Benedicta B.

Beyond excited to announce the launch of the Platform One Solutions Marketplace! Huge shout out to the team and everyone who worked on this incredible leap forward in government acquisitions. Some of the many highlights: 1. Continuously open solicitation - Industry can submit DevSecOps solutions and be evaluated continuously, unlimited proposal submissions and evals every 30 days. 2. A digital, web based medium for DoD users to conduct market research with vendors in a post competition environment and immediately negotiate and award a variety of contracts and agreements. 3. A major focus on non-traditionals, startups, small business, commercial products and services, due to a very low barrier to entry and continuous feedback loops. 4. The P1SM is completely decentralized, allowing all other DoD users to use the marketplace without paying a fee or ordering authority training by meeting all the competition requirements for OTA's (10 USC 4021 and 4022), CSO's (DFARS 212.70) and BAA's (FAR/DFAR Part 35).

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Connecting #Guardians to their leaders. Senior-level leaders from across Space Systems Command came together recently to discuss building better connections, Guardian culture, and the future of the hybrid workforce. Read more about the conference: 👇 https://lnkd.in/ehhHqkYQ

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i think we frame hiring "juniors" weird in order to avoid talking about calcification. doing anything, literally anything, for a long time, makes you better at doing the thing, but worse at doing adjacent things you do not also practice (ex. working effectively in a strong test culture does not help one optimize for hip-firing kubectl commands, and *does* explicitly optimize for taking one's time and thinking heavily). your "seniors" and "juniors" provide similar value adds in terms of where they say "what the fuck?" seniors only say "what the fuck?" when they encounter bad behavior *that they have not already calcified in themselves*. your seniors all have a few absolutely awful habits that make your product worse, waiting for a convincing junior to say "what the fuck?" at the ideal moment to *fix* them. if you don't find that convincing junior, they will propagate that calcified misbehavior throughout your org and sink your shit. you also probably don't know what the problem is, because you share the calcification. and this is all normal and good, because if you're arrogant enough to think that you deserve a team of only seniors, you deserve exactly what that gets you.

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Looking back at this year's KubeCon NA, this is the talk I found most thought-provoking. Enabling developers to run CI "pipelines" locally is important work in its own right. This talk goes a step further, and proposes that all builds prior to merge (even your PR builds) could happen locally. If your developer workstations are powerful enough, you'll ease the burden on your CI infrastructure by doing so. https://lnkd.in/eG55b4b4

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The Department of Defense (DoD) Chief Information Officer (CIO) is committed to delivering robust, secure, and agile information technology (IT) solutions that empower the warfighter and strengthen national security. We strive to create a connected, protected, and high-performing IT environment. As part of this commitment, we are seeking to improve our knowledge management capabilities to ensure that our workforce has access to the information they need to make informed decisions and accomplish the DoD's mission. Description: This Request for Information (RFI) is issued solely for information-gathering purposes and seeks information to enhance knowledge management capabilities through the identification and adoption of best practices and innovative approaches. This RFI aims to gather insights from government agencies and industry on their knowledge management strategies, tools, and processes. By benchmarking existing practices, the DoD CIO intends to optimize knowledge sharing, utilization, and preservation to support mission effectiveness and decision-making. Background: DoD recognizes the critical role of knowledge management in achieving its mission. Effective knowledge sharing, utilization, and preservation are essential for enhancing decision-making, operational efficiency, and mission effectiveness. This RFI seeks to identify and benchmark best practices in knowledge management across government agencies and industry to inform the development of DoD-wide strategies and initiatives. #KM #KnowledgeManagement

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I have been an industry professional at a number of demo days. ✅️ None can top last night, my first time in that capacity for a Resilient Coders Demo Day. These events are full of career changers ready for a software career. ▶️ They come from a wide range of professions prior to this. All are entering an exciting area with immense potential, and it was on display. 4️⃣ There was so much great work shown that's unfortunate I only got to see four of them, all showcasing the talent they possess. 🌐 Zaria H. showed us LinkLy, which is AI-powered to help with networking challenges. 🌐 Christian Bradford, a two-sport athlete in college, showed off Meet Me on the Track, which allows runners to find tracks and other runners to work out with. 🌐 Niya Nixon made us all hungry for something later, showing us Love at First Bite, a web application to find restaurants in a city and give feedback on them. 🌐 And finally, I got to check out The Curl Diary by Alexandra Akinyemi, who is making perhaps the least disruptive career change since she was previously an electrical engineer. And that's only the beginning. ✅️ What they showed all came from having to think not like employees, but business owners. That will serve them well, more than they might imagine right now. ➕️ There was so much positive energy in the air, and for the students, perhaps some nervous energy as well. 🎤 I have to think a lot of that nervous energy went away as Ayanna Lott-Pollard inspired them with some amazing thoughts before it all got started in earnest and giving us so much to look forward to. And with that, they showed that they are ready for all the potential that is in front of them. #diversityintech #softwareengineering

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Anyone have experience transitioning from low code/no code development positions to code heavy ones? I recently was speaking to a colleague who was wanting to get into a more engineering focused role, but only had professional experience operating internal no code/low code software solutions. He asked what he could do to transition to a more programming heavy role and whether his experience wouldn’t count and he’d have to take a pay cut. Anyone have experience making the transition? What was it like and what advice would you give? #LowCodeToHighCode #Advice

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“Cost-minus contracting” is not a thing. Fixed Price Incentive-Firm Target (FPIF) contracts, however, have been around for a while. DoD goes through a cycle of Cost Plus and Fixed Price contracting. When costs seem to grow, DoD goes FP, shifting cost risk to contractors ever since the Air Force’s “Total Package Procurement” movement in the 1950s. When time to field capabilities grows and quality of capability declines (as has been the historical consequence of FP contracting), DoD assumes some cost risk back and welcomes CP to the fold again. In contracting, incentives are king. If we are shifting back to more FPIF contracts - especially for software development - DoD must be able to effectively manage product quality, time to deployment, and time to update/refresh. They also must understand and be able to scale the OTA lifecycle, from pilot to production to major program (if necessary). All of this is hard and involves risk…where to place that risk has been a cyclical question for DoD contracting since the Commission on Government Procurement. Rather than picking industry partners who say the rights things, DoD must focus on those who deliver outcomes and results. Industry partners must be honest and transparent with government - qualities that require more incentive for some - to prove that delivering those outcomes and results to the end user really is the highest goal instead of maximizing profit at their expense. In short: we don’t need Contracting Ad Libs. We need Effective Incentive Managament and Transparency in Contracting. #defensereform #contracting #nationalsecurity #defenseindustry #innovation #procurement #CP #FPIF

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DOD and the IC are mapping out how to  modernization of IT infrastructure, data and network security, and investment in a digital workforce. See the latest from Federal Budget IQ's Becky Leggieri. #defense #defence #defenseindustry #cybersecurity #cloudcomputing #zerotrust #industrialbase #software

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What I tell devs that take TDD too literally - there’s a time to write tests before the implementation, and there’s a time when you want to explore your implementation’s design and validate it afterward. Don’t take it from me, take it from Uncle Bob. What’s important is that you get an automated way to validate that your code is working as you expect it. Don’t forget that tests are not quality assurance. Tests are a guardrail. And every bug that reaches production has passed through your linters, code reviews, and test suite. Quality comes from your focus on understanding your domain. Because if you implement the wrong logic, chances are you will write your tests around it as well.

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Many of us in the federal space are quick to point fingers at the FAR (Federal Acquisition Regulation) for the challenges in our acquisition system. Reading Jonathan Mostowski’s book 'Leading Agile Acquisitions' was eye-opening – it challenged my preconceptions and offered a fresh perspective on government contracting. What stood out was his practical approach to implementing agile methodologies and achieving user-centric outcomes. His insight that 'the gates for organizational change are locked from within' particularly resonated with me. For those in the federal space, this is a must-read packed with actionable advice and real-world examples of successful organizational transformation. This book is a gem for change agents. Use it to shift the focus from advocating for reform to delivering what the users actually want.

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I keep seeing complaints by software engineers about the ATS selection process. I can see why other professions might complain, but it seems you have forgotten that you are not another profession, you are an engineer. https://lnkd.in/equCnyiB

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Small businesses can make a big impact on DoD. The DoD's Small Business Innovation Research (#SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (#STTR) programs provide federal research funds to encourage domestic innovation in critical technology areas, including cyber and AI.

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