There are a slew of new digital services firms that are trying to build exactly this.
Government has a workforce challenge -- it is aging out, being starved of resources, and technology isn't core to agency mission(s). For decades they have outsourced to the same set of big companies that often failed to deliver. 18F and USDS are more than small departments -- they are bootcamps for the people who go through and then impact the the agencies and firms they move on to after. They were really inspired by the failure, then success, of healthcare.gov.
10 years ago upwards of 80% of government IT projects failed. This is improving.
I interned with the navy in college. I wanted to be a federal employee when I graduated. I even had special consideration due to my internship, and my disability. Did I? No. I did not.
The experience of trying to get a federal job was abysmally bad. First, there are precious few GS positions that actually do coding. Everything seems to be contracted out. The few positions that were there were very hard to apply for. I applied to every position I found across 5 different states, and my resume simply disappeared into a bureaucratic black hole.
After a month or so of that nonsense, I threw in the towel and looked for something in the private sector. The difference was a breath of fresh air. I got interviews in days, offers in weeks, and I've made enough money that I'm basically financially independent at this point.
The government has a long way to go with their hiring process.
I don't think this is true. GS grades are capped by the compensation of Level IV of the Executive Schedule (sometimes with locality pay they would exceed that and so they get capped), which is roughly the same as Congress salary, but definitely SES pay tops out a good 25k above that.
Grow up in the DC area and even if you never work for the Gov't directly you just absorb this information out of the air.
Exceptions are made for federally-employed physicians, which is the only reason the military is able to have its own doctors. They could easily do the same industry gap compensation bonus on top of schedule for engineers if the non-government market gets to be similar to the physician market.
Well, but Executive Schedule people are essentially all political appointees, not individual contributors. This is the several hundred people who get appointed by the President- most of them requiring Senate approval- and come in to be the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs or whatever. This is not the Civil Service but the political appointees who sit on top of them and cycle out regularly back to think-tanks or industry jobs when their party loses an election.
SES is not political appointees. SES are career executives, and generally serve through many administrations. Political appointees are usually 'Secretaries' and that ilk, which may be 'SES' equivalent, non-career/competitive appointments, but are not Career SES.
There are TONS of SES folks below the appointee level.
Government has a workforce challenge -- it is aging out, being starved of resources, and technology isn't core to agency mission(s). For decades they have outsourced to the same set of big companies that often failed to deliver. 18F and USDS are more than small departments -- they are bootcamps for the people who go through and then impact the the agencies and firms they move on to after. They were really inspired by the failure, then success, of healthcare.gov.
10 years ago upwards of 80% of government IT projects failed. This is improving.