[gooserock]

For what it's worth, I applied to work with 18F late last year. I'm a web developer with a wide array of skills - front-end, back-end, and even UI/UX design, product design, and some marketing and management - with about 8 years of experience, mostly doing independent consulting with a couple years at a SF startup in there. I'm also very civic minded, doing a bunch of pro-bono work and (since) getting involved in community activism.

I had two phone interviews in which both interviewers asked almost the exact same questions (which struck me as odd). Then I had a third phone interview in which the interviewer - who had a law background, as I recall - seemed very disappointed that I had not worked on Google-sized teams before. Maybe he was having a bad day, but his tone made it sound like I was wasting his time. That was the last I heard from them.

Sorry, this probably isn't the right place to comment on this, but I just wanted to share my experience with you. I was somewhat disappointed in the process, even though I LOVE the mission of 18F. I was prepared to up and move to DC, and honestly take whatever salary you offered - I was in it for the mission, not the money.

[rmason]

If your in it for the mission, not the money consider applying as a Code For America fellow:

https://www.codeforamerica.org/do-something/work-with-us

There are a lot of cities that could use your help. I am in no way connected with them but am a huge fan of their mission.

[gooserock]

I've actually started working with some Code for America folks here in my community - independently of CfA - on some city open data projects. They're awesome. :-)

[dexterdog]

I would do it, but why do they have to base you in SF? You should be able to stay local to where you are actually helping.

[gooserock]

I think there might be state-based chapters? My friends here are actually part of "Code for Maine."

[NotSammyHagar]

What are the security and nda requirements? I recently got an invitation to a show and tell meeting (a recruiting event) but I didn't end up going. I'm afraid of having to sign onerous agreements, similar to a "never tell anyone that this was bad". I unfortunately fell victim to that at a startup, and I want to maintain my freedom to praise or criticize the government and politicians as appropriate.

[hiram112]

I also applied. It took about a month for someone to send me a two sentence 'thanks but no thanks' response. No interview offered.

I'm no rockstar, but I do have nearly a decade of experience, half of which is gov. contracting in the beltway. And my resume has no problems attracting recruiters from Amazon, MS, etc.

The whole process (admittedly only a few emails back and forth) felt very amateurish - as if their recruitment was run by some non-technical recent grads - similar to a lot of NGOs in the area.

[jrockway]

What is a Google-sized team?

[gooserock]

My experience has all been with teams and companies < 15 people, and he seemed unhappy about that.

The startup I worked on had 12 people at its height (before it was bought by a large tech company), and I was the first employee hire so I was in a position of some leadership.

He kept asking me strange questions that presupposed I knew how to negotiate with large entities like government agencies... as a developer.

That interview - plus the other two "groundhog day" interviews - were the strangest interview process I've ever experienced.

[jcrites]

> He kept asking me strange questions that presupposed I knew how to negotiate with large entities like government agencies... as a developer.

Perhaps that's part of the skills that are needed to succeed at 18F. It sounds like these folks are in a sort of consulting position where they help other government agencies with technical projects and policy efforts. Take a look at the 18F Innovation Specialist GS-14 and -15 roles: https://pages.18f.gov/joining-18f/pay-grades/ - based on your background, they might have expected you to fall somewhere around, I'm guessing, GS-14 (1). Some of the qualifications required are:

> Knowledge of and expertise in driving and implementing technology solutions that overcome significant challenges resulting from complex or bureaucratic environments, or technically difficult problems

> Skill in oral communication to present sensitive recommendations to higher authority, to obtain compliance with policies from activities nationwide, to articulate positions/policy of vast technical complexity, and to represent the agency on task forces

> Comprehensive knowledge of and expertise in all stages of product or business development, and ability to lead complex technology and policy initiatives from inception to implementation

Bureaucratic environment is right there in the job description :-) More seriously, this sounds like a reasonably senior technical role in which one would likely interface with other agencies in the way you're describing. GS-15 is even more demanding. While it's disappointing that the interview expressed condescension at your lack of expertise in this area (and expressed anything other than professionalism), I can understand given these qualifications why they'd probe into those skills. It appears they're looking for technical leaders, and not exclusively heads-down individual contributors -- this makes sense to me given their mission. These positions seem to be about influencing the government through policy and technology initiatives, and influencing other government agencies (which is harder than influencing one's local environment), not just delivering technical projects.

I am not trying to excuse the interview experience that you had, just to be clear. I'm just making an observation about the kind of challenges they appear to have, and the kind of qualifications they might be looking for in candidates to tackle them. Innovation Specialist GS-14 and GS-15 sounds like pretty interesting roles. I am personally glad that they expect such leadership from technical specialists; this kind of broader influence is key to career growth as a technical person past a certain point. Organizations that don't expect this and foster this in individual contributors are organizations where you need to move into management in order to keep moving up.

However, it sounds like they could have done a lot better job communicating with you respectfully and professionally, as well as conveying what they're looking for.

(1) I know nothing about 18F beyond what I've read on these sites, nor about government pay grades. I'm just taking a guess based on your industry experience, and by comparing the 18F job role levels to the qualifications expected of candidates with similar background in private industry.

[gooserock]

Thanks for your thoughts, I think you have a decent point there.

My experience does include running front-end at the startup I worked at, and even being part of the three-person group that decided on the direction of the product (with the two founders). My communication skills are battle-tested from years of contracting (and a liberal arts university background), but I do lack experience dealing with huge bureaucracies and I lack experience with business development. So maybe that was it.

That said, if your theory is right that they were slotting me in as a GS-14, they could have communicated with me about that difficulty. I would have been totally fine with whatever role they wanted to give me - which I made clear in the "groundhog day" interviews - because I just wanted to help. :-D

[rhizome]

Look at job ads. Many, many companies of all sizes ask for experience working with massively distributed architectures, "over 1,000 servers" and things like that.

[dijit]

FWIW I built and worked on a server farm of upwards of 2,000 physical servers with myself and one other. (with minor labour support from another team of 3 people when needed).

it's possible to work in a small team and be effective even at large scale.

[rhizome]

Absolutely, but I feel that in SV/SF it's used as a dogwhistle calling to refugees from FB, Goog, Yahoo, linkedin, etc.

[rcaught]

A team the size of Google.

[CydeWeys]

If that happens to you in the future, be honest and say that the other interviewer already asked you the same questions. Not doing so probably worked against you, as someone probably realized at some point that the same questions had been asked, and then they looked at each other in confusion wondering "Why didn't this guy say something?"

[gooserock]

The funny thing was, in interview #2 I did mention that that they were asking me all the same questions, once it became clear that that was happening. The interviewer was like, "Oh? Really? Well this is our interview process," and then kept going. And these were 30-45 minute phone interviews, too. It was really strange.

[CydeWeys]

That doesn't even make any sense. Why would you intentionally ask people the same questions two times? Something is screwed up over there. I'm surprised you stuck with it after that; I would've turned down going any farther with it. If their interviewing is that broken then you know the work must be too.