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Comment by Matt_Cutts | Hacker News Reader

We've got a lot of impactful projects to work on. It turns out that government systems/technology need a lot of help, and USDS is well-positioned to assist.

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I applaud you for what you're doing. I also know you've heard this 100 times Matt, but maybe it'll be the 101st time that makes the decisions makers allow this. Allow remote.

This country spans a large area & a lot of it is full of people who would love to help their country do better, but few want to move to DC. The US "Digital" Service should be a shining example to others of how to work remotely.

I hear you. Right now a lot of our meetings involve sitting with or across from decision makers, and being in DC is really critical for that.

For what it's worth, some of our individual agency engagements (e.g. VA or DoD) might allow you to come to DC for a short while like three months and then work remotely after that. But most of our work is in DC, at least for now.

If that was something you promoted for the summer months when school is out & one could bring their family with, I think you would have a lot of takers.

Best wishes!

Just keep senior people there as code reviewers and 'account managers' who would sit down with stakeholders from DC. Then open source some of the other projects or at least add approved citizens that could work remotely on low-security projects. (Like some of the commenters above).

I’ve said it to you before, and I’ll say it again, thank you for your service Matt. Listened to you on the TWiT network and have followed your career ever since.

I’m on vacation this week, and while my wife reads, I spelunk data in the US Census and American Community Survey. I’ve been looking this week at polling proximity for voters based on demographics and RUCA coding, to see how fair access is to voting throughout the country. I’ve had to primarily use third party data sources because the government datasets are poor or non existent (thanks to Census Reporter, Google Civic API, and Google Distance Matrix API).

I hope other engineers like yourself take the challenge and seek to improve our technology. We need it, and it’s important!

Thanks again Matt.

It sounds like your current gig would keep you 100% busy, but if timing or life changes might allow for you to come do a tour, it sounds you've been bit by the same civic bug as us!

Definitely. Maybe need to get Google to buy my startup and I’ll go spend a couple years in service :)

If I’m ever in DC I’ll reach out. Would love to take a tour and learn more.

Best of luck to you and the team, Matt. Email is in my profile if I can ever be of assistance.

Is USDS doing any work with the IRS? I'm currently working at a tax policy think tank, and from what I can see I think the IRS could definitely use help on a number of fronts. Probably the biggest thing: they've got to finish rewriting their tax filing system to not be in assembly--don't know if they've made good progress on getting it into Java. Their SOI data could also use a better system for hosting/distribution along the lines of data.gov.

Just FYI the IRS is hiring directly. I keep seeing them advertising open software engineering positions in Austin, TX, though I'm uncertain about other locations.

We have done some work with the IRS in the past, such as https://www.usds.gov/report-to-congress/2016/irs-secure-acce...

We don't currently have an engagement at the IRS/Treasury, but if we get more people to sign up, that would increase the odds. :)

Please don’t help the irs.

Are you Libertarian or do you have a non-partisan objection to the IRS specifically?

I'm struggling to think of any legitimate objection to the IRS that could be non-partisan.

In my experience, "starving the beast" just means you're locked in a room with a starving beast. Bureaucracies can be awful to deal with. But if you strip them of resources, the laws that dictate their mission are unchanged. Any hope of expedient resolution of issues is gone. People who, often through no choice of their own, must deal with these bureaucracies will receive worst treatment and outcomes. Unpopular though the IRS may be, an IRS that can't function correctly is more dangerous to individuals and society than one that can.

It's always been my daydream to work with a company like this and serve my country.

At my current job I joined because it directly helps people as well by helping them shed off debt they cannot handle. We all do what we can to help others. Kudos to you!

That's important! We have done some work on that around student loans: https://medium.com/the-u-s-digital-service/what-if-you-could...

If you're interested, consider applying!

It's too bad that there aren't intern positions. Lots of DC students would be interested I'm sure.

You might want to check out https://www.fedscoop.com/civic-digital-fellows-demo-day-2018... if you're looking for that!

Any nontechnical roles ever come up? I'm at the e-Residency program in Estonia leading a team but definitely want to come back to the States and serve at some point

Most of our work involves engineers, designers, and product managers. Under the product category, there's also the notion of a "bureaucracy hacker" who helps get things done and launched. Those folks might not always be super technical, but are good at pushing to make forward progress.

I am impressed with the work your team is doing!

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