Just a warning for everyone from California, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, etc. They do require you to certify for the background screening that you have not done any federally illegal drugs in the last 12 months, and possibly do drug tests. Might not want to spend too much time on it if that applies to you.
This is such a shame. I remember the NSA and FBI having trouble finding techies because basically everyone they interviewed had smoked weed sometime in the last five years.
Which, particularly for those agencies, comes about due to the most absurd of reasons:
1. We'd treat drug using employees really seriously
2. Therefore you must not do drugs
3. Because we're so serious about this this becomes a major blackmailing vector.
4. So we need to make really sure you're a drug user.
It's an entirely manufactured problem that could be solved overnight by them just saying "hey, don't show up high on the job, but what you do in your own time is your own business, and we won't pro-actively investigate it anymore than any other citizen".
You would need to take a drug test to work for the USDS. To the best of my knowledge, you don't have to take a drug test to apply to 18F, although I believe that you may be asked the question as part of the application process for 18F.
I work at 18F but am speaking about my experience here and experiences heard from coworkers, not officially on behalf of 18F.
Applying to 18F didn't require a drug test for me. The application process asks this question in the background check part (details at "security clearance" at the bottom of https://pages.18f.gov/joining-18f/how-to-apply/ for anyone curious), but answering yes to the "have you ever done federally-illegal drugs" question is not an automatic disqualification. It can be a disqualification depending on the details of the drug use.
further warning, if you apply for a secret or ts clearance (which many, many IT jobs in the federal government require and particular anything that interacts with the DoD), you will be put through a polygraph... It's even more intrusive now and the background check is even more thorough in the post-snowden era.
> the background check is even more thorough in the post-snowden era.
Why is that?
I mean, this would be a case of "shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted" except that Snowden would pretty clearly have passed a more thorough background check. His background wasn't the problem.
The only thing I can think of that might actually have preemptively filtered him (or those like him) out would be some sort of psych test biased toward authoritarianism.
because knee jerk reaction, assuming logical reasons for well thought out responses on the part of the federal government dinosaur apparatus will only make your head hurt.
Hmm. I guess I thought ramping up the number of polygraph tests and re-evaluating which systems are accessible by people with various roles, responsibilities, and clearances would be a much higher priority.
Background checks are obviously a necessary and useful tool, I am just not sure I understand which dotted lines (regardless of their logic or illogic) connect "Snowden" to "more background checks" in a knee-jerk reaction.
Actually not completely true. It depends on the agency that sponsors your clearance and it has more to do with the agency's involvement in the intelligence community. The White House does not require it.
https://www.usds.gov/join#who