I'd imagine that this is a hard sell given the govts track record. They want to recruit us, but they still don't get it. Why would we want to work for the bad guys? Why would we want to be second class citizens to clueless politicians that dictate directives from above instead of working in an industry that respects us and views us as leaders?
When I was younger, I spent a year in VISTA (often described as the domestic peace corps, essentially a federal program that places people with non-profit organizations working on issues related to poverty for a very small salary). I worked on a project that offered free wireless Internet for low-income housing. (I now work for a leading tech company). Of course, a non-profit housing organization is not going to have the technological sophistication of a tech company, but if you have a set of skills that the organization doesn't have and needs, then you're not going to be treated as a second class citizen. I had the opportunity to work with and get to know people who I otherwise would not have met, and to understand issues that are completely remote to the tech industry, but that are incredibly important to people's lives. I had the opportunity to be of service to others.
The tech industry is great. At a consumer tech company you get to work on products that people love and are important to their lives. Working for a social service agency can also be great. You get to work on projects that help people that may have a lot of disadvantages.
I agree with your overall point, but keep in mind how much low hanging fruit there is to truly improve people's lives here.
Here's a story: I had a small mix up in my taxes that caused the government to think I owed them over $10,000. I called the IRS over and over again and was unable to ever get to speak to anyone. It literally took 5 phone calls to figure out how to get into a queue, and then it had a two hour wait, and it's only open 9-5 so it could only be done during the work day. I'm lucky: I have enough money that I just hired an accountant to tell me what to do and the result was that the government ended up giving me back over $1000. Alternatively if I hadn't responded within 90 days I would've forfeited my right to appeal it at all. For so many people they need to take an entire day off of work just to wait in line, either on phone or in person, just to figure out what the issue is. Hopefully they can fix it on the same day and it doesn't end up costing them another day off which can put their job at risk. There is so much mind boggling inefficiency and it really ends up hurting the poorest people the most. So don't feel like you have to be some kind of NSA supporting, jingoistic jerk to work for the government. There's important, non-politically-controversial stuff to be done there that can have a big positive impact on peoples' lives.
Bad guys? What a myopic view of the world. Having seen first hand both industry and government IT, both worlds have their faults.
I'm not going to get sucked into a debate about which is worse, but I'll give you my perspective on working with federal gov't IT. Yes, policy sucks, thats not going to change any time soon but it is moving towards something halfway decent. There are plenty of skilled, intelligent and motivated IT professionals who you would actually be working for. You don't do the bidding of every politician out there, but you do follow directives from offices higher up such as the white house. Btw, the respect these people proffer to devs is immense because they know you could have worked anywhere else and make more money but you decided to work for a cause they believe in as well.
So please be considerate when you make these sweeping assumptions about the govt.
> Btw, the respect these people proffer to devs is immense because they know you could have worked anywhere else and make more money but you decided to work for a cause they believe in as well.
At best they could be as clueless as you and believe in "the cause", at worst they see how it is in reality and they see you as a sucker working for less than you deserve.
By far the people I've interacted with have not been clueless. They haven't been disillusioned to think that everything is perfect. Also if you think that they consider us as suckers for working for less, you might want to consider that is the case for a lot of federal employees [not the suckers bit, but the less money part]. Its not the money that attracts a lot of devs, its the opportunities they present to work with interesting data, people, traveling to different places, etc. If you're going to judge us, don't cast us on the extremes.
I applied. Every small difference you can make adds up. With that said, I'd want to help in education, healthcare, anything to help connect citizens more directly to their government.
"Be the change you want to see in the world" and all that jazz. Gives me something to do until Watsi or someone like them needs an ops/infrastructure guy.
But seriously, government is what we make of it. We can sit here as sheep and accept the way that we're governed or we can take the leap and try to change it by joining it.
I can't promise that it will ever get better if you sign up to help but I can promise that it won't if you don't.
Thats actually incorrect, while we don't set policy up on high, the results of our work and projects we initiate push policymakers to set those policies. JackFr is right, engineers inform and that holds a lot of weight beyond what you might think.
Granted, he was talking about how the private sector can fill in where government doesn't go. Yet even on the inside there are choices to be made and influence to be exerted.
I understand your skepticism - I left Federal contracting years ago in disgust at the way things have been working, or not working.
But 18F convinced me that they have the key to change that - completely with regard to their own work, and then with a wider ripple effect. That's something I couldn't pass up; I turned down a dream job in the private sector for 18F. Six months later, I'm more convinced and excited than ever.
It's important that 18F is a brand-new organization with great autonomy. This is not an effort to make an existing Federal agency "get" open/agile. That would be noble but very difficult. Rather, 18F is built from the ground up entirely of people with real devotion to and real experience in the principles. That especially includes the people at the top (to the extent we even have a top, it's really quite flat in here). And 18F overall has the leverage to do our work our way, because many other groups within the government believe that we can and will deliver (and are delivering) effectively... there's more work lined up for us than we can possibly fulfill (even if you all DO join us). We can say "no" when we're asked to work with conditions that would change us into what we're trying to fix.
All that said, we are a bunch of idealists, too. Has our optimism run away with us? Well, we'll certainly deliver excellent product. Time will tell how far the ripple effect will go.
We are technically separate from USDS, but we're in close cooperation and constant communication with regard to overall strategy, hiring, technical and cultural techniques, and seriously watch out for those guys at Board Game Night. Basically we're BFFs.
>>instead of working in an industry that respects us and views us as leaders?
What industry is that? Because in the tech industry I work in, the clueless politicians you speak of are replaced by clueless business-people who are equally obsessed with playing politics. Sure, there are a few "enlightened" companies that empower their technical staff, but those are a small minority.
The government isn't "the bad guys". They are, however, a large, bureaucratic organization, with all the benefits and drawbacks that entails.
If you've worked for a large, bureaucratic private-sector organization (like Intel), then you'll have a pretty good sense of what you're in for.
Remember: every committee, every rule, every baffling thing that seems to make no sense is there for a reason (even a picayune, trivial, bad reason)--that's life in an organization that's had 10,000 hands in the cookie dough before you came along.
The difference is that public-sector work is something that conceivably we all have a stake in and can benefit from, while the beneficiaries of private sector work at any given company are distinctly more narrow in scope.
This is kind of my initial reaction. "Bad guys" mentality aside, do I really want to put my skills to use battling some bureaucratic middle-man telling me how to do my job?
I mean, hopefully the program is really effective and creates a very concrete high-level goal and lets the tech creators go wild and do their thing, but I really do imagine it being bogged down by nonsense.
I asked about this very thing, and the people I talked to definitely recognize there's a chicken-and-egg problem. To get good people, they need good environments. And to get good environments, they need good people. I know they're working on it. I don't know enough to say whether they'll make it, but I have a lot of hope.
Also, long ago I did a contract for a state government. There was definitely some nonsense. But honestly, I was surprised how many sincere public servants there were. Sure, there were people who seemed useless, and there were definitely perverse incentives at times. But our project managed to get something useful and exciting done (on time and within budget, even) mainly because there were people at all levels of the government who really believed in doing good things for the state and its citizens. It was a very positive experience, and I can imagine something similar happening here.
Thanks for your perspective, makes me rethink my position a bit. I'll keep my eye on the program. I do think it's good that our government is asking for help to essentially improve citizen engagement.
Everyone is glued to their phones so much they don't have the mental bandwidth to even think about where the country is going. This would make the problem a lot more approachable if successful.
