Getting IT Talent In Government Will Take Culture Change, Says Google Engineer 166
dcblogs writes: Mikey Dickerson, a site reliability engineer at Google, who was appointed Monday by the White House as the deputy federal CIO, will lead efforts to improve U.S. Websites. Dickerson, who worked on the Healthcare.gov rescue last year, said that one issue the government needs to fix is its culture. In describing his experience on the Healthcare.gov effort, he said the workplace was "not one that is optimized to get good work out of engineers." It was a shirt-and-tie environment, and while Dickerson said cultural issues may sound superficial, they are still real. "You don't have to think that the engineers are the creative snowflakes and rock stars that they think they are, you don't have to agree with any of that," Dickerson said in a recent conference presentation posted online. "I'm just telling you that's how they think of themselves, and if you want access to more of them, finding a way to deal with that helps a lot." Engineers want to make a difference, Dickerson said, and he has collected the names of more than 140 engineers who would be willing to take unpaid leave from their jobs to work on a meaningful project.
simple! all it takes is... (Score:5, Interesting)
All you have to do to create the environment for IT talent to want to work in government is to get rid of a culture of more importance on process than outcome, a culture of not getting fired even if you don't do any useful work, and power and advancement based more on perception and political maneuvering in front of people who don't know talent when they see it, instead of results. Oh, and constant interference by politicians who can't be bothered to appreciate what your work required, but are happy to use it as a tool for their own means.
I'm sure all that will be easy!
Re:Engineers do dress well (Score:3, Interesting)
Agreed. And the NSA, CIA, DHS, and President are doing their best to eliminate that reason.
Plus, having worked for the DoD for a number of years, I must add that working for Congress is like working for a schizophrenic two year old who has a temper tantrum in between each bowl movement.
Not creative rock stars? (Score:5, Interesting)
Can you do what they can do? No? So then, how about a nice plate of shut the fuck up, then?
Government doesn't get good techies because they don't pay enough, have a lousy working environment, and don't have ANY of the perks of the private sector that techies prize, like working from home (HA!) flex-time, or flex-spending accounts. Workplaces are static (you can fight for the "best office" after 10-15 years of seniority, but will toil in an ill-lit cube farm until the,) schedules are inflexible, and benefits are one-size fits all.
I saw an advertisement for my job (basically to the letter) working for a "state" organization here... The Teachers retirement fund (it's a pension fund for the teacher's union, operated by the state under state employment rules.) What I make is irrelevant, but suffice it to say, their "max" was 40% less than I make today, and just over 50% less than what "the market will bear."
That's your ballgame.
Re: what a douche (Score:4, Interesting)
I believe the primary obstacle is that the gov't [particularly the federal gov't] loathes actually hiring people. they want to outsource everything, because of the mantra "private industry steals the best". and then to make sure only the crappiest companies bid on the project, make everyone submit hundreds of pages of mostly useless paperwork, and then pick the lowest bidder, regardless of ability to actually perform the work. Then, when the lowest bidder fails, award the contract to a close friend's company, and whatever price they suggest, because "it has to get done by yesterday".