US Tech Force(techforce.gov) |
US Tech Force(techforce.gov) |
*Department of War
Not odd at all. That's what it's called now. Complete with new URL:
> The initial roster of private sector partners includes Adobe, Amazon Web Services, AMD, Anduril, Apple, Box, C3.ai, Coinbase, Databricks, Dell Technologies, Docusign, Google Public Sector, IBM, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, OpenAI, Oracle, Palantir, Salesforce, SAP, ServiceNow, Snowflake, Robinhood, Uber, Workday, xAI, and Zoom. This list will expand over time.
Ever wanted to get involved in government-sanctioned espionage technology? This seems like an recruitment effort for that. Applicants beware. Remember that in just 3 years this will stop helping you to get hired, and will probably look like a blemish on your CV when you eventually need to get a new job.
Or something one might want to say if they want to still have plausible deniability about not having been there, yet still want to say something. Who knows.
Not necessarily, especially in the private sector. It's hard to justify not hiring an excellent employee because he or she worked for a company you don't like. Especially if the hiring panel is composed by >1 person.
So the plan is to also make some of them federal employees, ostensibly helping to oversee those contracts? Seems like a conflict of interest...
The worst part about this entire political is that Dems are most likely gonna win, and everyone will just move on.
Im really hoping that Trump lives long enough to actually stage a coup and tank the US economy so hard that things like working for this or DOGE actually do start to matter.
Edit: this seems like the usds with private sector participation. I know “doge” is basically just usds.
Yellow card.
Belittling. Excellent way to get your point across.
> They actively recruit on elite engineering campuses over it. It is super fucking interesting work and candidates compete for the opportunity to do it.
This seems like it should be an easy thing to verify with some sort of reference. This is exactly what the parent comment is suggesting and you still flippantly are avoiding it as "trust me bro". I actually believe you, so why don't you share some evidence then?
The main myth though is that somehow there is this idea that someone working as a booze allen contractor for the NSA or CIA is going to now be blackballed by everyone out of disgust. Most people will see it as good, and most companies just want talent and dont actually care about what areas people are in.
Once you are done you can pair up with one of the private partners you had contacted with during your program. (If they want you).
This does not appear to be an effort to hire people to the federal government, but to get cheap labour from new grads who hope to work on something cool.
(But yes they will have to hire the framework people)
Is the only difference that the current government can claim they started this (completely ignoring they dismantled the previous programs)?
> We're looking for expertise in software engineering, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, data analytics, or technical project management. Strong problem-solving abilities and a passion for public service are essential.
Design is separate but equal.
This constant competition between parts of the government actually led to tremendous waste. You can see it again in the Soviet space program during the 1960's. While NASA had a single purpose of getting to the moon before 1971 with a unified organization under the control of a single leader, after Khrushchev was deposed (and Korolev died) the Soviet space program splintered into a war between the old OKB-1 (Korolev's group) and Chelomei's OKB-52 that lasted for twenty years over Super-Proton vs Energia etc.
1: The Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS are the two most famous, but the Luftwaffe recruited, trained and equipped the Fallschirm-Panzer Korps and Fallshchirmjaeger- yes, German paratroops worked for Goering not the Wehrmacht. There were also five Marine Infantry Divisions under the Navy- they had half as many Marine Divisions as the US did, despite many fewer amphibious assaults! And the Volksturm, at the end of the war when things looked grim for Nazi Germany, was under NSDAP party control but separate from the Waffen-SS.
Yeah, this is nothing more than grandstanding idealism. Their staff will no doubtably be as dumb as Space Force or Air Force when it comes to cloud and technology. I've dealt with them in various forms throughout the years contracting. BESPIN was entirely contractor driven. Their devops pipelines and how to deploy things. If that's your indicator, good luck.
> How is Tech Force related to other government technology programs, including ones at GSA or the United States DOGE Service?
> While Tech Force will coordinate across all of government, it is distinct from other technology initiatives within government, including the United States DOGE Service and programs managed by GSA. These programs differ in their mandates, structure, required skillsets, and ability to convert to the competitive service.
Any questions?
US administration seems to be making lots of moves and aggressively changing stance...but is this actually translating to real change?
What's funny is the retirement benefits won't apply to most 2-year term employees. Unless they were prior military or civil service, or come back later, two years is not long enough to keep the TSP match (three year vesting period) or to qualify for the pension (five years). (EDIT: Funny because they explicitly list it as a benefit, but these folks won't qualify for it.)
The biggest red flag on engineering resumes is never sticking at something for more than 2 years. Your bad decisions never catch up to you.
Republicans love playing shell games while they rob taxpayers blind.
Elite of the elite needs no sans-serif fallback font.
Just when I thought this was on brand to the new "anti-woke" font style guide.
It's too bad this was created by an absolute dumpster fire admin that will 100% use this for malicious ends.
Yeah, that's going to be a hard pass from me
The difficulty for any party to want to govern after this is... there is no government. It is all oligarch captured, the candidates are oligarch sponsored, and don't count on the media to sound the siren because, well, you know why.
This is a plane that is never gonna fly again. The only way is to build a new plane, as impossible as that might sound.
[1]: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/doge-doesnt-exist-with-eigh...
> No, USDS became DOGE
To me these statements are not contradictory
https://techforce.gov/footer-robot.png
This is an example of a cut corner. AI slop with irregular pixels for the face, thumb melted into finger, ipad not subject to gravity.
I wonder what the next cut corner will be?
Also: the "United States DOGE Service"? Really?
It wasn't a large group, and they weren't really responsible for much so they never got much attention. They would just try and fix a few specific pain points at a time. I only knew about it because one of the best PM's I ever worked for did a stint exactly like it was supposed to work- she joined the USDS, worked for the American people for a few years, then left and went back to industry.
And then on January 21st, 2025, his first full day in office, Trump renamed the USDS to the United States DOGE Service, because USDS had money to pay salaries and since it was part of the EotP he could easily hire new people without civil service restrictions. So he could bring in new people (Big Balls etc.) easily enough. By February, essentially everyone who had been in the USDS on the last day of Biden's term were either laid off or resigned. And since then the USDS has been entirely DOGEified.
What I'm not going to do is write you an apology for confronting you with that information.
And I'm not challenging you on that, at all. I actually believe you are correct because you typically provide very thoughtful answers from a position of authority and usually bring evidence to back your assertions. In this case, you're not. Your comments are childish and makes your position way less believable and hence why I'm pushing you.
> It remains a fact.
Just because you say it's a fact doesn't mean it is. The fact that you've done nothing but say "I know its a fact so therefore it is" doesn't help your position either.
> What I'm not going to do is write you an apology for confronting you with that information.
Yeesh. Chill out. I never asked for an apology. Your discourse is belittling and unproductive.
>Tech Force will primarily recruit early-career technologists
So "early-career" but they're going to get paid GS-14/15 pay[1] in DC? New grad engineers in DC are going to be GS-7/9 at best. This is either a blatant lie, or created by someone who has no idea of how federal pay works (or both).
As an aside, I was a fed for >10 years and left last year for industry but stay in touch with friends still working federal jobs. Before this administration recruiting was extremely difficult and candidate quality was low. I've heard that it's nearly impossible now and in the last 18 months they've only been able to hire a single person. Federal jobs used to be considered stable, with good benefits, but low pay. Now they're unstable, the current administration is actively working to make benefits worse, and the pay is still really low.
[1] https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries...
Also, many people took pride in the service they provided to their country (or to the people, or as part of a team that did good, however they thought of it).
I don't have high hopes for this new thing.
After recent treatment of federal employees, and other things going on in the US this year, including how USDS as DOGE was weaponized against the US... I'd expect this new thing to only be able to recruit from these categories:
1. Outright bad people, with anti-US, looter/saboteur intent, as we've seen from other facets recently. They will focus on their own bad-person individual interests.
2. People who aren't bad, but who are so cognitively impaired, that they still don't realize that they're probably going to get screwed personally and/or directed to be the baddies. They will be bad at everything they do.
3. People who are intelligent and pro-US, and have no illusions about what they're signing up for, but who desperately need the income, after being screwed earlier this year. They won't be inspired to execute well on whatever anti-US directives they're given.
1. Completely inept or lazy people that couldn't get a job anywhere else (~50%)
2. Smart people that took the job because it was close to their family (~30%)
3. Smart people that took the job because they liked the the specific mission and felt like it was really important (~10%)
4. Smart people that took the job after retiring from a private industry job as a sort of laid-back post-retirement hobby (we called them re-treads, ~10%)
From what I've heard, a lot of federal employers can only hire from the #1 category now, and the applicants in that category have gotten worse.
... although that seems depressingly like it would also be the experience with new administrators being installed in executive agencies every 4 years, except they're slightly older.
Man, if only there were some way to retain talent in the face of political leadership transitions... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pendleton_Civil_Service_Reform...
Target: People typically enter, when coming out of college, at a lower grade in the GS-5/7/9 area with a target position of one of GS-11/12/13. IT (not CS) folks were often in GS-11 targeted positions, computer scientists and engineers often in GS-12 positions. They'd get promoted in two grade increases (5 to 7, 7 to 9, 9 to 11) or one grade increases (11 to 12, 12 to 13) until they hit their target grade. At a rate of either one increase per year or per 6 months depending on when they got hired, by what agency, and in what role. An IT person, usually one increase per year; engineer, typically two increases per year. Computer scientists usually got screwed and got one increase per year which meant you had fewer of them wanting to work for the government (they also, at that time, rarely got signing bonuses). This leaves a lot of the software shops in DOD (where I had experience) mostly filled with aerospace and electrical engineers.
"Cyber" roles (security; which could be a couple different job series) in some agencies jumped up faster or had a higher target grade due to the need (or perceived need) for more people.
So “elite” engineers need technical training?
What am I missing here.
I have extensive experience with this kind of government nonsense, but usually it is kind of in the background, blather no one really takes serious because it’s just blowing smoke. But this seems so credibility destroying through its ridiculous contradictions and bombast.
(2) I'd actually like the American government to pay better wages for its engineers, and optimize for hiring the best, rather than those desiring a stable, low-paying bureaucracy — I don't think that attracts the best people.
(3) On talent and recruiting: This is being done by the National Design Studio, it says at the bottom. That's led by a cofounder of Airbnb - I know one person who works at the National Design Studio and he's a phenomenal engineer. The administration also has the involvement of David Sacks, who founded Craft Ventures and is pretty well-known in SV. I think this is probably the most tech-competent the government will have been in a long time. I'm not crediting Trump at all for that, to be clear - just pointing out that tech talent in government seems to be getting better, not worse.
Yes, and a big part of this involves changing the way agencies rely on contractors for specialty work (including tech work).
#2: Overwhelmingly I agree. Federal pay is very, very broken. They should reform it to align more with the private sector, and there are laws in place that do that, and every year the sitting president literally writes a letter stating it would be an economic emergency to pay federal employees equivalent wages and instead sets them low. You are still limited by federal law to that current $195k, so it means it's impossible for the federal government to hire technical experts and pay them a fair wage.
#3: I'm sure the federal government is paying those people some ridiculous amount of money to put this together, and they'll probably do a decent job because of it. It still doesn't change the fact that federal hiring is really broken, and has become significantly worse in this admin.
Paid time off???
Health insurance???
Retirement plans????
OMG this is incredible! What an offer!
/s
Even if I didn’t care about the politics, I have made more than the posted salaries working full time for outside consulting companies contracting with the federal government over the last five years and I wasn’t working at the whims of the government
One can assume the US Tech Force will perceive itself as also unfettered by those silly rules and good practices.
"What's the biggest brand in the world? If you said Trump, you're not wrong. But what's the foundation of that brand? One that's more globally recognized than practically anything else.
...
This is President Trump going bigger than President Nixon"
Jesus christ, man
> We've been conditioned to accept that mediocre in government is normal.
Yes, I do now accept that mediocre [sic] in government is normal for the next few years.
> Additional benefits include professional development opportunities, networking with government and industry leaders, and a pathway to continued public service or private sector careers.
Given the lack of mention of any benefits prior to this, it sure sounds like "you'll get lots of exposure!"
edit: not sure if they just added it, or if I just missed it, but there is an FAQ entry on compensation:
> Compensation varies based on experience level and agency placement. Annual salaries are expected to be in the approximate range of $150,000 to $200,000. Benefits include health insurance, retirement plans, paid time off, and eligibility for performance-based awards.
The initial roster of private sector partners includes Adobe, Amazon Web Services, AMD, Anduril, Apple, Box, C3.ai, Coinbase, Databricks, Dell Technologies, Docusign, Google Public Sector, IBM, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, OpenAI, Oracle, Palantir, Salesforce, SAP, ServiceNow, Snowflake, Robinhood, Uber, Workday, xAI, and Zoom. This list will expand over time.
Are there any companies on that list who haven't made gross public displays of servitude towards the current administration?
You don't say...
I view Trump as a clinical case of narcissism, bad upbringing, screwed-up mentors, but too late for treatment anyways.
But man, the crowd that lick his boots in public for a position or some coins... They should be shunned for life. This level of sycophancy would destroy one's reputation for ever in my culture and I just don't want to believe it wouldn't in American culture. But even the official government channels have been turned into fan pages run by six year olds. Not even the most backward countries in the world do look so stupid, so overtly corrupt, so I am at a loss: why does the USA? Is this really considered acceptable? Maybe some Americans can explain how this is being perceived in cultural terms.
Baking in the ageism right from the start. Few want to work for this government, but at least they can keep those unsavory 30+ year olds out!
This is DEI talk to them.
It's fine to hire a bunch of juniors but then you're kinda explicitly not looking for the best. But at $150k-ish they'll get mid career and senior devs from low CoL areas pouring in.
Somehow it hits differently than the similar phrase, "backed by the full faith and credit of the US Govt."
The "US Government" are the people and agencies that DOGE tried to get rid of and that were taken out of their jobs or unable to provide any services due to the shutdown.
Whereas "The White House" is Trump and his buddies.
Welcome to the autocracy...
> Tech Force will include centralized organization and programming and serve as a recruiting platform post-employment.
Be prepared to struggle at the end of your two year placement because you have no idea how this is going to look on your resume two years from now. Maybe it’ll have the gravitas of having worked at the former USDS. But maybe it’ll be the black mark of having worked at DOGE. The latter feels much more likely than the former.
You will have no control over this outcome. If I had to bet I’d say they will take advantage of your junior status to get you to do the kind of wildly irresponsible hacking, slashing and AI injecting that a more senior engineer would object to and you’re going to face some tough questions in subsequent job interviews.
"non-partisan" lol okay sure
I’m going to make a guess that the answers are missing for a reason.
The latter website, job search, job details and help center look actually nice. Unfortunately I'm living in EU and not an American citizen, but I wish EU did something similar.
(There is https://eures.europa.eu but just like almost any other EU website, the design is very confusing and cluttered)
I don't love seeing that you're far from the only person to mention it here. It's just shouting "I'm biased and I'm proud" from the top of your lungs.
Reasonable minds can differ as to whether that constitutes unethicality or hypocrisy.
I know I wouldn't want to work for or with someone or some company so close-minded as to use this sort of thing as some sort of candidate filter.
"What did you do at $PLACE_CURRENT_ADMIN_LIKES, and what, in retrospect, did it actually accomplish that made people and society freer, more empowered, and their lives richer?"
At which point you can say "I made an interface to let anyone with access scrape ALPRs around the nation, and I genuinely didn't think about what people would do with it", and then that speaks for itself.
This book discusses the IT systems at the IRS and VA and shows the kind of push back you can expect from entrenched players.
I'm not sure if this book got into it but I've also read that the IRS has assembly code from the 1960s that is very optimized and only a few devs can work on it. ChatGPT knows a lot about this history as well.
Will you be forced to set a politically biased out-of-office message that blames the Other Side when you're inevitably furloughed during the next funding crisis?
the book _is_ good, but it's rather disheartening that all the people discussed (and many more that couldn't fit into the book) on the federal side were summarily fired to clear space for sycophants and toadies round one (the DOGE broccoli hair kids siphoning off sensitive data and doing some casual corruption) are putting out this as sycophants and toadies round two: _lasting_ corruption in partnership with the least scrupulous bits of private industry
the people in the book are https://18f.org/ and spent the last decade building useful relationships, familiarity with public sector quirks, and standard software toolkit items for government tech. they got tossed for the crime of working with the Biden admin and wanting to work towards building tech entirely for public good under the auspices of the law.
whatever branding and whatnot this comes wrapped in i don't trust this admin nor whatever bits of the private sector are looking to work with it in the slightest to not stand up something that works in the public interest. we're gonna get new and exciting forms of graft and revolving door exploitation of sensitive data
The US going politically totally batshit crazy shortly after ended up making it for the best that I did’t join, but still, it struck me as weird that they had to set it up with that extra sting of “we have to make sure this is a sacrifice”.
"Backed by the White House"
I don't think this is the kind of exposure most people are going to want, nor will they want this on their resume.
Well, they are also "partnering" with some private sector companies. I guess the idea is that candidates will put in their 2 years, then take their contact list and join federal sales arm of one of the private companies.
See, for example, how the head of DOGE said "That wasn't a nazi salute, that was roman salute! It's a completely different thing."
When I said, “Well, we already had that - the USDS. And what has DOGE done, specifically, to fix things?” it just went right over her head. Did not even land.
We went from top notch Google SREs fixing HealthCare.gov to… “Big Balls” and script kiddies.
I'd love to hear from people who had experience with USDS before this administration. The chatter I see online is overwhelmingly positive. OTOH, I interviewed with USDS and the experience was not good. I don't love tech interviews in general but this one was somehow worse. I remember thinking the interview would have made more sense if they were hiring for PMs, but I wasn't a PM and didn't want to be one. Focusing on my communication abilities and professional history is one thing, but this ... wasn't that. I always wondered if others had the same experience. Maybe I just had the wrong interviewer on the wrong day.
This one is about jamming AI into shit:
> Tech Force will be an elite group of ~1,000 technology specialists hired by agencies to accelerate artificial intelligence (AI) implementation and solve the federal government's most critical technological challenges.
> Backed by the White House, Tech Force will tackle the most complex and large-scale civic and defense challenges of our era – from administering critical financial infrastructure at the Treasury Department to advancing cutting-edge programs at the Department of Defense – and everything in between.
Also, surprised their AI reviewer allowed the use of DoD... I thought they identify as Dept of War now.
The flip side is that a lot of government jobs lead to pretty good private sector opportunities working with those same agencies. If you want to contact to DOE, knowing how it works in the inside and knowing people there definitely helps.
A lot of military contractors are former military. Who better to design something for a soldier than a soldier?
It's not always that black and white. In spite of appearances, many many companies make hiring decisions based on things other than what's in a resume.
For example, a company may have $mm contracts with another company whose owners/operators/shareholders/etc. favor one particular view, political party, or social construct. That company will most certainly look down upon the other company hiring people of a particular background.
Or the pressure could be internal. A couple of times in my life I've worked for companies where certain departments were unionized. Even if you weren't in one of those departments, if the company hired you and you had a particular background, the union would object.
The real world is very complex.
I have hired people to work under me. Generally, if someone can pass the interview and do the job, I don't care that much about your views unless you are very outwardly with them. The only time I had to filter out a candidate was due to a quick check of his public social media where he was "enthusiastically" pro Palestine with questionable posts.
That being said, having interviewed plenty of ex government or government adjacent people, not a single one can pass even a mediocre interview problem. Most people who work for the government show up expecting to be told what to do, then do it - very few can independently think for themselves.
For example, my interview problems are designed to be solved most efficiently with implementing parallelization, but they sound like regular interview problems, so even with LLMs a lot of candidates usually can't solve it unless they give the LLM specific instructions to implement threads, which requires understanding of the problem.
I disagree. If a persons resume contains description of blatantly harmful work how else can I interpret it but negatively? At best you’d have to chalk it up to “just following orders” but I don’t want blind obedience in a prospective employee either.
The destruction caused by DOGE is evident to anyone with eyes, as is the agency’s complete lack of achievement. I would absolutely be asking questions about why someone remained there.
"The tech industry was doing poorly and I was faced with a layoff so I took whatever job I could get. While I didn't agree with the actions of the administration I felt like I could be a force for good in an otherwise turbulent environment"
As we all know Nazi scientists went on to work for and lead parts of Nasa. The reputation hit of disreputable employers is dramatically overblown.
To be honest you can also get through issues with the resume screening process you can generally just change the wording and section headers a bit in order to avoid a quick filter out.
I'm pretty much a closet conservative working for big tech so I've had a lot of practice with this sort of stuff :D
The difference is, those scientists were literally the best of the best in the world when it came to rocketry.
All their assistants did not share the same fate.
But generally, unless something drastic happens politically, companies won't care that much.
That’s by far the best I’ve ever heard of. Usually employers screw us by keeping the majority of the max annual contribution, which only they can make, out of our reach with crappy “50% match up to 3%” policies or whatever (even a 100% match means you can’t hit the actual annual max, it has to be higher than that).
Oh that's actually really good. Beats a TSP for sure even with the fees. But from what I remember you're at a defense contractor - they probably have the best benefits plans overall in the US.
These are incompetent buffoons who simply don't care about anything.
Something like half of US adults don’t know how marginal income tax rates work, which is one of the very most-relevant-to-them-personally things for them to know about the federal government. The loudest ordinary citizens complaining about foreign aid or the estate (“death”, as republicans rebranded it on strategist advice) tax can’t tell you a halfway accurate thing about either, they’re just repeating what they heard, or some assumption they made (“well if [talking head] is complaining about it this much it must be really bad!”)
This doesn’t get better for any other program or tax or whatever that you can think of. Folks have no idea how anything works and the media figures and politicians they trust lie to them constantly, and are rewarded for it.
I don’t think it’s worth advertising you offer the bare minimum. Nothing to be proud of
This isn't from the Federal workers; it's from people working in contracting for the Feds or other similar roles.
If you compare DC against other major metropolitan statistical areas, the leadership disappears -- see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_metropol...
Furthermore only ~50% of the country has a passport so many haven't even seen how things run elsewhere.
You have to understand that most Americans do not approve of what's going on here. But, most people go with the flow, and are waiting for all of this to blow over and go "back to normal" next election. We'll see if it ever does, it probably won't. We took the whole thing for granted, big time.
After 30 years it was so good it could make Republicans who’d been making fun of Trump as a notorious failed businessman, clownish self-parody, conman, and philanderer five minutes earlier (and I mean common voters, not politicians) do a 180 on a dime and send the dude money.
None of this was built for Trump, but in priming their base to never consider voting for a democrat, they made them both way too right-wing and also made them wonder why Republican politicians weren’t going after democrats way harder (they’re so terrible, after all!) which teed up a coup within the party just perfectly.
I was hired in under HQE accession in 2019 and made SES 4 equivalent with zero civilian time in service.
Doesn't sound like you're talking about General Schedule.
This new force could easily and legally acquire and pay through other schedules - happens all the time.
Based on the FAQ, US Tech Force roles are located in DC (so they'll get the DC adjustment) and from the sounds of it, this proposal is the AI Washing the "Cyber Service" or "Cyber Exempted Service".
Also, based on Scott Kupor's (former Managing Parter at A16Z turned head of OPM) memo [0] it appears they seem to be using the same approach used to start the USDS back in the Obama admin. And based on their mention of "fellows", I think they'll merging parts of what used to be the Presidential Management Fellows program.
If AI-washing and Trump-washing helps maintain the core of these programs, there's nothing wrong with that.
Edit:
Dug deeper thru the FAQ - it's basically an AI washed version of the PMF and PIF.
[0] - https://www.opm.gov/chcoc/latest-memos/building-the-ai-workf...
It's also why a large portion of Gov employees end up jumping ship to professional services firms like BAH, Deloitte, Accenture, etc.
So they weren't federal jobs?
DC has some of the highest home prices but also the highest incomes.
No it doesn't, not according to the linked data you're proposing. I sorted by per-capita income of MSAs on the second table of that page, it shows DC MSA blowing the other metropolitan areas away. Might not still be accurate as that's a 2010 census, but you're the one insisting on it.
Looks like you're the one, distorting your own citations, mate and you "know it." Methinks this a case of psychological concept known as 'projection'.
You're also right, I was sloppy with my citation. I looked into the source data, and I believe Wikipedia's second table may be wrong here. Here is B19301 from the 2010 census. The Bridgeport MSA is first: https://data.census.gov/table/ACSDT5YSPT2010.B19301?q=b19301...
Unfortunately, the table on Wikipedia is uncited (beyond the 2010 census) and was added by an anonymous IP address editor, so I don't know how they got their numbers. I'll double check my work and update the article if I don't find anything else.
Generally, though, my point is that if you compare the states and DC, you'll find that DC is an outlier on a lot of dimensions. If you compare the DC metro area with other MSAs, a lot of that exceptionalism goes away.
By function a GS will ALWAYS be subordinate to a political appointee and there’s nothing they can do about it
I posted elsewhere that I left a govt career as a military officer precicely because of this reality. It’s like a old boring joke now that politicians are corrupt and worthless.
I will tell you from the inside that not only is it true but it’s 10 times to 100 times worse than you think it is.
I have multiple stories of operational systems, functions, whatever you wanna call them that we’re working exceptionally well had good backing, good funding and were completely wiped out because whoever became the deputy under secretary for that budget line decided they didn’t want to do it anymore. and completely shelved decades worth of work. Like literally I remember having to unplug a server that was running life-critical beacons for POWs because they weren’t being used enough.
As if that weren’t enough that same development problem then shifted over to some new hot organization that is in the politicians jurisdiction and then they start over from scratch with none of the learning from the previous admin.
There is no positive system that can be affected by the United States government
It does not exist, they cannot functionally or structurally exist, because the government of the United States but is not and has never been built on supporting citizens or the global community it is built and has always been built to support wealthy politicians and that’s all.
I’m not aware of how every other countries work but the ones I’ve seen the inside are the same
Going into the government for the “mission” is probably the most intentionally ignorant thing somebody could do given the plethora of easily accessible data proving exactly this
There has got to be some pathway to get back to that.
The only way to make people act is to create a situation they can’t avoid
It’s worth being specific about what is meant by “political appointee” here. That term has specific legal meaning in the context of federal staffing, and (as I understand it, not a lawyer) is not the same thing as “GS employee who was hired as part of an administration’s political agenda”.
GS grade does not correspond directly to manager/managee relationships at plenty of federal agencies. Someone getting hired at a higher GS grade is not automatically “over you” in the formal reporting hierarchy. That’s not to say this never happens (GS:org chart level is the case more often than not, I’d guess), but it’s not a given.
Now, if your issue is that agencies sometimes offer high (by the standards of current employees) GS grades to attract talented hires, then I agree that is a problem! The solution to that is to improve government pay scales and fix fed hiring more generally: https://www.eatingpolicy.com/p/dear-mr-kupor-please-fix-fede...
Until that is done, (good) policies like the Pendleton Act cannot help that much.
> whose primary qualification was being hired at a "friendly" tech company and making the right kind of joke around the CEO
That’s being awfully dismissive of the individuals skill set. Nobody gets the job by making the right kind of jokes around the CEO. Nobody. Getting in the door takes hard work, talent and some amount of luck.
The USDS (group that was renamed to a part of DOGE) has previously hired with an emphasis on non government experience: http://govciomedia.com/usds-developing-innovative-approach-t...
"I would never hire anybody who worked for the government during an administration I didn't vote for!"
On the other hand, trying to slash spending with no understanding of the agencies you’re working at- let alone any life experience for a lot of these folks- is a very different mandate.
I find nothing supporting your assertion but plenty opposing it. Feds are not only pulling it up, but the biggest group of people doing so.
Now, talking to a barista in DC and the solution is 4-5 roommates. Not unfamiliar to those in the bay area, but less upside.
vs the tech machine.
Not everyone is you, us.
I see this a lot in the private sector too here in Seattle. It's hurting us badly.
All for what? Lack of initiative and independent thinking? Did you intend this to be a reply to a different comment?
Sounds like a place I wouldn't want to work (and filtering for the reverse stance would be equally problematic).
Do you think things will work better if we have pro-Israel and pro-Palestine companies with the two groups never talking?
Or that create significant concern that they're unwilling to do their job responsibilities if it means working with/interacting with people who don't share their political views. More than a few people openly state things like that online as well.
Or at the least, I don't want to have to wonder if I hire a Jewish coworker if there are gonna be any issues.
Even before LLMs, most coding problems really are a test of efficient pointer manipulation. You either move a pointer to character in words, pointer to data in array, or traverse n-node linked lists.
This level of pointer manipulation is rarely ever needed these days, as things like sorting, searching, and parsing are all handled by functions. An LRU cache is literally a function decorator in Python.
What I care more is if someone can understand that network calls take time, that data processing is fast, and how to optimize that pipeline. Threading is not a requirement, they can do it with async as well, or even without async with just smart scheduling.
The core of the problem that makes it LLM proof is that the problem doesn't disclose anything about network latencies or data structure. So standard iterative solutions from LLM usually end up taking longer because they get stuck waiting on a single network response. And so you can clearly tell who understand the core operations at hand, versus someone who just memorized a bunch of patterns and/or using LLMs.
> ZipRecruiter says the median federal income is $125k
By your own (contradicting) admission it's hordes of federal workers making $120+k.
I cite your own source, which is inline with what I found.
