18F, a US federal government digital services team, writes about building public software, team practices and design.
HN commenters cite it in discussions of government UX, hiring and pay, and open source work in government.
18F - https://18f.gsa.gov - Washington, DC | ONSITE
18F builds effective, user-centric digital services focused on the interaction between government and the people and businesses it serves.
We are working with HUD,EPA,and GSA to fill technical roles that will help transform how technology is delivered in the federal gov.
https://pages.18f.gov/joining-18f/open-positions/?utm_source=hackernews&utm_medium=forum&utm_campaign=dataportfoliojobs
Available technical roles are:
HUD
* Product Lead
* Technical Architect
* Data Engineer
EPA
* Cloud Architect/Infrastructure Engineer
* Technical Architect
* Technical Architect-User Experience
GSA
* Program Manager - Feedback Analytics (open data)
* Developer – Data Services (open data, analytics, javascript)
technical interview and core values interview conducted by 18F, final interview with the agency.
Please email join18f@gsa.gov to apply and include a resume. We're also happy to see links to your GitHub account or other work samples.
If you care about allocating your tech superpowers to help the environment, reduce homelessness, or increase responsiveness and transparency in government, we would love to hear from you. Remote work for the EPA and GSA may be possible for the right candidate.
U.S. Citizenship is required.
18F - https://18f.gsa.gov - Washington, DC; San Francisco; Chicago; New York; Remote - Full-Time
18F is a technology consulting office inside the government, for the government. We work with agencies to build and buy digital services that meet their needs, and we educate federal employees about how to move to high-functioning, efficient, and user-centered software development techniques.
We are currently hiring front end designers, visual designers, software developers, product leads, and technical account managers. You can read more about each of these roles here: https://pages.18f.gov/joining-18f/roles-and-teams/
Most of our team is distributed across the country in places like Chicago, New York, Raleigh, Tucson, Austin, Dayton, Philadelphia, San Diego, Seattle, and Portland. Read more about how our work culture supports distributed teams: https://18f.gsa.gov/2015/10/15/best-practices-for-distributed-teams/
Submit an application to one of our current openings here: https://pages.18f.gov/joining-18f/roles-and-teams/
Please include links to your portfolio, GitHub account, and any other work samples. Let us know why you want to join 18F and how you heard about us. If you have any questions, email our Talent Team at join18f@gsa.gov
Yes, and what came out of that? Some of the people who rescued that project with modern software development practices went on to found Nava, a public benefit corporation, to help the government do better work:
https://www.navapbc.com
I also have a friend who left Google to join numerous other high performers at 18F and know for a fact that they have done good work benefiting taxpayers:
https://18f.gsa.gov
I believe the U.S. Digital Service is better than it once was, and while it's not all rainbows and unicorns and super efficient everywhere (no doubt there are tons of huge problems with money being wasted), I do think there is improvement, and hopefully some people reading this will go help out.
I'd much rather ATTEMPT to have an efficient free-file system than not try at all.
I disagree, I think a degree of homogenization is good for information heavy websites, like government ones [1][2][3] and sites geared towards documentation. Consistency here is good because it makes things familiar and therefore means people spend less time trying to figure things out/find what they're looking for. Creativity isn't necessarily the point with sites like these. Now if you're marketing a product or showcasing something on the creative side, that's a different situation entirely and in that case I agree with you. The Bootstrap wave 10 years ago was indeed excessive.
[1] https://18f.gsa.gov/
[2] https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/project-gigabit-dorset-lot-14-public-review
[3] https://www.healthcare.gov/
Not sure where you are based, but I've considered (and interviewed with) the US Digital Service. This is going to be nonpartisan work to help the US Federal government implement new technology.
When I talked to them, examples including building out web applications allowing veterans to apply for benefits more easily, and other things like that. Not exactly earth shaking, but really has the opportunity to improve the interactions between people and the government.
When I interviewed, they did have limits on salaries (due to laws about what the government can pay) and were only doing 2-4 year stints. It's been a while, so not sure where things stand now.
More here:
https://18f.gsa.gov/
https://www.usds.gov/
It's awesome to see this posted - I was (one of) the original creators of code.nasa.gov when we first launched it in early 2012. I've since moved on from NASA, but the agency has kept on posting things to the site as well as on GitHub (https://github.com/nasa). So glad to see the torch continue to burn.
There's a big effort within the federal government to do more around engaging citizens in using (and contributing to) free/open source software, as well as starting to develop more user-centered products and services. If you're interested in that sort of thing, check out 18F (https://18f.gsa.gov and https://github.com/18F). We'd love to hear from you.