Comment by global_uscis | Hacker News Reader

Comment by global_uscis | Hacker News Reader

US Citizenship and Immigration Services (Contractor) | Full Stack Engineers | $100k - 180k, benefits | Full-Time | Remote | US ONLY US Citizenship and the ability to pass a government clearance (Public Trust) IS REQUIRED

We're a team in the US Government responsible for digitizing and enhancing all aspects of the workflows used to adjudicate refugees and asylees. We're an unusual government team in that we build iteratively without using a list of requirements. Our Product Managers use the Lean Agile methodology—their goal is to make small incremental changes quickly. Our Product Designers use Human Centered Design—they build interfaces and workflows based on direct input from users. Our developers use Extreme Programming—they practice pair programming and use test-driven development.

Many folks have been drawn to join our team out of a desire to work on something vividly mission-driven for a chapter of their career.

Our developers work with M1 MacBook Pros, Ruby on Rails, React, and TypeScript. Our designers use Sketch, Figma, and InVision. Our PMs use Jira, Miro, InVision and the Microsoft Suite. Structurally, our teams are given an atypically high degree of autonomy for the federal space.

Suitable candidates will be forwarded to our government contracting partners who will interview, hire, and place on our team.

We're hiring for:

Full-stack Engineers (Rails experience is required)

Salary range (100k-165k)

If you're interested in joining the team, email global-hiring@uscis.dhs.gov with your resume.

Having just gone through the naturalization process (N-400), I just want to say thanks for having a pretty good online experience.

Not naturalization, but also recently went through the process and I have to agree the online experience was pretty great. Unfortunately it the department was still recovering from the massive backlog it grew during the Trump administration's attempt to monkeywrench so the rest of the experience was rather painful. But at least the website makes it easy to find the info you need...

Curious: have you filed that by yourself? Did you need a lawyer, or felt you needed one, during the process?

Looks like they forgot to add the following (copied from their previous submission):

If you're interested in joining the team, email global-hiring@uscis.dhs.gov with your resume.

Requiring Rails experience feels like a mistake. Ruby and Rails are easy to pick up for anyone who's done full-stack dev with Python or JavaScript. Most Java/C#/Go devs could as well.

I understand that you're hiring a contractor. I suppose you want someone who is going to be able to hit the ground running? Still, I'm not sure you're maximizing EV with this requirement. You're excluding many, many skilled devs who would be highly motivated to make a difference working on your team.

Learning a new language and framework, likely very similar to one or two they already know, is not considered a major hurdle in most of the private sector. Especially at this band of compensation.

How do you get around not having to list on USAJobs?

My friend in the federal gov found your application details very curious.

Suitable candidates will be forwarded to our government contracting partners who will interview, hire, and place on our team.

It is not government hiring so no need for listing on USAJobs

If it's not government hiring how is it legal to require citizenship?

For the same reason they can require you to have a Driver's License, be able to carry 50+lbs, live in the borders of Maryland, etc, etc.

Having the right to work in the US doesn't entitle you to a job. And there are plenty of reasons government institutions would want to disallow non-nationals a position. The whole point of citizenship is, after all, buying into the system; if you're not "in" your allegiances or potential recourse can always be argued to be limited. Dual-Citizens, such as myself, are in a similar boat for the same reasons (unless they opt to renounce foreign ties).

Just to give some additional information but there are many government jobs or government contracting jobs where you can be a dual citizen, including I believe this one.

I didn’t mean lacking the exact same job opportunities, but having their loyalties be questioned and denied from certain secure positions.

I don’t believe this job actually would be possible as the level of clearance requested is usually denied to dual-nationals (without renouncing, of course).

Oh ok, thanks for the clarification.

I read it as they're not requiring citizenship, they're requiring clearance, which requires citizenship.

It wouldn't matter if they were requiring citizenship. The protected category is national origin. Companies can't normally require native-born citizenship but any company can refuse to hire non-citizens.

Citizenship is a pretty common requirement in information security in sensitive industries, to use the example I'm familiar with.

Yeah, that makes sense. Who would deny a naturalized American all the rights and privileges? I don't know what people are getting upset about; I don't see anything that says "requires a native-born US citizen."

It says "US ONLY US Citizen," but that only excludes people who still swear allegiance to King Charles.

Wait am I reading this right? You have to be citizen? I'm a permanent resident with full work authorization. I was under the impression that my right to work was protected by law...

Otherwise I have solid experience with all technologies listed except InVision

Plenty of jobs (especially in government/defense) require full citizenship and security clearance.

Not for certain government contractor roles. They can be required by the government to only employ citizens. Some roles can even preclude naturalized citizens if it’s extraordinarily sensitive due to their inexorable ties to a foreign government and people.

Even if that weren't a requirement, you aren't going to be able to to get clearance without citizenship:

> Non-U.S. citizens do not qualify for a security clearance. [1]

So it's a fairly moot point. That being said, there are plenty of positions that can disqualify you for non-citizenship for protected information. Healthcare, government contractors, etc. Your right to work in the US is protected, your right to a job is not.

1 - https://www.dcsa.mil/mc/isd/int/security/

Hey buddy, when you're on OUR side of the fake line, your "rights" are what we give ya.

You want the Full America package, you need to naturalize and renounce whichever terrorist government you swear allegiance to now.

How do we apply? Is there an email to reach out to?

Is there a broader list of roles being hired for? Link?

whats a link to where to apply?

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