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I am really not clear on the structure of the "US Digital Service." The phrase "US Digital Service" makes it sound like a "reified" civil service organization

I am really not clear on the structure of the "US Digital Service." The phrase "US Digital Service" makes it sound like a "reified" civil service organization in its own right. There is a USDS Headquarters, which seems to support this notion. In the copy[1], however, it says that the bulk of the work is done by "agency teams" which, if I'm understanding right, kind of "embed" with their assigned gov't agency. The copy also says they're recruiting founding members for new agency teams. The phrase "founding members" makes it sound, almost, like the teams are independent operations but knowing the federal gov't as I do, that can't possibly be right. Does anyone here have any light they can cast on whether the USDS is an agency unto itself? If not, what cabinet secretary does it fall under? I have a ton of questions about how this works. edit: My biggest fear with the USDS is that it can be smothered in the cradle by the next administration. There simply doesn't seem to be enough employees to make dissolving it -- or, maybe more likely, starving it to death budget-wise -- a big deal. [1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/digital/united-states-digital-service/story https://www.whitehouse.gov/digital/united-states-digital-ser...

wpietri 12y ago
I recently went to a recruiting event of theirs in SF, and here is my personal understanding, probably wrong in spots: The broad notion is that private-sector IT culture has undergone major change in the last couple of decades. The failure of HealthCare.gov under the old model and its subsequent turnaround using the sort of modern methods common in Silicon Valley woke people up to the possibility of doing something new. The question, then, is how to get government working like we do. (At least where it's beneficial; we solve a lot of our mistakes by shutting down companies, but government departments can't work like that.) A number of things have been tried, starting with the Presidential Innovation Fellows. [1] The US Digital Service is the latest pass. The USDS HQ is under the US CTO, which I believe makes it part of the Office of Science and Technology Policy [2], which is part of the Executive Office of the President [3]. The agency teams are embedded in the agencies themselves, and so I'd assume those are legally under the appropriate cabinet secretaries. I get all this mainly from the USDS pages. [4] Personally, I suspect that this is not a lot of money. It's mainly people, and they made clear that they will be paying industry salaries, not government salaries. And given that it is getting government to reduce waste and learn from the private sector, I expect it has bipartisan appeal. Even if the next administration dissolves it all, though, I expect it will still have a fair bit of effect. As anybody in the industry knows, the switch from 18- to 36-month cycles to 1-4 week cycles is pretty much permanent because the culture has shifted. People just expect stuff sooner now. But I hope the next administration continues the effort. At the meeting it was clear there were a lot of people in tech who really want to go serve their country by taking a couple years to make the government run better. It'd be foolish not to take advantage of that yearning for public service. [1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/innovationfellows https://www.whitehouse.gov/innovationfellows [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Science_and_Technology_Policy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Science_and_Technolog... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Office_of_the_President_of_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Office_of_the_Preside... [4] https://www.whitehouse.gov/digital/united-states-digital-service/story https://www.whitehouse.gov/digital/united-states-digital-ser...
- mattdeboard 12y ago
  I would be extremely surprised -- and skeptical, actually -- if there is a USDS with its own budget, but the agency teams serving under the secretary. There would be two masters there, and that's just fertile breeding ground for major frustration. (This is also not how inter-unit embeds work in the military, which is what colors my perspective.) Regarding pay, I dunno. Based on quotes from this[1] article, the pay scale seems to cap out at GS15 Step 10 which is ~132k. Now obviously this is still a lot of money but if I'm reading between the lines of his quotes right, this is the most an engineer can make w/ USDS without bumping up to SES (Senior Executive Service) levels. Not to say that's substantively less than industry salaries, but they definitely are paying government salaries (by definition). As far as dissolution, I'm talking more from the perspective of attracting & retaining top talent. With a private sector startup, you trade job security for potentially out-sized payoff. But here... Anyway, point being I think the risks should be articulated well. [1] http://fcw.com/articles/2014/10/27/red-tape-holding-back-hiring.aspx http://fcw.com/articles/2014/10/27/red-tape-holding-back-hir...
  - devonkim 12y ago
    There's a strong possibility that many people that are recruited into USDS are actually contractors / consultants and are thus free to bill whatever rate the government can deem necessary and appropriate. This is how almost anyone I know has ever gotten beyond that kind of salary. Also, GS15 is usually reserved for people that have been with federal service for 15+ years and isn't exactly given out to newbies without considerable thought. However, that could certainly happen but there's not exactly much room to promote them up honestly. And frankly, $132k in the DC area is about as pitiful in the Bay Area if you ask me. Defense contractors alone command $140k salaries for senior developers frequently (the contractors that still do have contracts that is). If you're in "cybersecurity" (whatever BS that actually means is beyond me when it comes to the technical definitions) you can get that with some pretty solid experience beforehand and reach into $200k as an engineer (not being management, which is usually where the caps on compensation tend to lift - see the ES pay scale compared to the GS).
    - 12y ago
daveman692 12y ago
Structure wise the Digital Service is made up of a headquarters team within the White House, 18F which is an internal software development organization within the General Services Administration, and then embedded teams growing to be within each cabinet level agency. This creates a mixture of distributed execution plus centralized resources to help each team as needed.
- kingkilr 12y ago
  (I work for the Digital Service @ the VA) This is correct. The HQ team is a part of OMB, the White House's Office of Management and Budgest. The agency teams can be thought of as a franchise model, we work closely with the HQ team and the other agency teams, but we're also a for real part of the agency we work at. (Just realized who I was replying to, welp!)
  - mattdeboard 12y ago
    I was disappointed to find out yesterday from Jeff M. that there is no remote position available. I hope this changes at some point in the near future.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  Your profile blurb has a typo in it.
natural219 12y ago
I, too, would happily consume any content about the USDS, how it's structured, what it's plans are, what its focus is, etc. Specifically, I'd like to learn what I can do now to start thinking about the problems of scale and procurement on a government level. It's an area I don't know much about, but the noises made by Mikey Dickerson and his team have gotten me sufficiently inspired to want to learn more and build out my skillset as to eventually help the initiative in any way I can.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

wpietri 12y ago

I recently went to a recruiting event of theirs in SF, and here is my personal understanding, probably wrong in spots: The broad notion is that private-sector IT culture has undergone major change in the last couple of decades. The failure of HealthCare.gov under the old model and its subsequent turnaround using the sort of modern methods common in Silicon Valley woke people up to the possibility of doing something new. The question, then, is how to get government working like we do. (At least where it's beneficial; we solve a lot of our mistakes by shutting down companies, but government departments can't work like that.) A number of things have been tried, starting with the Presidential Innovation Fellows. [1] The US Digital Service is the latest pass. The USDS HQ is under the US CTO, which I believe makes it part of the Office of Science and Technology Policy [2], which is part of the Executive Office of the President [3]. The agency teams are embedded in the agencies themselves, and so I'd assume those are legally under the appropriate cabinet secretaries. I get all this mainly from the USDS pages. [4] Personally, I suspect that this is not a lot of money. It's mainly people, and they made clear that they will be paying industry salaries, not government salaries. And given that it is getting government to reduce waste and learn from the private sector, I expect it has bipartisan appeal. Even if the next administration dissolves it all, though, I expect it will still have a fair bit of effect. As anybody in the industry knows, the switch from 18- to 36-month cycles to 1-4 week cycles is pretty much permanent because the culture has shifted. People just expect stuff sooner now. But I hope the next administration continues the effort. At the meeting it was clear there were a lot of people in tech who really want to go serve their country by taking a couple years to make the government run better. It'd be foolish not to take advantage of that yearning for public service. [1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/innovationfellows https://www.whitehouse.gov/innovationfellows [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Science_and_Technology_Policy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Science_and_Technolog... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Office_of_the_President_of_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Office_of_the_Preside... [4] https://www.whitehouse.gov/digital/united-states-digital-service/story https://www.whitehouse.gov/digital/united-states-digital-ser...

mattdeboard 12y ago
I would be extremely surprised -- and skeptical, actually -- if there is a USDS with its own budget, but the agency teams serving under the secretary. There would be two masters there, and that's just fertile breeding ground for major frustration. (This is also not how inter-unit embeds work in the military, which is what colors my perspective.) Regarding pay, I dunno. Based on quotes from this[1] article, the pay scale seems to cap out at GS15 Step 10 which is ~132k. Now obviously this is still a lot of money but if I'm reading between the lines of his quotes right, this is the most an engineer can make w/ USDS without bumping up to SES (Senior Executive Service) levels. Not to say that's substantively less than industry salaries, but they definitely are paying government salaries (by definition). As far as dissolution, I'm talking more from the perspective of attracting & retaining top talent. With a private sector startup, you trade job security for potentially out-sized payoff. But here... Anyway, point being I think the risks should be articulated well. [1] http://fcw.com/articles/2014/10/27/red-tape-holding-back-hiring.aspx http://fcw.com/articles/2014/10/27/red-tape-holding-back-hir...
- devonkim 12y ago
  There's a strong possibility that many people that are recruited into USDS are actually contractors / consultants and are thus free to bill whatever rate the government can deem necessary and appropriate. This is how almost anyone I know has ever gotten beyond that kind of salary. Also, GS15 is usually reserved for people that have been with federal service for 15+ years and isn't exactly given out to newbies without considerable thought. However, that could certainly happen but there's not exactly much room to promote them up honestly. And frankly, $132k in the DC area is about as pitiful in the Bay Area if you ask me. Defense contractors alone command $140k salaries for senior developers frequently (the contractors that still do have contracts that is). If you're in "cybersecurity" (whatever BS that actually means is beyond me when it comes to the technical definitions) you can get that with some pretty solid experience beforehand and reach into $200k as an engineer (not being management, which is usually where the caps on compensation tend to lift - see the ES pay scale compared to the GS).
  - 12y ago

daveman692 12y ago

Structure wise the Digital Service is made up of a headquarters team within the White House, 18F which is an internal software development organization within the General Services Administration, and then embedded teams growing to be within each cabinet level agency. This creates a mixture of distributed execution plus centralized resources to help each team as needed.

kingkilr 12y ago
(I work for the Digital Service @ the VA) This is correct. The HQ team is a part of OMB, the White House's Office of Management and Budgest. The agency teams can be thought of as a franchise model, we work closely with the HQ team and the other agency teams, but we're also a for real part of the agency we work at. (Just realized who I was replying to, welp!)
- mattdeboard 12y ago
  I was disappointed to find out yesterday from Jeff M. that there is no remote position available. I hope this changes at some point in the near future.
jacquesm 12y ago
Your profile blurb has a typo in it.

natural219 12y ago

I, too, would happily consume any content about the USDS, how it's structured, what it's plans are, what its focus is, etc. Specifically, I'd like to learn what I can do now to start thinking about the problems of scale and procurement on a government level. It's an area I don't know much about, but the noises made by Mikey Dickerson and his team have gotten me sufficiently inspired to want to learn more and build out my skillset as to eventually help the initiative in any way I can.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]