Can you connect the dots for me as far as why, if the government needs help, they can't pay market price for the help? Or is the drawback to working for the government something other than that?
If they pay a big federal contractor at twice that rate, who then pockets half and pays its people market rate, then that's private sector efficiency at work.
If you watch the YouTube video provided, it seems like the subtext of this appointment is that Obama wants to merge these markets, so that the federal government competes for tech talent out of the same pool as Silicon Valley, Seattle, Boston, NYC, etc. tech companies. There will probably be many subtle culture changes there - programmers may stop wearing suits in government contractors, market rates may adjust, etc. I can't predict exactly how things will change, but wouldn't count on the status quo remaining for long.
The essential problem of the US government is there is no accountability. Poor performing employees are never fired and poor performing contractors are never penalized. If a project is a massive failure there are never any consequences for the people or companies involved. Over time anyone with any sort of skill whatsoever tends to leave and what's left are the poor and mediocre employees.
I'd like to say creating the US digital service is a positive step but unless the basic problem of accountability is solved it too will be just as bad at IT as every existing organization in a few years time.
In the real world this problem of organizational calcification would be solved when the incompetent company goes out of business because they are over taken by competitors. In the government since there is no competition there is no natural accountability mechanism.
The people in these comments here on HN claiming that somehow that's "liberal government" at work don't know what they're talking about, at all, and I mean downvote-worthy, comically so. If we must label these antics with comparisons to American political ideologies, the government contracting system is closer to big-business, republican-style politics than anything else. Small-c-conservative and any-l-liberal are the last things I think of when I think of government contracting.
That said, I think there are enough people that a) find $155k enough to meet their needs and b) believe in the mission that we'll be able to make a big impact.
(One thing that's important to remember—"the government" doesn't really act like a unified, coordinated entity. Different branches and agencies have different incentives and behave in different ways. It's often better to think of the government as a marketplace rather than an organization.)
If you work out the math depending on what assumptions you make it's only worth about $5k-$10k per year in compensation so it doesn't really make up for the huge disparity in pay between private contractor and government employees.
You would be hard pressed to convince me that as it is presently structured that it presents some great value to the employee.
I would say yes.
Getting paid is not the big challenge in Government work.
It's the lack of urgency, political infighting and general stigma.
The rotations described here and the leadership position / division described in the article both skirt those issues.
* Urgency: Healthcare.gov had it. It was a firestorm visible from a continent away. Most Government IT failures don't work that way, they're smoldering trash fires that generate a meeting to figure out who's going to fill a bucket with a follow-up meeting to decide who's actually going to carry it.
* Infighting: As described, the Digital Service 'will be focused on providing consultation' not 'a group that we parachute in to write code'. They're coming in from a position of authority - above the level of typical jockeying.
* Stigma: None. Finish your rotation and go back to Google. Finish your stint as a head of an elite Federal service and name your title.
This kind of integration projects tend to be discounted by some as boring and stupid and indeed there is a lot of boring and annoying work to do on them. The thing is, this kind of project also have non-trivial learning curve until you become effective and the more organizational mess there is to overcome the steeper it becomes.
There are more red flags then just salary cap on this one.