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It's a super cool API, but last I chatted with the team who maintains this (~2020?) it was already understaffed and they only had capacity for bug fixes. The ro
by bamnet 3y ago
It's a super cool API, but last I chatted with the team who maintains this (~2020?) it was already understaffed and they only had capacity for bug fixes. The roadmap hasn't been updated since 2017 so YMMV.
- jeffennell 3y agoGood to know! Thanks for sharing.
- tonymet 3y agodo you still have the contact? I have a proof of concept i'd like to share with them.
- jackstraw14 3y agoThat sounds about right tbh... funding is not great for these kinds of things :(
- marginallen 3y ago[dead]
- gigatexal 3y agothis isn't out of 18F -- the really cool tech team at the whitehouse(?)? what happened to all that digital govt funding?
- cowsandmilk 3y agoWell, the president who launched all of that left office in 2017; and we had a new president with a bias against national parks… meaning the funding NPS did receive had to be spent on critical work in the parks themselves.
- redcobra762 3y agoThe President does not decide funding for the NPS, Congress does.
- uoaei 3y agoPretending there's no cross-talk or influence across those boundaries is intellectually dishonest.
- rocketpastsix 3y agohave you met congress? they can barely agree on anything so getting more funding for National Parks is an uphill battle.
- redcobra762 3y agoIt’s not like Congress needs to separately pass funding for the NPS. In 2023, the NPS was given a 6% budget increase, even!
- adamryman 3y agoLet's say the NSF wanted to give everyone in NSF raises in 2023 to offset inflation from 2022. I believe that would require a 6.5% increase right? I personally believe that the people there deserve more salary than just meeting inflation, though imo.
- redcobra762 3y agoWhoa no, 100% of their funds don't go to salaries. I'd guess it would be substantially lower than a 6.5% budget increase, even.
- karaterobot 3y agoSeems like you're just nitpicking here. Congress holds the purse strings, but the President and Congress influence each other, and in the cast of the 2016 U.S. election, the president had a lot of influence on the Congress.
- infecto 3y agoThere are two. THe USDS which works under the office of the President and 18f. Both are subject to the whims of the current president and congress. They can easily be seen as a cost center and while doing great work, are still unable to cover the entire spectrum of federal agency requirements. I am not as familiar with 18F but if the workflow is similar to the USDS, they more like sophisticated consultants to help get government work done.
- gigatexal 3y agoI’m curious how many HNers would like to add their skills and join an USDS or 18f considering you can make hundreds of thousands more in private practice
- pc86 3y ago"at a senior level at FAANG-level companies" is the last bit of that sentence you left off. The median software engineer salary in the US is something on the order of $120k/yr. The GS pay scale tops out at just under $160k before locality is taken into account and that's only a small single-digit percentage increase at best, but nobody is getting hired as a GS15 to do development work. You will make more in the private sector for sure but "hundreds of thousands" is going to be the minority by far.
- EricE 3y agoI know several people who are GS 15's and in IT - it's not uncommon at all. Also 18F has special hiring authorities with 2 year appointments that are not restricted to the GS pay scales for the very issues you bring up.
- pc86 3y ago> The 2024 salary cap for all GS employees is $191,900 per year. You cannot be offered more than this under any circumstance. > https://join.tts.gsa.gov/compensation-and-benefits/ https://join.tts.gsa.gov/compensation-and-benefits/ That is the page where you find jobs for 18F, nothing there indicates anyone at 18F is not on the GS scale. It's important to note that that is GS15, step 10, with the maximum locality adjustment (which I think is just Alaska but California is not far behind). GS15 step 1 is going to be $123k before any locality adjustment so still very likely under $150k/yr unless you're in one of the highest cost areas. Alaska is 32%; most midwest states are 17%.
- ourmandave 3y agoDisclaimer at bottom of page: All information provided as part of the NPS API roadmap is provided for informational purposes only, is general in nature, and is not intended to and should not be relied upon or construed as a binding commitment. Please do not rely on this information in making decisions, as the development, release, and timing of any products, features, or functionality are subject to change. Maintenance mode since 2017 is fine. I'm planning to write the interface with Jquery UI.
- fritzo 3y agoA healthy diet of steady underfunding leads to humble, stable systems. We should start worrying when a team is temporarily overfunded, building out complexity in excess of their long term maintenance capability.
- pstuart 3y agoEmphasis on healthy.
- driscoll42 3y agoIs it healthy? At one point the team was funded enough to create the api, and now it can only maintain it. What if it was never funded enough to create the api in the first place? I realize there's a risk of building complexity, but don't mistake "healthiness" for "inability".
- droopyEyelids 3y agoThis is a really interesting point and I see a lot of truth in it. But the language is imprecise- underfunding would lead to a decaying system.
- sanj 3y agoDo you have contact info for that team? The NPS app is one of the best I've ever used and I'd love to know who built it.
- dheera 3y agoThe alerts is nice, though most of the rest (visitor centers, lesson plans) is static data and doesn't need to be an API, it can just be a static json file. Campgrounds is also only providing static data. An "API" should show campsite availability and provide endpoints to book campsites to be useful as an API. I was hoping to have API access to live bear collar tracking or some such. I'd love to create a system that auto-alerts me if a bear's motion path is intersecting my hike.
- tonymet 3y agothey have a broader catalog here https://www.nps.gov/subjects/gisandmapping/tools-and-data.htm https://www.nps.gov/subjects/gisandmapping/tools-and-data.ht...