andrefrancisco

The 18F email is still the best place to go. I'm not on the login.gov team, but I can forward the link to them.

login.gov is currently live on this app from the Customs and Border Patrol https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cbp-jobs/id1210368989?mt=8

We're working with other agencies interested in the platform and will announce them as they go live.

*I work for 18F

Our repos can be a lot to wade through. You can see examples of our specific projects here https://18f.gsa.gov/what-we-deliver/ (and each project links to the right repos if you want to see the code/docs)

*I work for 18F

They are codes for FOIA exemptions. http://www.foiadvocates.com/exemptions.html

That's why all of our work is open source. Agencies are free to reuse work we perform for other partners. Often, agencies will still need help implementing it for their specific needs, but we don't charge for the work we've already done. For instance, we've helped a couple agencies get regulations on the eRegulations platform https://eregs.github.io/ and many are using the Draft U.S. Web Design Standards to speed up development https://standards.usa.gov/.

It’s less about unions and more about classifications of employees. Most federal employees are either “career” or “political” positions. Political positions are typically replaced by each new administration, while career employees stay, regardless of union status.

*I’m a federal employee.

Accounting for how the government spends money is actually a very difficult problem, but 18F is also working on that. We're helping the Treasury Department implement the DATA Act, which will give the public and government a much better way to track how federal money is spent. https://18f.gsa.gov/2015/06/09/data-act-data-act-explainer/

But yes, agencies have some discretion in how they spend their budgets. Agencies are often mandated to operate a service, but are able to spend money by hiring 18F or private vendors to improve how they deliver that service.

Certainly. Lots of agencies have to process forms submitted by the public, and when people have trouble filling out forms it makes processing them much more difficult. We've been able to show that better UX leads to better quality information. Like with our work with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services https://18f.gsa.gov/2015/09/08/reimagining-the-immigration-p...

Fortunately, 18F isn't funded by Congress. Agencies pay us for our services out of their own budgets. As long as we keep delivering good work, our funding is secure.

*I'm an 18F employee.

18F came out of the Presidential Innovation Fellowship (pif.gov) when some fellows wanted to stick around and continue their public service. So they created 18F as a more permanent home that could house larger projects and hire people for longer tours of duty. It's a sister office to the U.S. Digital Service (which is in the White House) but it's primarily a GSA initiative.

There aren't specific laws involved. We aren't funded by Congress, but instead by an investment from GSA and fees from our partner agencies.

Here's one of the larger stories about the digital services movement in the U.S., including the U.S. Digital Service and 18F. https://www.fastcompany.com/3046756/obama-and-his-geeks

We've taken heavy influence from the GDS team in the UK, and Estonia is also a leader in digital government. https://18f.gsa.gov/2015/06/17/what-estonia-can-teach-us-abo...

Hello! Happy to answer any questions you have about 18F. The basics: we're an office of federal employees inside the General Services Administration that helps other federal agencies improve how they build, buy, and share technology. Other agencies have to pay us for our work, so we operate in a similar way to a private business. You can see a summary of the types of things we ship (with examples) here https://18f.gsa.gov/what-we-deliver/. More info about the micro-purchase platform here https://18f.gsa.gov/tags/micro-purchase-platforms/

*I'm an 18F employee.

TSA paid $47,000 for the app, not millions. $47,000 may still be too much, but it's not millions. http://www.zdnet.com/article/tsa-contracted-ibm-47k-for-ipad...

18F | Full-time | ONSITE (DC, SF, NYC, CHICAGO) and REMOTE

18F is a technology consulting office inside the government, for the government (i.e. we are all federal employees!). We work with federal agencies to build and buy digital services that meet their needs, and we educate our fellow federal employees about how to move to high-functioning, efficient, and user-centered software development techniques.

You can see some examples of our work here: https://pages.18f.gov/intake/past-work/

Open positions: Front End Designer User Experience Designer Visual Designer Site Reliability Engineer Director of Chapters Director of Custom Partner Solutions Technical Account Manager - cloud.gov Technical Account Manager - Identity Program

We have offices in D.C., Chicago, New York City, and San Francisco, but much of our team is distributed across the country in places like 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-distribute...

Learn more about working for the government and submit an application to one of our current openings at https://join.18f.gov.

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 [email protected]

Thanks! Our Talent Team has been hard at work on that. If there's any info missing from https://pages.18f.gov/joining-18f/index.html, please feel free to file an issue and we'll try to get it resolved. https://github.com/18F/joining-18f/issues

That's right. There's no set grade or step for engineers, but most of our senior engineers start at a 15. Your grade and step (and therefore your pay) are determined by previous experience and previous pay.

There isn't a set grade level for engineers, but most of our staff starts at a GS 14 or 15.

Correct.

If you are a non-citizen national of the U.S. or have been admitted to the U.S. for permanent residence and hold a valid green card then you can work at 18F.

You can work from wherever you are, and you can change locations while working for 18F. But we don't provide money for relocation.

Another note that the federal pay scale is determined in part by your location. More details here https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries...

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-distribute...

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 [email protected]

Yup. Good eye. We've updated the post with a new image.

*I'm an 18F employee.

Thanks! It's an exciting place to be.

That's probably outside 18F's scope, as they are cost recoverable and must be hired by a federal agency. So getting that done would require convincing a federal agency to spend the money to hire 18F to build the platform. USDS could do it if it were a presidential priority, but while creating a one-time snapshot of that list would already be an incredibly huge task, actually keeping it updated would be very difficult just because of all the points of contact involved. Especially if it went down to the city council and school board level, which would certainly be useful to local communities, but really difficult to keep track of on a national level.

*I'm an 18F employee speaking in a personal capacity.

Challenge.gov might be about as close as you can get to a list of government problems with money attached to them. The government has lots of ways it supports small businesses, but 18F doesn't have a specific incubator.

Some of our project already have a public Slack channel where you can chat with the project team, but that is an area where we can improve. You can sign up here. https://chat.18f.gov/

*I work at 18F.

Indeed we are. Here are the latest updates on our work. https://18f.gsa.gov/2015/09/08/reimagining-the-immigration-p... https://18f.gsa.gov/2015/09/21/new-citizenship-resources/ And we've got a lot more features to come. *I work at 18F.

I love it. We have a distributed team so many people work from home and then we have offices inside GSA buildings in SF, Chicago, NYC, and DC. Hours are very flexible, we just try to have some overlap with teams in various time zones. In D.C., where I am, some people work 10-6, some noon-8, and some take breaks to pick up kids from school and then work at night. Attire is very relaxed. The kind of place where if someone wears a suit you ask what they have to do that day. We're a Mac shop, which is pretty rare in the government. No real software restrictions, and we provide most of our own IT/ops support. I'm working from the roof of the GSA building right now. View of the Washington and Jefferson monuments is hard to beat.

Morale is really high. Culture and work/life balance is super important to the team and to management. People feel compelled to tweet about how much they like their job. I haven't worked at a startup, but many have and are happy to be here. There are plenty of government frustrations, but the size of the impact of our mission greatly outweighs any day to day annoyances. For me, the best thing is that when there is a problem, whether it's management, bureaucracy, or technology, the attitude is to address it openly and head on. And 18F has a group of really smart people, so those problems rarely last very long.

Quick clarification. 18F is not assigned work by USDS. Federal agencies come to 18F with proposed projects and then 18F chooses which ones it works on based on staffing/scope/impact etc.

I'm an 18F employee.