If anyone has questions about the US Digital Service, I'll keep an eye on this thread. Here's a few things that we did in the last month or two:

- a federal computer system that took six years to build was flaky, crashing, and slow. It's 3.75M lines of Java code, and some engineers went in to get the system back up, then helped add monitoring, then made changes based on that monitoring which significantly sped up the system (80% faster, I think?). This is a system that handles important processes for the government with 1,000 daily users and ~70,000 weekly users.

- we consulted on how to make it easier for farmers to hire seasonal workers. Most of the work was done by contractors, but we offered some product management help and some content strategy. The new tool makes it simpler for farmers to navigate a process that involves dealing with multiple federal agencies. You can see the new tool/site at https://www.farmers.gov/manage/h2a

- we're running pilots on how to improve hiring in the US government. It's harder than it should be to hire folks into government, and we're working to improve that. This involves the Office of Personnel Management and several other federal agencies. In fact, you can preview one of those job postings at https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/532244000 and apply for that soon. But again, the main place to learn about us (and apply!) is https://www.usds.gov/ .

Let me know if you have any questions!

I recently had a great conversation with USDS, they are an impressive organization and are doing a ton of good.

There were a few things that were deal killers for me:

* on site, relocation to DC. I don't mind flying out for meetings, and being onsite for a few weeks to get spun up, but commuting and sitting in an office every day is unproductive.

* mandatory drug testing. I'm not a big marijuana user, it's not really my thing, but being forced to pee in a cup is dehumanizing and humiliating. Until the federal government is able to find a way around mandatory drug testing, I think that they are going to miss out on a lot of top tech talent.

* disorganized 'tours'. This may have just been a mistaken impression on my part, but during my conversation there didn't seem to be a lot of clarity about what I'd actually be doing, or if it was a project I'd be interested in. It seemed more like "come on board, then we'll put you where we need you". As a highly technical CTO, founder and developer, there are specific problems (especially in healthcare) that I'm interested in helping with. I don't mind taking a pay cut to do good work, but the last thing I want to do is sign up for a "tour" and end up being assigned to something that doesn't fully utilize my capabilities.

Just wanted to give some direct feedback related to my experience with USDS, if others don't have the same concerns / restrictions that I do, I highly recommend giving it a shot.

Thanks for the feedback; it's helpful to hear about what your experience was like.

On the last point, when we see that someone has health experience, we're very likely to place them at CMS/HHS because they would benefit from that background.

But we have had situations in the past where we promised someone "You can work on project X when you start" and then over the course of a few months while that person was onboarding, project X got into a bad spot. That's a bad experience if someone shows up and can't work on what they thought they would.

Thanks for posting how things looked from your side of the conversation--I appreciate it.

I looked around the "Hiring FAQ" and it doesn't state if a degree is required, is it?

Also, I saw the salary range had a maximum range of $160,000, is this a hard cap? I'm already making this in base salary not including overtime and bonuses and it does not seem that bonuses or overtime are mentioned in the FAQ.

I took a look at the housing situation near the office and to get something close to comparable to my situation is nearly double the price of my current living situation, yet I would make less with no upward potential, if given a lateral transfer which would be the maximum.

I'm critical about this because I'm always interested in this position (company/job?) when the hiring thread comes around. I look at this hiring post every time this thread goes up, but never post anything because it doesn't seem like it would work out due to quality of life loss and loss of upward potential.

While the total compensation may be less then your total income now, I can tell you its 100% possible to live in the DC area on that salary, without a significant drop in quality of life. That includes if you have a family. The Metro lines go out into the Virginia and Maryland suburbs and you can find nice places to live with some of the nations top school districts.

Additionally while you will take a temporary hit to income, you will be working on projects that have real impact on the lives of every american in the country. You will be empowered to make changes and do what is right at the highest level of the government. You will be heartbroken at the amount of need, and the amount of pain that is caused by things you can fix. You will be exposed to all the failures of the government, and you will be right at the center of some of its greatest successes. At the end of your tour of duty you will be sad that there wasn't more you could do, but you will be forever grateful for the opportunity to have served and to have made the country better. You will probably leave not even looking for the most money at your next job, but just trying to figure out how you can continue to have purpose anywhere near the same level you just experienced.

If you are on the fence do it.

I'm definitely near the fence.

Everytime the job posting comes up I pop up Zillow and try to do the math, but quite literally a comparable house to mine is $700k-$800k where mine is only $300k-$400k in TX near Dallas. I don't believe I would be able to support and provide anyway near the same quality of life for my family, especially without jeopardizing future savings I am currently able to make now.

You say after the tour of duty like you aren't able to stay employed, is this true?

If I was single and had no dependents, I think I would have already applied, because money wouldn't matter nearly as much.

I feel it is extremely unfortunate USDS doesn't offer remote work because they could pull talent across the nation given the lower pay and higher CoL.

I know this would be a much more rewarding position than working for another mortgage company or consultancy..

The DC area is pretty suburbanized. It's not uncommon for people who work in DC to have hour-long commutes - when I lived there, I met people who commuted to DC from as far out as Frederick and Mt Airy - but the MARC is (in my experience) reliable and some of the suburbs aren't bad. Zillow has $300k-$400k houses in Germantown.

So you can't stay employed with the USDS after your tour of duty, after a maximum of four years you have to leave ( and that is a good thing ). However if you are able to be hired by the USDS you won't have a hard time finding a job in the DC area after your tour of duty is over. The tech scene there is very strong and they pay well even for the high cost of living. When I had to factor in my dependents the thing that put me over the top is I thought it would be better to show them by example the kind of life I wanted them to live, rather then just provide them money.

Why do you say that's a good thing?

For two reasons, first the work wears on you. It can lead to being cynical and it can be flat out unhealthy to continue to work at that level of government for a long period of time. The stress and pressure can be overwhelming. Secondly its good to get back out into the commercial field and have first hand experience with the state of the art. It means when you are talking to people about what it comes from a deep knowledge of what has been done and what was successful. Taking a break every half decade to refresh those skills is valuable.

Also that time limit really lights a fire under you to get stuff done. The people who are trying to use government services don't have years to wait for things to get better, their lives depend on things getting better today.

Not OP but from my experience with government workers in the UK, who routinely work the same job from leaving school until retirement, their time spent there seems to be inversely proportional to the quality and quantity of their work. If I need something done right I'll try and find some starry-eyed graduate or recent ex private-sector worker to ask. I suppose public work has a habit of being both fulfilling and frustrating, and when that frustration>fulfilment, productivity drops.

God bless you, your patriotism and concern for the American people is an inspiration.

An upvote doesn't seem sufficient here. That was inspiring and heartfelt. Bravo!

I hate to crush this romanticism in the crib, but this comment is overemphasizing the impact a lone engineer working on a government project will have, which will just disillusion and frustrate applicants once they start the job.

The parent's concerns about quality of life with pay topping out at 160k is real and shouldn't be waved away with "it's worth it". Doubly so if you have kids. Take a look at this recent living wage page: http://livingwage.mit.edu/. Can you make it work? Sure. But going into this with eyes wide open is better than looking at this with rose-tinted glasses.

Its impossible for me to overemphasize the impact the USDS can have, the question is never "will somoene let us do this" its always do we have the resources to do what needs to be done. What will crush you is the burden of service, and knowing the only thing limiting the impact you have is the amount of work you can physically put into it.

In terms of pay, I have kids and was a single income during my tour of duty. Its a better life then most Americans will live, so while your quality of life will not be as high as it may be on a private sector job, you won't be lacking anything you need.

> this comment is overemphasizing the impact a lone engineer working on a government project will have, which will just disillusion and frustrate applicants once they start the job.

Very reasonable assumption! However, that's not the USDS model. The work can certainly be frustrating but people aren't dropped in alone. We maximize the impact of our work.

Degrees are not required. The salary is a hard ceiling, based on federal law pay scales (and is currently $166,500). A lot of people who have come through USDS are motivated that a tour of duty can truly make a difference on the lives of millions of Americans. It isn't easy work, but it's exceptionally rewarding.

Does USDS hire non-senior positions? I'm finishing my MS at UIUC this month and would love to work on such projects. My post in the 'Who wants to be hired?' thread - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19801907

We hire by competencies, not age/seniority. We hired an 18 year old security hacker for the summer between high school and when he started at Stanford, for example: https://www.marketplace.org/2017/08/10/tech/17-year-old-hack...

That said, most of the engineers we hire have done things like stand up large web-scale services, deploy things to the cloud, and often have some good scars/stories/experience as a result.

Whether it's a good fit now or down the road, I really like that you're using mobile app interaction traces to look for UX insights that can improve things!

Kudos to you, this is really badass to see and speaking honestly, once I’ve built up enough of a nest egg the idea of working in the public sector is exciting (outside of trying to find affordable housing in DC lol)

I'm curious do you only hire people with US citizenship?

It's in the apply link: "All U.S. Digital Service positions require U.S. citizenship."

Does one need to be US citizen to apply here? Do you sponsor Visa? It would be exciting working for US govt.

You do need to be a US citizen. My understanding is that some other groups in government, like 18F and the Technology Transformation Service, don't require you to be a citizen. More info: https://join.tts.gsa.gov/