[glup]

A note on personal experience as a tech contractor at a federal agency: I worked as a contractor at the US Geological Survey (USGS), in the Department of the Interior each summer between 2006 and 2010.

The most useful thing I worked on was a program for calculating air-sea carbon flux: I did the OS X GUI and helped with the core logic (computing air-sea carbon flux is nontrivial). At the time I was appalled that we spent $10k on what could have just been an R package around a wrapper for the C++ core. But since then the program has become a very common tool for ocean acidification research, with ~175 citations, many of these have since been cited in all sorts of climate change policy documents. It's admittedly hard to assess value, but it's definitely more than 10k. And definitely a public good that the market cannot be counted on to deliver.

I also found out at some point that the contractor I was working for (a Fortune 500 engineering and defense company) billed the USGS more than twice what I received (I got no real benefits). The federal employees I worked with detested the contracting company because they knew how much it was skimming from the contract employees, many of whom were full-time and had been there for years. When I figured this all out, I quit, started my own company, and was hired directly as an independent contractor. Unfortunately, this was not an option for most people, as this wouldn't have worked for a full-time, year-round position.

[liyanchang]

Disclosure: I'm an engineer at USDS and these are my own opinions.

I'm personally appreciative of the work that you've done and your continued work, in spite of the many challenges and frustrations. There are many ways to serve. It's always incredibly rewarding to be working along side dedicated and talented public servants and contractors. Thank you.