The challenge with ‘tech for good’ and ‘mission aligned work’ is it id usually a good option for people who have done the conventional stuff and built the experience and have decided they never want to do it again.
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At the very top end of gov and nonprofit tech you’re probably looking at a haircut of 15% from tech industry money, excl RSUs. There aren’t many markets that pay anywhere close to that in these industries. I happen to be from two places that do: Singapore and San Francisco.
Everywhere else, even other tech markets, no one is benchmarking tech in public interest tech to the mid or top of the tech market. That’s a tough convo to have
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It was exactly the right move for me at the right time. But it’s not for everyone.
Very often there is also serious corruption in government tech and very few promotion opportunities. Many such teams are building digital teams WITHOUT the protections of a civil service job, but they aren’t up front about it. Half my team in SF were civil servants, the other half were not.
You get in as a deputy director or director or dept head, great job and perks. Everyone else? Not really
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Recruitment process into many govs is >3, 6, 12 months. If you’re between jobs or don’t have the ability to wait out a broken hiring process, you’re going to nope out.
Gov tech jobs almost always require bachelors degrees.
All of this excludes many people and we often end up with.. privileged majority group tech people dominating these fields.
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Not to mention the horrific labor abuses that some people in this field have also wrought on minorities.
See Code for America and what they did to their union organizers.
People in this field talk a good game but at the end of the day, are also often beholden to capital. Just with a veneer of ‘but we are good people’.
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Personally, I was fired by a manager who is very vocal and out there about being really about hiring minorities and POC. In a city that claims it’s pro immigrants.
My crime was that I dared ask them to sponsor my green card.
I know many people try to do the right thing, but often under the weight of bureaucracy they also do some pretty bad labor things.
Shitty tech companies do your green card, no questions asked.
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But she wrote a WHOLE BOOK about how it’s important to hire minorities and disadvantaged people!!
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@skinnylatte My sweetie is in the book/library industry. One thing I found out from her:
The more time people spend talking about DEI, the less they are actually doing it.
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Ultimately, I've come to the conclusion that a lot of 'civic tech' is a neoliberal dream. I think we did a lot with that, but we were still defining our work and movement in parallel to Silicon Valley and billionaire philanthropy.
I'm thankful that this provided a good living for many people, but we are starting to see the cracks. Like, the digital people in federal govt who.. I don't know what will happen to them after Jan 20 2025.
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Radhika | RESONANCEreplied to Adrianna Tan last edited by
@skinnylatte what did code for america do now??
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State govts can feel more stable, but your experience working in state govt tech is going to be different if it's in CA, PA, CO vs GA, and lower resourced states.
City govt is.. really, beyond the major coastal cities, not many opportunities. Have I mentioned the incredible municipal corruption also?
At the end of the day I was glad I had a union job in a stable environment for 5 whole years. But that didn't fix some of the systemic issues I was starting to see. I don't know that they can be.
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Adrianna Tanreplied to Radhika | RESONANCE last edited by
@radhika they did a 'human-centered mass layoff'
The Top Five Ways Code for America Leadership Abandoned Our Organizational Values
A few hours before Labor Day weekend began, Code for America’s senior leadership announced a “human-centered mass layoff” of 35 of our coworkers. In doing so, Code for America abandoned our stated values of listening first, acting with intention, and including those who have been excluded. Our leadership did not include our laid-off coworkers in any kind of collaborative process that showed them compassion, trust, or dignity—and management shirked their legal obligation to negotiate with our union over the effects of layoffs. Instead, coworkers who have dedicated years to this work felt traumatized by a sudden loss of their income, benefits, and connection to colleagues, clients, and partners. These included workers who were about to go on sabbatical, were on medical leave, and those who had spent countless hours bargaining for better support and protections for all workers at CfA. Management’s actions made our hard-working colleagues—who are parents, caretakers, and breadwinners—feel disposable. In some cases, our coworkers were cut off from their accounts while they were scrambling to hand off the tasks necessary to ensure our clients are supported, and for others, this happened before they were able to.
CfA Workers United (cfaworkersunited.com)
mostly of POC
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@skinnylatte the uncomfortable (for tech dorks) reality is that a lot of the work doesn't require particularly sophisticated *tools*, but it does require funding, people, etc.
Those are all hard to come by and we have the tendency to believe the activation energy can be lowered by technical means. Unfortunately, that's untrue more often than it isn't
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@skinnylatte uhhhhhhh yeah 🫠
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@skinnylatte I have a whole rant on this that I had to wait till after hours to post
Have you seen Aure Schrock’s new book? https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262549455/politics-recoded/
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@civicwhitaker ooh i'd be excited to hear your thoughts
and no, thanks for the book rec
