So there were a lot projects listed here, but the one word used to describe the actual work being done by folks at 18F was “technologist” (in the sole bolded phrase of the article).
I know what devs do, QA folks do, product owners, scrum masters, UX specialists, etc. But what were these folks doing as “technologists?” I have my own understandings of the term that are, well… not biased in the direction of “valuable work.”
I’m all about calling out DOGE firings as problematic. But this particular post read as a lot of emotional language, but very specifically sparse specific details about what work they were doing and what they were being paid for it. And that’s, well… how you would actually demonstrate that it was problematic.
I get a vibe here of “politicians’ friends and family paid a lot to write how they think tech should work and wave their dicks around a bit,” to be honest, but really want to be wrong. Are there any substantive PRs to major GPL/MIT repos from 18F folks? Or more tactile explanations of their work? And some accounting of what they were paid for it?
You could just read the other comments in this HN thread to find out what 18F’s work was and why it was well-regarded. Instead you decided to write a long comment about vibes you got from the post.
I wrote the comment so long mostly to appease people like you. But please, post unuseful responses and I’ll just assume this was the DOGE actually doing something efficient
Well, would have been nice to simply look at all the stuff on the 18f.gsa.gov site to look for the evidence you are requesting, but the entire site has been memory-holed.
18F and USDS always hired a mix of people, but I can tell you that I personally know a number of former colleagues and associates who worked for these organizations, writing code and architecting systems to solve real problems.
If you want a sense of what 18F did, you can visit their Wikipedia page.
> I know what devs do, QA folks do, product owners, scrum masters, UX specialists, etc. But what were these folks doing as “technologists?”
A technologist is proficient in more than one of those individual disciplines and is willing to make themselves skilled enough to cross across those disciplines in the name of better technology.
Everyone I know who worked at 18F is what I would consider to be a generalist. Most of them had very deep experience in specific areas, and/or were known for their contributions to F/OSS.
I know what devs do, QA folks do, product owners, scrum masters, UX specialists, etc. But what were these folks doing as “technologists?” I have my own understandings of the term that are, well… not biased in the direction of “valuable work.”
I’m all about calling out DOGE firings as problematic. But this particular post read as a lot of emotional language, but very specifically sparse specific details about what work they were doing and what they were being paid for it. And that’s, well… how you would actually demonstrate that it was problematic.
I get a vibe here of “politicians’ friends and family paid a lot to write how they think tech should work and wave their dicks around a bit,” to be honest, but really want to be wrong. Are there any substantive PRs to major GPL/MIT repos from 18F folks? Or more tactile explanations of their work? And some accounting of what they were paid for it?