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.

This isn't from the Federal workers; it's from people working in contracting for the Feds or other similar roles.

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.

> 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.

DC has some of the highest home prices but also the highest incomes.

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...

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.

It's always easy to spot a person who has enclosed themselves in a political or ideological bubble. They're typically first to apply a label to a large group of people and then assume all the people with that label are the exact same.

This has never been true for any group of people and as it turns out, it's the same for people you disagree with politically.

Your recent posting history here includes calling the entire European Union a "non-contributing toddler" to the world. Hmm.

Have you heard differently in your own casual chats on the topic?

But the wheel turns, and there's going to be a lot of folks in the party with very sharp axes to grind during the lame duck period.

It’s not even historically rare for a party to merge or be subsumed like that. Here’s the historical list just for the US

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_t...

His dyed in the wool followers will still support him.

The convenience crowd? I wouldn't take that bet. Especially after he's been such a dick to so many folks in his own party.

But we'll see.

E.g. Thune's propensity for letting Trump's more excessive ideas die on the vine.

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

(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.

#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.

Yes, and a big part of this involves changing the way agencies rely on contractors for specialty work (including tech work).

... 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...

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...

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.

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

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”.

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

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.

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.

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...

So they weren't federal jobs?

It's also why a large portion of Gov employees end up jumping ship to professional services firms like BAH, Deloitte, Accenture, etc.

Paid time off???

Health insurance???

Retirement plans????

OMG this is incredible! What an offer!

/s

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.

I don’t think it’s worth advertising you offer the bare minimum. Nothing to be proud of

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.