For example, here's a project started by the USDS in 2015. It's responsible for managing the complex bureaucratic process of VA legal appeals. (https://github.com/department-of-veterans-affairs/caseflow) It's open source, continuously integrated and deployed with close to 100% test coverage, deployed on an AWS GovCloud VPC, and was built on a fraction of the budget of similar systems.

Active development on this system is now done primarily by contractors now that the relevant bureaucratic barriers were removed.

How do we scale this story? More talented people with the desire to serve their country. It's not easy, but it can work.

IMO, USDS makes this worse as someone like Matt Cutts has the cachet to bring in the playbook and get execs to listen. Whereas, I’ve been doing this for 3 years and routinely have to fend off coup attempts as the term “mvp” sounds like a joke to other career employees. As such, it’s often easier to check the box of the federal acquisition requirements and collect a paycheck versus hustling to build a vanilla web app using JavaScript a rest api and Postgres before the checkbox folks shut you down because the baselined version of Jenkins is 5 years old and you installed version 2.26x without a request for change.

So how do we scale this story? Inform politicals and bureaucrats that incentives matter, successful tech start-ups are exception not the rule, sunk costs are real, and you don’t need a catchy name like 18f nor the catchet of celeb dev to right a failing project.

You're totally right that if the incentives don't change, the choices made by execs won't change either. For example, a contracting officer I've met saved their agency a billion dollars by not continuing a failing contract, and was punished (to the point of leaving that agency) because that wasn't what the incentives supported.

How can USDS/18F be helpful to you and others in your position? The messages you list at the end are all true.

Most reasonable people might wanna work for their government for a 20% discount in either, but my fear is that it’s much much more and in both.

So many people complain about the government, so few are willing to fight to fix it.

Much of what you describe is not unique to the U.S. government. I've run into many very similar scenarios in the jobs I've had over the years, from mid-sized travel company to billion-dollar healthcare companies.

Most importantly, USDS is seen as non-partisan, and so has been able to have good impact in both administrations.

Interestingly, the 21st Century IDEA Act mandates compliance with the USWDS now (at least for publicly facing sites) and there is a maturity model built around it. We’ll see whether or not agencies comply, but it’s a step in the right direction.

I'm new to the system, so this is the only one I know (wrote about joining here: https://twitter.com/abachman/status/1217795232449859585), but I'm currently on a team of 6, all feds: 1 designer, 1 product mgr, 3 engineers and I'd say we're fairly to extremely self-directed. User-research based product development, pair programming, short iterations, deploying daily, all that jazz. Just a variation on the same sort of thing I've seen in the tech-first / software-product-company gigs I had in the past, but I've mostly worked for smaller indie or niche companies.

That is, I get to work in a way and with people and tools (Rails + React at the moment) that makes sense to me. How far outside the norm are we and where could I go to learn more about the whole system?

It kind of sucks being on the bidding end, as their tech challenges cost a ton on top of the normal costs with a proposal. But I can understand why they do it and from an acquisition perspective, it makes total sense. I think they will need to strike a balance at some point though - some of their tech challenges are too complicated for the timelines provided.

In terms of development practices, it is pretty much all DevSecOps and they make heavy use of independent verification and validation/QA, and even more importantly, are pretty mature in their adoption of it.

So to answer your question, you guys are pretty far outside the norm in a good way :-).

Not sure the best way for you to be able to learn more other than to do some networking in the DC area (post COVID). If you get the opportunity, there’s a ton of great meetups in the DC area, although if you’re taking the MARC those can be a challenge to attend after work due to train schedule limitations. Other than that, move around to/visit different agencies and get exposure to their work. Work with your PM to see if you can do some site visits to other agencies/organizations as part of professional development and such.

I was on the cusp of attending some cross organization "for feds" tech meetups back in March, but... :| I'll keep on the lookout.

The list is a nice dream, and it is with the will of those in the federal work force who can break down those silos and bring about a common understanding with urgency that'll make it happen for their project.

My kinda of place... no stress, drama (for chill .. go with the flow types), nice co-workers and you can pay the bills & then some!