you are just out of touch with what your average software developer is paid?
    - verisimilidude 5y ago
      You may be living in a bubble. That’s a normal (and still very good) salary for devs working in quieter metro areas. I left the Bay Area five years ago. My salary is now $100k, a substantial pay cut from my SF years. But quality of life is soooooo much better here, in so many ways. It’s worth the drop in pay.
- jacobian 5y ago
  If you're a software developer, and your goal is to maximize income, then yeah, don't work for the federal government. If your goal is to do meaningful work that has a tangible positive impact on average people's lives, while being paid a fair living wage, then these jobs are unbeatable.
  - stirfish 5y ago
    What are some government software projects that have a tangible positive impact on average people's lives?
    - prepend 5y ago
      Healthcare.gov is the project that kicked off USDS (because the site was so horrible and the contractors charged billions). That site impacts millions of lives. There’s lots of important government projects. I actually think the rate of BS/meaningful may be higher in government than private given the number of cow clicker/BS-type projects.
    - xxpor 5y ago
      The SSA has to be able to get checks out to everyone every month. The IRS has to process tax returns and get out refunds. The USGS has to be able to detect earthquakes. The NWS has to be able to deliver critical weather data. I could go on and on.
  - time_to_smile 5y ago
    I did a stint in the government working for a team that eventually had a lot people go over to 18F. I joined on hoping to see exactly what you describe, willing to take a pay cut for meaningful work. My experience was very different than yours has been. My impression was that it was largely bureaucrats looking to further their own position in the massive bureaucracy. It was virtually impossible to do any "meaningful work". The handful of people passionate about doing good for the world were constantly blocked by other bureaucrats who were only interested in maintaining (or expanding) their tiny island of power they had accrued. I vividly recall needing data from another agency to help solve a problem we were working on and being told that it would be virtually impossible to get any cooperation because it would make them look bad if we succeeded using their data. My entire time as a Federal employee was filled with similar such moments. All of the work I did, which ended up proving some seriously privacy vulnerabilities in another project, was dismissed because people didn't want to hear it. The experience forever changed my view on government. The plus side is I did meet some fantastic, although terminally frustrated, people while I was there. It is a great place to meet people who have similar ambitions. For someone looking for meaningful work I would advise staying far away from the federal government.
- omginternets 5y ago
  What's the salary cap?
  - giaour 5y ago
    $176,300 (per https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/salary-tables/pdf/2022/DCB.pdf https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries...)
    - l33t2328 5y ago
      And people consider that a bad offer a decade ago? I consider that a dream offer today.
      - omginternets 5y ago
        I think this depends a great deal on industry and seniority. What kind of programming do you do and how long have you been doing it?
- tdhz77 5y ago
  Former Fed for 10 years. Loved working for the Federal Government. I made 100k+ as a software engineer. I left Federal Service in February 22 because the private sector doubled my salary. My work is much easier in the private sector and I work a lot less. I’m getting paid double. I have a team now I can rely on. I didn’t have this in Gov. Many Gov IT positions will go unfilled for months. I had one organization offer me 25k, fully remote to work there and I declined. Why? The amount of work is insane for a individual developer. This idea that we shouldn’t pay people because they work in Government is insane. Peoples mistrust of government, but really it’s misguided.
  - tehwebguy 5y ago
    > I had one organization offer me 25k, fully remote to work there Per year? That is $12.50 / hr
    - the_only_law 5y ago
      I worked for state government, in a very red state (read, does not like to spend on government) for my first “real” job at around $37k, circa 5-6 years ago.
      - toomanyrichies 5y ago
        This gets to the heart of a contradiction in red state philosophy which is actually quite hard to solve, at least in my mind. On the one hand, it's understandable if someone doesn't trust the government to spend their money wisely, and if they use that as a justification for voting for smaller government budgets. I get that part completely. Governments have little if any internal motivation to spend your money wisely. If anything, they have a vested interest in spending 100% of their budgets, regardless of whether it's spent wisely, so that their budgets don't decrease in the following fiscal year. At the same time, "if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys". If red states don't pay competitive salaries in competitive fields, their citizens shouldn't be surprised if they end up scraping the bottom of the barrel to source their public servants. The service they experience while interfacing with this dreck then further reduces their faith in government, and the whole thing becomes a vicious circle. Again, this is a hard problem to solve. I don't know what the answer is, but it seems to be rooted in a mis-alignment of incentives in government spending.
- prepend 5y ago
  The max GS15 salary is like $175k and there’s lots of government benefits. Max GS14 is $150. Max GS13 is $125. And there’s lots of benefits (23 paid days off, 13 sick every year), pension, etc etc. This won’t compete with FAANG or with HCO, but in most areas of the country (or full remote) this is fine for a programmer’s pay. I hear the complaint that fed doesn’t pay for tech and I think that’s not true. The BLS has median programmer pay $90k in 2020 [0] so government pay is certainly competitive. This is median too, while the lowest possible GS13 pay is $100k. [0] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/mobile/computer-programmers.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...
  - glowingly 5y ago
    From my experience, GS14 and above roles are allocated in limited numbers to each program/branch/division. Of course, many other companies do this to some degree, and one obviously can rotate in the government. However, not every program will have GS14, nevermind GS15 opportunities. GS is also (like all companies, etc, etc) adjusted per locality, so not every GS13 step 4 will be the same.
    - prepend 5y ago
      From my experience, ICs in technical fields like programming, data science, and cyber get hired in as Gs13-15 in non-supervisory roles. Yes, GS is adjusted for locality and it’s up and down. But $100k is the minimum for GS-13, step 1 in most localities and is higher in high cost of living areas like DC, NY, etc. But if you want a programmer job in government it’s not a big pay cut unless you’re a superstar working for Google or something. If it’s a decision of random Fortune 500 or government, government will usually pay more, AND have more benefits and stability.
      - glowingly 5y ago
        I am in a HCOL area on the locality chart :/ We get hired in at $70k and this seems rather common among my peers + contractors, so I don't exactly know how someone is getting $100k at the door. People who have been here ~5+ years are GS13 or equivalent. However, most of us aren't and I don't see any upward trends, as our GS14/+ slots are being slowly retired/transferred away. There seems to be a large age gap between the newer engineers and the older ones. Sounds silly, I know. I am wondering if most of us are going to wander off then come back for retirement? Or is the program doomed in the long run? Thanks. I think I just needed to see it from someone outside of my program.
- gnicholas 5y ago
  Two things to keep in mind: the federal government offers a very good pension, which most private employers do not. Also, if you have student loans and work for qualifying employers (govt and/or nonprofit IIRC), you can have some of your loans discharged after a period of time. But both of these perks require you to work for 10 or 20 years, in one branch or another.
  - NtGuy25 5y ago
    Government pension is actually very bad. You pay 4 % of your salary per year, and get 1 % * years worked * avg(3 top highest salaries). You get far more money if you put that 4 % into a 401k or other investment vehicle. Also, with loans being discharged, you have to have made a ton of payments, to the point that most will pay off their loans before they're eligible in a stem position.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - nmeagent 5y ago
      You only pay 4.4% of your salary if hired after 2014 (I only pay 0.8%). If you retire with 20+ years of service at 62 or later, you get 1.1% per year of your high-three salary. That amount is adjusted by cost-of-living increases as well, though of course that may not keep up with inflation. Also keep in mind that TSP contributions are matched up to 5% of your salary. Consider the pension in the context of also maxing out contributions to TSP (which has the same yearly contributions cap as a 401k). A fair comparison should include the whole package.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
- kache_ 5y ago
  this a million times. I interviewed for the spooks, and the money they were offering was an absolute pittance compared to what I could be making just pay us, I'd be happy to come work. I know they have the money too, I pay double their offering salary in the taxes I paid in 2021
- AtlasBarfed 5y ago
  Is it illegal to have "other compensation" like a second job or consulting gig while you have a gov job?
- bradleyankrom 5y ago
  Oh man, let me tell you about the “working in sports” discount…
tonymet 5y ago
What does 18F mean? Our name is short for the address of the GSA building where we’re headquartered in Washington, DC: 1800 F Street. For those curious about the inappropriate-sounding name
- ericmay 5y ago
  When I saw that, the first thing that came to mind was that it's the military occupation specialty (MOS) for US Army special forces (18x). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Special_Forces https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Special_For...
- wmeredith 5y ago
  Am I naive? How is "18F" inappropriate?
  - z3c0 5y ago
    Eighteen-year-old female
notreallyserio 5y ago
Do you still have to be straight-edge to get hired by the feds?
- solarmist 5y ago
  Depends on what you mean. But generally I’d say no felonies, no drugs (convictions and/or test results) and no strong ties to foreign governments. But the details will vary a bit.
  - notreallyserio 5y ago
    No drugs, specifically cannabis. I've heard that admitting to using cannabis in the past gets you tossed, despite it being common, safe, and legal in much of the country.
    - the_jeremy 5y ago
      Past drug use does not disqualify you. Source: have friends who smoked pot and got security clearances.
      - solarmist 5y ago
        Lying about it (if caught) will absolutely get you disqualified though. But yeah use and conviction are very different.
    - tssva 5y ago
      In the late 80s to early 90s as I attended college and then spent a couple of years following the Dead, I smoked pot, ate mushrooms, dosed LSD, and snorted cocaine on a regular basis. I also sampled various other substances along the way. Several years later I applied for and received a Top Secret clearance. I fully admitted all prior drug use as part of the process. I was working for a government contractor at the time and was not a government employee. At the same time I had a couple of friends who worked for a 3 letter agency and had prior regularly smoked pot. They admitted their prior use during the hiring process. This again was during the late 90s when attitudes towards pot were more negative than they are today.

mistrial9 5y ago

gotta start somewhere.. empowering people is a big "yes" here.. on the other hand, government in the USA is plauged by an outsourcing addiction. Get the budget and signature authority, say whatever you have to say in any number of meetings to get that, and then it is off to margaritaville while pressured, less-authority people are required to make things happen, and they in turn hire outsourcing companies, who then in turn run modern-day "IT shops" which vary wildly, lets say .. What effect does this good-looking GSA program have, over time, on this addiction to outsourcing for USA government work ? on the culture of bosses who run that, and on worst yet, companies that thrive on failure in government contracting.. which apparently is endemic. Sincere good wishes to the people who are in this for the right reasons. I have to call the dark side though, since empowering that dark side with lofty words and new budgets, is worse than picking up litter in the park on volunteer day and going about your own business.

the_only_law 5y ago
> government in the USA is plauged by an outsourcing addiction. Favorite relevant story from recently: an old friend of mine who enlisted in the army told me he is unable to do the job they trained him to do rn, at least until the contractors doing it at the moment have their contract run out.

iaabtpbtpnn 5y ago

If I use cannabis, can I work for the United States Digital Corps?

CobaltFire 5y ago
Unlikely, as they require a background investigation and that's not legal at the Federal Level.
- rythmshifter03 5y ago
  what?
  - apetresc 5y ago
    Marijuana is a Schedule 1 drug at the Federal level. What is your confusion?
ar_lan 5y ago
I torrented something when I was 17... I think I'm out :) When both the FBI and NSA came to my college they basically said that during a recruiting meeting and most of the students just left
- a9h74j 5y ago
  There is understandable reason for them to ask a lot more about your past history of exilfrating infomation, than even drug use.
faldore 5y ago
Federal employees and contractors are subject to regular and random urinalysis. Until marijuana is legalized at the federal level (which has been passed by the house but is not yet law) you could be terminated for marijuana.
- gavinray 5y ago

killjoywashere 5y ago

There's tremendous opportunity to make connections early. I have a colleague who is 23 years old and planning an urgent, high 8-figure R&D effort. Like, that's the project for this week. Make no mistake, there's a shocking amount of bureaucratic trench warfare because everything is Balkanized, but the impact can staggering if you can execute.

dimitrios1 5y ago

> Empower the next generation of technology leaders to launch careers in public service and create a more effective, equitable government. Can someone explain to me how this program will achieve this? The problem of government inequity is unfair and unbalanced representation as a result of valuing corporations and special interests over the citizenry.

WestCoastJustin 5y ago

Anyone know what the red-tape / pay is like there? It seems like government organisations are just at such a disadvantage in terms of red-tape and large pay gap between the private sector. I know some have more discretion in their hiring ability, particularly in the defence space, but does it come close to private sector? You're probably better off working for a contractor working for the US Digital Corps than for them directly. My experience is working with the Canadian Federal gov at a few national research labs. It was amazing work but joining the private sector is a major culture shock in that you can pretty much do anything and get paid 4x. So, what's the incentive to work there?

ch4s3 5y ago
I tried to apply about 5 years ago and the process looked like it was going to take longer than a full set of Google interviews and it was going to be a big pay cut so I dropped out. EDIT* It seems I was thinking of the United States Digital Service, which is a different thing.
- CobaltFire 5y ago
  This program is new for this year; you didn't attempt to apply for it five years ago.
  - ch4s3 5y ago
    Ahh sorry, I was thinking of the United States Digital Service. I assumed they were related or maybe the same thing rebranded.
killjoywashere 5y ago
Sleeping well at night when you're older knowing you helped Grandma get her social security checks, your cousin in the Marines got the surgery he needed, the Post Office trucks got the maintenance they needed. A good career doesn't need any public service, but most great careers probably do.
- 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

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lukemercado 5y ago

This seems like an EXCELLENT way for junior engineers to finally get out of the "no job can't get a job" box. Super curious to see what comes of it, and to recruit those who complete the fellowships.

andreisbc 5y ago
You are too romantic about it. Read the other comments. This is such an excellent idea, but it's a closed sourced system wrapped into sweet package. I don't doubt the output of it, but c'man man, we know better right ?
cactus2093 5y ago
Is this a real problem? The hiring market for engineers is really hot, and if anything tech really over-indexes on technical/coding interview questions and under-indexes on past experience and having a formal degree. If you can reliably solve medium Leetcode problems you can easily get a junior developer job at all sorts of companies (and hard Leetcode problems will get you a job at FAANG) without any past experience. I think the much more common problem for new folks trying to break into software engineering is "not very good at coding yet, can't get a job". Not sure if Digital Corps is optimizing for these people but they really should be (given that they can't compete with the private market on comp).
- R0b0t1 5y ago
  If you're not in the right area yes it is a huge problem.
- vmception 5y ago
  A lot of DC area people view federal public sector as the “amazing [stable] opportunity” and dont think FAANG opportunities as options, many dont know about them High five figure to low six figure salaries are the aspiration Everything else is too absurd or too risky Very risk averse dynasties there that will drill this into their neighbors and children their whole life Many contractors are also chasing a carrot on a stick hoping to convert to a federal employee if “mastuh is pleased” There is a whole industry there catering to that There are also a lot of opportunities for actually ambitious people such as making the contracting firm or selling something stupid to an agency that your friend working there signed off on

CobaltFire 5y ago

For those people thinking this is a huge opportunity: there are 30 spots total for this year. This is a very small program, so will be highly selective. Also, since it's Federal and requires a Background Investigation drug use will be an issue. Surprisingly they allow fully remote though, which is a huge plus.

the_only_law 5y ago
The clearance thing pisses me off. I saw a job listing, at actually decent pay, with some niche technologies that some people feel strongly towards (Haskell, etc.) albeit with a contractor not a gov agency. Form the description, it sounded like they had a contract to rip off QubesOS (or at least develop something which sounded eerily similar), which apparently requires one of the highest clearances possible.
meatsauce 5y ago
"Equitable" means it will only be open to people with connections in special interests.
- cr__ 5y ago
  Do you have any proof?
andreisbc 5y ago
Being so selective means that only those with the highest credentials get approved - and we all know how these credentials can be harvestered: 90% nepotism and elitism, while only 10% skill. Those 10% will be the brains, while the 90% will bring the network onto which these solutions will be promoted
- iJohnDoe 5y ago
  Normally I would agree with you. In this case, it was the opposite. They truly looked at the candidates skill set and capabilities. Unfortunately, the government agencies where the chosen candidates were supposed to be funneled to and hired is where the usual government dysfunction kicked in. Those agencies didn’t seem to be on board with the whole program.

sumitgt 5y ago

Unfortunately both this and USDS require the applicant to be a US Citizen. I wish there was a similar option for folks who are not yet citizens but currently work in the US tech industry (maybe in exchange for some sort of a streamlined path to citizenship). Similar to the (now paused) MAVNI program.

lvl102 5y ago
So now US citizens have to fight for US govt jobs too?
- LadyCailin 5y ago
  Sure, and why not? I’d rather hire a competent foreigner over a lousy citizen any day. More generally though, I would support seriously beefing up the educational system, sparing no expense to ensure it’s the best in the world. Unfortunately, the ones who tend to be against immigration also tend to be against improving education, and you simply must pick one or the other, or perhaps even both, if the US wants to stay competitive in the world.

bayareabadboy 5y ago

ohCh6zos 5y ago
It’s a way to signal who they’re looking for without stepping into explicitly discriminatory language.
president 5y ago
To attract youth to a lowly paying government job, they need to appeal to emotion. Same way tech companies attracted college kids by telling them they were helping to "save the world".
digisign 5y ago
From experience with a school age kid, this kind of language is being drummed into youth, aka brainwashing, at least in "liberal" areas of the country. It's not the worst thing I've seen so don't worry too much, but agree that it is mildly annoying. Edit: censoring this perspective is counterproductive I think, where even noticing the obsession with diversity framing will get you blacklisted. From history we know that suppression of ideas tends to end badly. It's the new "Red Scare" except the color meaning has been flipped from Communist to Republican.
killerdhmo 5y ago
do you have a lot of experience with sophomore gender studies at "lower tier" ivies? Is there something specific you object to?

uhtred 5y ago

I've been thinking about tax payer funded public technology infrastructure recently with all the posts about the next google / improving web search. Why couldn't we have a tax payer funded but fully independent office that creates essential online services such as web search? I suppose the main argument against it might be privacy concerns or censorship / propaganda. But with no commercial interests I think privacy would be better protected. As for censorship / propaganda - the BBC manages to stay pretty neutral in the UK.

RosanaAnaDana 5y ago

The GS rates for all federal services are so laughably bad its a bit disgusting. Afaik, they're still expecting people with 4 year science degrees (BS) to start at ~16$hr

Victerius 5y ago
Good luck convincing 70 year old congressmen that 22 year old software engineers working for the government should be paid as much, if not more, than them. Government needs a pay raise across the board. The president should earn $10 million per annum. Senators, $2,000,000.00. Representatives, $1,200,000.00. Government employees, an average of $175,000.00. And entry level software engineers for the government, $200,000.00.
- RosanaAnaDana 5y ago
  I got a BS in botany thinking I wanted to work for the Park Service, Forest Service, BLM, something like that. Not only was entry level a paupers wage, and strictly seasonal, but there was no clear way to get into a career tract position. I ended up going into industry and making 2x, and within 3 years was making 3x. I would much rather be out in the world counting plants, but I would have never been able to buy a home, or get ahead in any reasonable fashion had I continued that path.
- renewiltord 5y ago
  No thanks. Doubt it would change performance. Gov jobs are already considered cushy jobs for the incapable. Everyone always wants to do these things with my money. Why don’t you form a Voluntary Taxpayers Union and you guys can go do that. I’m fine with government engineers being paid nothing because they’re going to deliver nothing irrespective of how much you pay them.
lastofthemojito 5y ago
It's not necessarily bad everywhere and for everyone - I think park rangers in East Nowheresville do ok. There's a base GS pay scale and then locality adjustments for different metro areas, and the big problem with the WASHINGTON-BALTIMORE-ARLINGTON, DC-MD-VA-WV-PA locality is right there in the name: WV-PA. They pretend that folks working in downtown DC ought to be paid the same as folks at some remote site in WV. So yeah, I believe that means a 31% adjustment compared to the base GS pay scale, when to be competitive with other DC area salaries, the adjustment probably needs to be more like 80%.

lvl102 5y ago

A word of caution: these programs sound great until you realize they’re mainly there for big govt consulting firms to take tax money. It’s the sad truth about tech and US govts. They don’t actually want to change. They just want to appear that way. My two cynical cents.

wslack 5y ago
I understand this viewpoint but in this situation its not accurate. There are huge communities of people working to improve systems. 18F's github repos are public if you want to see exactly what they are doing: https://github.com/18f https://github.com/18f
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
sophacles 5y ago
I can't believe that you expect to be taken seriously while pretending the millions of people encompassed by "tech and Us Govt" are all a single hivemind with only the one motivation.
jessriedel 5y ago
Aren't things the opposite of how you describe? My understanding is that the big govt consulting firms exist to allow the govt to access competent developers who are paid market wages since the govt is constrained from paying govt employees adequately. The US digital corp is an attempt to hire good developers as govt employees who would replace some of the current developers working for the big consulting firms. Now, whether the strategy of providing a less terrible govt work environment, and a more inspiring story, will actually be successful in outweighing the still-extant salary limits is very unclear. But this is at least an attempt to reduce the reliance on consult developers and the corresponding middle-man fees taken by the consultanting firms.
andreisbc 5y ago
This is actually correct sir. We're not cynical, just rationalists

FinNerd 5y ago

They need a sexy website. Feels like boomer org made worse by being drowned in DEI woke language. No very high competency young people would want to work for this IMO

scotuswroteus 5y ago

This shit entirely understates the political bullshit that any truly innovative approach to service delivery would encounter. Show us the Memoranda of Understanding with the unions running the bureaucracy before you tell us we can make anything resembling change.

kbash9 5y ago

Mission: "...develop innovative solutions that make government work better for the American people." Values: Integrity, Inclusion, Impact Wouldn't hurt to add "Innovation" as a value for a team of technologists.

mym1990 5y ago
FWIW good things come in 3s and innovation could roll up under Impact.
fortran77 5y ago
And it's for recent graduates only. I'm 59 years old and they don't want me. This isn't "diverse" at all.

supernova87a 5y ago

I sincerely hope that this government office has an associated division (or function) that is not just responsible for developing/procuring/scoping the detailed technology solutions but also responsible for: -- Removing the incentives / disincentives for agencies to stick with old technology or processes (for legitimate, or even stupid reasons) -- Coming up with ways to motivate/enable government workers and leaders to want new technology tools and break out of resistance based on existing methods -- Advocate for budgets to properly fund the development of such tech initiatives rather than a) ignore the growing problem, or b) prefer to fund the old outdated methods -- Inform the policymakers why all of the above are important, and why (as appropriate) it is more cost-effective and real-outcome-beneficial in the long run Because I think what you'll find is that it is rarely the tech that is the bottleneck constraint. Put a good tool in front of anyone as an individual and unless they're stupid, they'll generally want to do it. Put it in front of them as a worker who has other constraints and interests in the system created to date, and they display many other behaviors. When you have a tool / method that is shown to be 10x greater in benefit, of course governments will start to adopt it. It's beyond objectionable when they see something that good. And citizens will put up with some temporary inconvenience to switch because it's nonsensical to stick to such blatantly inferior methods. But when some new solution is only 1.5x better, then you get a lot of resistance (sometimes legitimate) that people need to be able to rely on their existing solutions or it costs too much to change, etc, etc. And you start losing out on significant, but insufficiently better, efficient solutions that are needed to keep us out of lagging place in the world.

giaour 5y ago
I think USDS had stickers with "it is rarely the tech that is the bottleneck constraint" or something like that printed on them. I still have one that echoes your fourth point on a laptop. :) Those areas are honestly what USDS employees spend most of their time and energy working on.
wslack 5y ago
I work at a related office mentioned in this thread (but am posting personally here): You're 100% right about all of these, and I would emphasize that *the tech is not the hard part.* I would challenge you a little bit about something 10x greater being "beyond objectionable" - a benefit to users may not align with the incentives you named. For example, there's public evidence that some state governments deliberately made benefits harder to access to help even their budgets.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

hans1729 5y ago

Public sector IT was an extremely frustrating experience for me. - incompetent administration (org flow chart, constantly changing paradigms, misnomers ("open source" == we tape together stuff from public git-repositories, push nothing upstream, and outsource lots of core development)) - administration's priorities change with every election (project funding as a flag in the wind depending on current political climate) - red tape everywhere - bureaucrats everywhere - the whole job-stack attracted incompetent people, the kind that values stability over deep understanding and progress. the kind where I thought "man, good that they are working here in [$current_politically_opportune_project] so they can't do actual damage somewhere else". this applied for the business administrators, the project managers, the "developers", the admins, even a large part of the contractors. - "you're working too fast! haven't been here for long, eh?" - compliance > security Never, ever ever ever again. Granted, this was in Europe, maybe the US sucks less in the public sector. I would bet a good amount of money that there is a large intersection of problem spaces among the regions though.

behringer 5y ago
This is true in all facets of government.
rhexs 5y ago
Same thing here friend! The trick is realizing that the federal salary and benefits package is absolutely astronomically generous for the amount of work that the average fed puts in per month. Then there’s the standard 10% of them that struggle to carry the load, burn themselves out, and leave to double their pay at the same workload. Work hard, deliver more? At best you’ll get a 1000$ yearly bonus. Slack off, deliver nothing? Same thing, still get promoted.
- throwawaysleep 5y ago
  A ridiculous thing from my time in government was that promotions were interview driven only. If you aced the interview, you got a promo. Didn't matter if you did shit beforehand. A guy on my gov team got the promo over our by far most experienced and skilled developer as he spent his time practicing for the interview instead of working.

temp8964 5y ago

Why do I feel a strong anti-Asian sentiment on their homepage? Is it a shame to show Asian faces for them? Like they are shamed of the fact there are “too many” Asian male programmers?

pelasaco 5y ago
the only man being shown in the page is a disabled one...

noasaservice 5y ago

I've tried to apply to federal positions for years. I won't even get so much as a "fuck off". However when I apply to commercial, I'm snapped up in weeks. The most recent move was to a contractor. Again, 2 weeks to hire. 3 interviews total 2h. I have no degree, but my work expertise speaks for itself. Commercial sees that. The feds dont seem to care. It is with a contractor for the federal govt. $150k/yr. Generous benefits. But being a contractor, it is without federal protections, without school debt forgiveness, and others. Whatever. I prefer to stay for the length of the project. In this case, it's 2-3y. Would I work for the feds again? Absolutely. Will I even get a response when applying? Hardly.

andreisbc 5y ago
Why would you seek a job for a gov agency while working for a contractor doing the same thing pays better ? Status ? Benefits ? All day vacation ?
- noasaservice 5y ago
  You only apply to 1 job at a time? I was applying to positions like 20-30 a day when I was looking. And that included fed jobs. I heard back from many companies. Only 1 total ever from feds.
erdos4d 5y ago
Every person I have ever met who worked for the feds has had an attitude that govt. employees are THE BEST WHO EVER DID IT!!!!!! Maybe you didn't give them the vibe that you would play along with this farce? I have often asked such people how this is true since they pay way less than private and recruit from a smaller pool. This just gets you dirty looks and some "I'm proud to serve" platitudes.
wslack 5y ago
> I've tried to apply to federal positions for years. I won't even get so much as a "fuck off". Am guessing that you get (eventually) a message that you were "qualified but not referred?"

vogt 5y ago

I like that the Digital Corps exists in theory. I applied many moons ago, I believe during the Obama administration. Service to our country is something I feel is important so I applied to at least see if there was a fit. When I got to the phone screen, I made a point to ask if recreational cannabis would disqualify you from joining and they confirmed that yes, even if it was recreationally used, a positive cannabis result on a drug test would disqualify you. Major bummer, but unsurprising. The entire reason I asked was due to how many posts on HN I’ve seen about government agencies having a hard time hiring tech folks for this reason. I have what I believe to be a decently desirable skillset and a lot of tangible experience working in startups AND enterprise companies, and if I had to guess, would have brought some good value to the team. I hope (but doubt) these policies have relaxed.

nbaugh1 5y ago
The U.S. Digital Corps was launched in August 2021 by the Biden administration
- vogt 5y ago
  Yeah, another poster pointed out that I meant the Digital Service and this was correct.
rsstack 5y ago
Maybe you mean United States Digital Service? https://www.usds.gov/ https://www.usds.gov/
- vogt 5y ago
  Yes, this is actually correct. My mistake. Their missions and names appear to be similar enough that it tripped me up. Thanks for the correction.
quadcore 5y ago
Not a US citizen but last I heard cannabis is illegal on the federal level, so yeah, cant be relaxed until its legal.

emilfihlman 5y ago

On top of the page there's a: "Official website of the USA, here's how you know", and they list "it's on a .gov domain and uses https. Well, is that really so? I doubt it.

thfuran 5y ago
The .gov tld is administered by the US department of Homeland security. That a site is on .gov doesn't necessarily mean it hasn't been compromised or something but it does seem a pretty reasonable guarantee that it's at least nominally affiliated with the US government.

kkfx 5y ago

Sorry but... I'm from EU and in my view USA Digital Corps have GAFAM as name, they are widespread in the world, the most effective intelligence system under the Patriot Act. They have many people coming from "official" USA intelligence... They even have uniforms, in the form of the casual suit and tie, more apt for their executive battlefields. Having a formal corps with military uniforms is just a kind of Barnum's Circle.

_8j50 5y ago

You need degrees (college debt) and get paid crap. Why is this popular?

andreisbc 5y ago
Because it gives unexperienced and young people the status they think they seek - also connections which are inevitable - while they will be ultimately transformed into the people of the deep state. And hey, that's fine - even the deep state needs new people right ?
RachelF 5y ago
Because you can get experience (and a clearance) work for 2 years, resign and come back to exactly the same job as a contractor at 2.5x the salary.
- _8j50 5y ago
  Or just make 2.5x without college debt and gov red tape?

fn-mote 5y ago

Interested? Too bad. "Applications are currently closed." Huh? Maybe it's related to the FAQ: "Why is there a limit to the number of applications in each track?" Ok... so presumably they were not closed two hours ago when this hit HN? This isn't sending the message that the program is serious, it's sending the message that they cannot handle even the volume of applicants that they are getting right now - in spite of the majority of the posts here dumping on government jobs.

pgcj_poster 5y ago
I applied when applications opened in November. They were upfront about the fact that they would only look at the first 300 applications -- which they received in the first week. They had engineers review the resumes, which were allowed to be 3-pages, which I imagine is responsible for the low volume.
tomrod 5y ago
I submitted it because I find the effort interesting. I am not involved with it nor did I realize it was closed. My apologies.

lacoolj 5y ago

anyone know specifics on what they do? the page isn't very clear

andreisbc 5y ago

My only problem here is that some people seem happy about this - and they have the best intentions. My opinion is that you shouldn't forget about the people behind these kind of operations. They clearly seem elitist, and tech&gov history showed us that these initiatives are mainly rigged for purposes unknown. "For the people", right ?

IanDrake 5y ago

enchiridion 5y ago

Is anyone else frightened to see equity explicitly spelled out as a goal of a US government office? Equity implicitly requires enforcement of equal outcomes. I do not think the federal government is capable or benevolent enough to carry out that enforcement

tomrod 5y ago
It doesnt bother me that an employer wants to pay equal pay for equal work. Are you assuming something more is involved here?
- enchiridion 5y ago
  Yes I am. What you describe is equality, which I think is great! What they are advocating for is equity, a much different goal. Equity involves giving preferential treatment to certain groups of people who are perceived as persecuted in the current social climate. It has no basis in law, and is antithetical to a meritocracy.
  - tomrod 5y ago
    Equity is semantically equality. I'm not sure I see your point. Are people being paid differently for the work? Or are you saying there is a policy driven filter attempting to offset some of society's pre-existing filtering (thus giving equality of opportunity)?
    - enchiridion 5y ago
      Semantically maybe they are similar, but in the sociological parlance they mean very different things. Yes, equality of opportunity is a good thing. If you have the qualifications, anyone should be given equal consideration. Changing or relaxing requirements in order to attempt some societal good is wrong. Those issues should be addressed upstream of any employment decisions, mainly by removing impediments to success, not by preferential treatment.

pelasaco 5y ago

What they want to sell: no white CIS men What is the reality: 90% white CIS men Crazy to see this virtue signaling in that level.

hans1729 5y ago
90% white CIS men is not the reality I experienced in public sector IT. It was 100%. (But presumably there are more POC represented in the US)