Tech Giants Face Off Against 18F

A friend of mine in 18F was just telling me awesome stories of what they're doing. I remember reading horror stories on Slashdot a dozen years ago of how government IT contractors were paid so much and did all the work because full-timers were supposedly incompetent and wishing there were some way this could change. I'm very happy to see this administration making some proactive changes to attract talented people. 18F is rapidly becoming a highly regarded entity and I believe they give dignity to the term government service, as it should be. I'd rather the contractors have to fight hard to earn my tax dollars. Yes, the contractors have to jump through extra hurdles, but too many take advantage of their position. Yes, it's hard on those who have jumped through many hurdles to now have to contend with a changing landscape, but why should government contracting remain a cushy gig when the rest of us in the private sector have to rapidly adapt all the time? Not all contractors are bad, but it's nice to know 18F is raising the bar for them.

This is a great example of an entrenched incumbent&#x2F;monopolist backlash against an earnest attempt to cut costs and increase the efficiency of government. This same story happens every day throughout the world in numerous ways, and solving it so the &#x27;good guys&#x27; win is in my opinion one of the of the most important things a country can do to improve its institutions.<p>I&#x27;ve spoken to a number of developers who work in DC, and they pretty much tell the same story: huge tech companies&#x2F;consulting firms who want to lock in a long-term contract use unnecessarily complex technologies and solutions (I&#x27;m looking at you, Java EE) that create big legacy codebases which are very difficult to switch away from, ensuring that the contractor has a job forever. Furthermore, once they&#x27;ve got the government agency &#x27;by the balls&#x27; (AKA, the contractor has built a complex, poorly documented monster which only it can understand), it can charge a ridiculous amount of money for maintenance and new feature development.

It&#x27;s hard to read this and not get the impression that firms used to lucrative government contracts are simply not keen at new competition and are lobbying to protect their privledged position. Despite the fact increased competition benefits the government and tax payers.

I don&#x27;t live in the US but this would annoy me greatly.<p>Having worked in big companies where consulting firms like IBM and Deloitte have really screwed things up one thing has become abundantly clear to me.<p>Building yourself is always better. There are really no caveats to this. A team hired by you is a team aligned with you. A firm servicing a consulting contract will always milk the contract for whatever they can get, especially when they often do really sly things like settle for a lower initial cost but build in onerous clauses that drastically blow out costs for all sorts of reasons.<p>If anything they should expand 18F&#x2F;USDS and eliminate the buy-first policy in favor of build-first. Only go to vendors when it&#x27;s just not feasible to build it with the resources available.

There is a nuance here that many of you are missing. Up until 18F, the government procurement process was so byzantine that navigating it was core competency of a government contractors and one of their main competitive advantages.<p>What the lobbyists are complaining about is that 18F doesn&#x27;t have to go through that process while everyone else does. OR more specifically, they believe that 18F is skipping the process but they don&#x27;t know because of lack of transparency.<p>They want the playing field to be even -- either make 18F follow all the same rules or allow them to skirt the same rules.<p>Part of the reason those government contracts are worth so much is because of all the forms and paperwork you have to file just to get one.<p>So the issue isn&#x27;t as black and white as all of us engineers want it to be.<p>Honestly, I&#x27;m all in favor of dropping all the regs for the contractors, but the downside to that is that the regs were put into place to stop corruption -- i.e all the contracts were just going to the (typically white rich male) friends of the government agents. A lot of those government regulations are there to make sure that women and minority owned businesses get some of those contracts (although there is a ton of corruption around pass through entities there, but that&#x27;s a different issue).

Gov contractors are pissed that the government can build some of its own systems? HA!<p>The first job I had out of school was on a government contract. The gov employee that was suppose to oversee the technical decisions made was even less experienced than I was and worked about as hard as his salary suggested. Needless to say, our instructions were often to meet the letter of the contract whether it accomplished the intended goal or not. 18F&#x27;s experience has long been needed.

I recently helped meet an RFI to be considered for the pre-qualified vendor pool for the California project mentioned in the article. At least one cool thing that 18F inspired is that all of the vying vendors&#x27; prototypes (developed as an unpaid trial task) are located and indexed on GitHub. You can decide for yourself whether the big established players or the new, more nimble outfits produce better prototype work: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&amp;q=chhs" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&amp;q=chhs</a>.

Unreal. That was one of most one-sided pieces I&#x27;ve ever read of an attack on innovation within government. 18F is doing great work. They&#x27;re pretty transparent, too, given they publish lots of their activities and reasoning. Nobody taking bribes either that I&#x27;m aware of. Whereas, the &quot;lobbyists&quot; and &quot;representatives&quot; in question are either delivering or taking bribes from big companies to ensure they get contracts to continue sucking money out of taxpayers for nothing. This organized, outdated corruption resisting something that threatens it. Of course, the article doesn&#x27;t report on <i>that</i> angle which is more important than anything policy-related.<p>Thing is, even the corruption aspect could be done better in a win-win way if they tried. They can still rake in the big profits on government systems. Just act as main contractors that interface with those government entities, subcontract out work to groups 18F would encourage, get good results, painlessly integrate it due to subcontractors&#x27; talent, and then deliver it to government with 30-50% profit for doing nothing. Continue to pull profits due to support&#x2F;licensing. This has worked for defense contractors, including those named, for decades with subcontractors just using outdated or conservative methods. It could work on the newer approaches as well. They might as well go all in on such a better form of corruption as them loosing contracts due to efforts like 18F is only a matter of time. First mover advantage suggests they lock-in a new strategy immediately.<p>Note: Not that I prefer corruption. I just know it&#x27;s not going away in an apathetic &quot;democracy.&quot; So, I recommend stuff the corrupt parties might actually adopt vs something that eliminates their profits and re-elections respectively.

So basically putting some competent tech people in charge of government technology has resulted in a cracking down on waste, fraud, abuse and general stupidity. And this is a bad thing because...?

Just a quick note for folks interesting in joining 18F: it may be a much more fun place to work as engineer in the government, but it&#x27;s still the government.<p>You start off with 2 weeks of paid leave accrued per year, and it&#x27;ll be at least 15 years (last time I checked) of employment before you&#x27;re up to 4 weeks per year. This pales in comparison to contracting shops in the DMV (DC, Maryland, Virginia) area, where the smallest I&#x27;ve seen is 4 weeks for brand-new employees. Over the years I&#x27;ve seen more and more switch to unlimited PTO.<p>More likely than not, you will inevitably have to deal with a &quot;govvie&quot; who prides one&#x27;s self on doing nothing all day and getting paid more than you for it, simply because of seniority. This might sound like hyperbole, but after 6 years as a DoD contractor and getting fed up with all the bureacracy, I left for the fully private sector and I haven&#x27;t looked back since in 2 years. YMMV.

Let me get this straight. Government contractors are concerned about the lack of transparency of 18F&#x2F;USDS and also that they&#x27;re developing capabilities that the incumbents cannot possibly offer and are asking for more regulation? Funny considering how byzantine and convoluted myself and others have found it to start contracting for the government despite the best of our intentions that would require incredible amounts of overhead compared to even an enterprise software vendor relationship contract when you&#x27;re a 2-person company (you typically wind up sub-contracted under a massive prime contractor anyway, and that removes a lot of your political weight immediately while favoring the big one). Isn&#x27;t one of the best things you can do for the federal government is to be accommodating and flexible to their needs in their best interest as a guiding principle? There&#x27;s some pretty serious cognitive dissonance happening.<p>There&#x27;s also a false dichotomy that people get the impression that government contractors have traditionally gotten a cushy job - this is not the full story. Smaller contractors constantly are folding or being forced to sell due to how difficult the market is to negotiate now as a small company, particularly for defense (I am shocked that the article only cites $80 Bn for government contractors pretending that defense contractors don&#x27;t exist - just add up Lockheed and SAIC alone and you&#x27;d get far, far beyond that). One of the top reasons for companies folding is simply loss of budget into exploratory programs that can justify more &quot;cutting edge&quot; technology such as Hadoop-based or Spark-based analytics stacks and HTML5 instead of ColdFusion based user facing applications. After having worked for and alongside some great smaller contractors that just couldn&#x27;t hack it, I&#x27;m pretty much done with government at this point though and would rather let the next generation of engineers that are more hopeful and nowhere near as disenchanted as myself show up.<p>I think 18F &#x2F; USDS limiting the service times is a Good Idea though because it can limit the amount of negativity that can accumulate from just a few engineers having poor experiences. Furthermore, this kind of &quot;term limit&quot; is a great way to prevent entrenchment by any entity working with the government. Unfortunately, many key initiatives are simply too important <i>not</i> to get the government entrenched and a long-term relationship to exist (granted, I&#x27;d also argue that the government should simply own these outright instead of attempting to half-ass privatize, which leads to political models closer to Mussolini&#x27;s ideas of fascism).

I once had to call the help desk for a US government system. They were actually surprisingly responsive and helpful, on a weekend even. After speaking a bit of technical jargon the person on the other end of the line understood that I wasn&#x27;t an idiot and did indeed have a real issue. I asked if anyone else had such a problem with the system and the response was:<p>&quot;Sir, this is a government IT system and it works about as well as you&#x27;d expect a government IT system to work.&quot; We both laughed. I&#x27;m happy the people at 18F are making progress in changing the validity of that stereotype.

18F is still very small at 185 and the headcount includes the Presidential Innovation Fellows program; at the end of 2014, the total headcount was 95.<p>Source: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fcw.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;2014&#x2F;10&#x2F;27&#x2F;18f-consulting-group.aspx" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fcw.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;2014&#x2F;10&#x2F;27&#x2F;18f-consulting-group.asp...</a>

This is great. This is how you know you&#x27;re doing things right. All they have to do now is avoid becoming the thing they&#x27;re currently fixing. Every institution at some point becomes a propagator of the problem it was meant to solve but 18F seems to be a bunch of smart folks so maybe they can avoid that fate.

Folks who believe in 18F and want it to continue the work it is doing: please please PLEASE actually write to your legislators and let them know that you are their constituent, that you are a tech worker, and that you support it. Unless you do, they will think that it is some niche issue that the general public doesn&#x27;t care about. When that happens, the only things legislators have to base their decisions on are:<p>1) Their own (non-existent) expertise in software development and procurement.<p>2) Their advice of whatever experts they can find.<p>3) The outcome of this hearing by the House Oversight Comittee: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;oversight.house.gov&#x2F;hearing&#x2F;18f-and-u-s-digital-service-oversight&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;oversight.house.gov&#x2F;hearing&#x2F;18f-and-u-s-digital-serv...</a> and follow-up hearings<p>And what #2 really means is lobbyists, paid for by these same contractors. They will present themselves as the voice of the industry and unless a bunch of actual software engineers speak up, legislators would have every reason to believe them.<p>So please, find your congresscritter and let them know that you care about this: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;openstates.org&#x2F;find_your_legislator&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;openstates.org&#x2F;find_your_legislator&#x2F;</a><p>Especially do this if you live in the district of one of the members of the house oversight committee: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;oversight.house.gov&#x2F;subcommittee&#x2F;full-committee&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;oversight.house.gov&#x2F;subcommittee&#x2F;full-committee&#x2F;</a><p>- Carolyn Maloney of NY-12, Brooklyn Heights, Williamsburg and the east side of Manhattan<p>- MARK DESAULNIER CA-11: Just west of Berkley<p>- William Lacy Clay of MO-1, Greater St Louis<p>- Stephen Lynch of MA-8, Boston and South Shore<p>- Jim Cooper of TN-5, Nashville and some areas to the west<p>- Gerald E. Connoly of VA-11, suburbs between Arlington and Manassas<p>- Matt Cartwright of PA-17: Scranton, Schuylkill, and Munroe<p>- Tammy Duckworth of IL-8: Northwest Chicago<p>- Robin Kelly IL-2: South East Chicago<p>- Brenda Lawrence MI-14: A weird gerrymander northish of Detroit but also the lake coast<p>- Ted Lieu CA-33: A wide swath of pacific coast near Venice Beach<p>- Bonnie Watson Coleman NJ-12: Princeton, Trenton, and environs<p>- Brendan F. Boyle PA-13: North and Northeast of Philadelphia.<p>- Peter Welch for the entirety of Vermont<p>- Michelle Lujan Grisham NM-1: Albuquerque and areas southeast of it.<p>- Trey Gowdy SC-4: Spartanburg and Greenville area<p>- Mark Meadows NC-11: Asheville and the blue ridge mountains<p>- Jim Jordan OH-4: a weird gerrymander northwest of Columbus and south of Cleveland<p>- John Mica of FL-7, north of Orlando<p>- Michael Turner of OH-10, north of Cincinnati<p>- John Duncan TN-2: Jefferson city and area around it.<p>- Tim Walberg MI-7: Rural area and suburbs south-west of Detroit.<p>- Justin Amash MI-3: Grand Rapids and rural areas between it and Lansing. (frame all arguments from a libertarian perspective)<p>- Blake Farnthold TX-27: Corpus Cristi, Lockhart, and a bunch of gulf coast.<p>- Cynthia Lummis, for the entirety of Wyoming<p>- Thomas Massie KY-4: A weird gerrymander north of Lexington and south of Cincinnati<p>- Ron Desantis FL-6: Daytona Beach area<p>- Mick Mulvaney SC-5: Rock Hill and rural area north of Columbia<p>- Ken Buck CO-4: the eastern 3rd of the state<p>- Mark Walker NC-6: Greensboro and rural areas north of Durham &amp; Winston-salem<p>- Rod Blum IA-1: Cedar Rapids and the areas in the northeast of the state.<p>- Jody Hice GA-10: Rural area between Atlanta and Augusta<p>- Steve Russel OK-5: Oklahoma City, Seminole, and a bunch of rural area around that.<p>- Buddy Carter GA-1: The southeast corner of the state and atlantic coast<p>- Glenn Grothman WI-6: rural area north of Madison and Milwaukee<p>- William Hurd TX-23: El Paso and all the area between it and San Antonio<p>- Gary J. Palmer AL-6: A weird gerrymander of the rural area surrounding Birmingham<p>- Paul Gosar AZ-4: Prescott and the western border of the state.<p>- Scott Desharlais TN-4: The south-central part of the state. Areas Northeast of Chattanooga.<p>- Eleanor Holmes Norton: DC<p>- Stacey E. Plaskett: US Virgin Islands

I work for a mid sized contracting company (think Deloitte but much smaller) and 18F has been such a breath of fresh air. Working (well, dealing) with a group of competent people who are setting modern goals in such an terribly outdated environment is awesome.<p>18F is pushing my company to invest more in real technologies rather than Salesforce for everything. This is going to have a ton of great effects on my company and seemingly the industry in general.

&quot;lobbyists from the IT Alliance for Public Sector (ITAPS) and the Software &amp; Information Industry Association (SIIA) alleged that 18F is hindering profits&quot;<p>Why should I care about that? Why should anyone who&#x27;s not those companies care about it? If 18F is making it chalet for the government to do these things, that&#x27;s good for everyone else.

Can anyone explain to me what a &quot;buy first&quot; policy is? Is this the same as no-bid contracts?<p>If history is any guide, the entrenched players will step up their lobbying efforts and the current system will be preserved. In Washington money comes first, party comes second and the people you are supposed to represent come dead last.

This is the most definitive statement I have seen that 18f is working. I wasn&#x27;t sure before, but now I&#x27;m sure.