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Comment by calvinmorrison | Hacker News Reader

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It is a high impact high volatility opportunity. It’s not for everyone. If you can’t pass a drug test or a SF86, or need a ton of income, it might not be for you. But it is for some. Accept it for the tour of duty it is. Instead of an equity lottery ticket, you’re getting paid to improve public goods at nation state scale. We all seek different comp.

It's just rough that the richest country in the world provides such a negative incentive for working in the public interest. I fully accept that government work won't be a lottery ticket type opportunity but asking people to sacrifice serious income for a max of four years without getting to participate in pension, etc that other government work allows and is a _real_ incentive is just wacky. (Maybe I'm out of date on the pension.) And the four year max, why? Surely the federal government out of everything must value institutional knowledge but how can you possibly achieve that with a four year cap?

Dunno. I love the idea of the US Digital Services but the way it's structured just does not come across as a serious effort on the part of the federal government to achieve its mission.

Agreed and not sure why this is down voted.

It would be totally possible to properly fund this over funding defense as much as we are. It would also likely greatly contribute to efficiency and cost savings if things like our IRS or healthcare or even parks could operate like they do in Japan for example.

Its worth asking ourselves why the offices that serve us, the citizens, on the daily are constantly underfunded to the point that the work is not rewarded in financial, social, or career oriented ways.

> Its worth asking ourselves why the offices that serve us, the citizens, on the daily are constantly underfunded to the point that the work is not rewarded in financial, social, or career oriented ways.

I couldn't agree more. I fundamentally do not understand why working for state or federal government could not be seen as a prestigious thing, instead of something you end up needing to sacrifice to participate in. Working in the public interest _is_ an excellent thing to do, to my mind, but we sure don't pay like it is, to our collective detriment.

My understanding is that the four year max is more a consequence of funding sources federal hiring laws than an intentional choice. People get hired into USDS as "excepted service"[0] for a term "not to exceed two years" that can be renewed once. USDS has its own interview process, does its own job listings, has its own recruiting staff, and I think there was no way to do that with permanent, competitive service positions.

[0]: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/hiring-information...

How long did your post-offer process take? Specifically the background check process.

Mine was quick because I'm boring and got lucky, but I've heard of it taking months.

There's effectively zero institutional knowledge in software in the Federal Gov anyways, it's been contracted out to lowest bidders with high churn rates for decades at this point. At best you're going to get a big contractor like General Dynamics or Booze-Allen with one person who's been willing to jump between those companies and contracts as they continue to underbid each other, but maintain the effectively identical role, or you're going to get a subcontracting company performing the equivalent.

To be fair many gov employees do very little

Citation needed.

https://www.heritage.org/jobs-and-labor/report/government-em...

That's making an argument about hours worked?

> According to a detailed “time diary” dataset that measures work wherever and whenever it takes place, government employees work around three fewer hours per week and roughly one less month per year than private-sector workers. Substantial differences in work time persist even after controlling for occupational and skill differences between sectors.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0275074003258823 would suggest the effort is on-par, which strikes me as reasonable. If you have good job security why butt-in-seat if you're done for the day? Might also suggest that private sector is inefficient at how it uses its labor, if working more hours and one more month per year gets similar results.

If I could bag cheap VA tuition, benefits, and a 10% discount at Lowes for my "two tours in the Keyboard Jungle", the sacrifice would appeal. Otherwise it just reads as "trying to hire at a discount" to me like a lot of reqs I run across.

Personally, I would love to build software that benefits people over shareholders. I’m great at what I do, and I want to put my talents to good use.

It’s just really hard to get behind an employer that pays their contractors more than their employees, and has such a strict raise policy. I’m not looking to make a ton of money, just a fair/average compensation and recognition for going the extra mile.

I don’t know what it takes to get a department to drop the GS scale (or at the very least match raises with inflation), but if it were to ever happen, I’m sure they would be flooded with talented and ambitious applications.

high impact, high volatility with low pay?

I was offered $180k/year and a 2 year tour of duty embedded in either IRS or DHS. That doesn’t strike me as low. Low for FAANG, but not the rest of the market.

Edit: >15 yoe at interview cycle

What was your yoe?

USDS requires an SF86 now??

I was told I’d have to pass one. Might not apply to all roles or assignments. Ask your USDS recruiter before the process if you have concerns you won’t be cleared.

Or the fact that the annual raise hasn’t matched inflation for years. Each year, you’re not getting a raise, but loosing ($Inflation - $GS_Raise). You can be the hardest working member of your team, but your salary decreases at the same rate as everyone else.

Every talented person I know working in government with a GS scale has left their employer because they were not being compensated fairly.

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