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18F's engineering craft practices at 10
on July 9, 2024
18F engineering has grown and matured as an organization over time. We recently celebrated our 10th anniversary delivering better government services to the public. To support continual investment in our practices, we are renewing our commitment to regularly publishing what we learn, and creating a new engineering leadership role at 18F.
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Catching up with the TANF Data Portal project
on September 7, 2023
Around 800,000 low-income American families receive cash assistance through Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) each month. 18F and the Administration for Children & Families’ Office of Family Assistance partnered on building a new data portal for TANF. We caught up with Office of Family Assistance leaders to see how their agency is continuing with the work.
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18F Checks In With the DAWSON Project at the U.S. Tax Court
on April 25, 2023
The United States Tax Court is an independent federal court that settles disputes between taxpayers and the Internal Revenue Service. Since the 1980s, the Court has used a modified commercial software product to manage its operations. In December 2020, the Court introduced DAWSON, a modern open-source case management system developed with assistance from an industry partner and 18F. DAWSON streamlined Court operations and changed the way the public interacts with the Court.
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18F Checks In With [Jovial Chipmunk]* and the eAPD Project
on November 29, 2022
At 18F, we like to keep in touch with our project partners. 18F partnered with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) from December 2017 to June 2020 on the development of a product called eAPD. We caught up with [Jovial Chipmunk]* of CMS, the product owner of eAPD.
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Navigating ATOs
on October 19, 2021
ATO processes work differently at different federal agencies. As a technology and design consultancy inside the United States government, 18F has worked on ATOs at many of them. We are still learning and experimenting, but there are definite patterns we have seen work well across multiple agencies.
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Why simplicity? Choosing a web architecture
on April 5, 2021
If you have ever led or managed a web project, you know that coordinating a team of software engineers is hard work! We hope this blog post can help you understand the concepts behind choosing a web application architecture, so that you can steer your software towards simplicity — even if you don’t have direct software engineering experience.
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Rapid implementation of policy as code
on May 12, 2020
No policy or rule stays the same forever. In response to a crisis, policy changes often come much faster, and stakes can be higher.
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READMEs for you and me
on March 5, 2020
In software, a README is the documentation that tells you how to start using and understanding a new piece of software. In an organization, a personal README is a way to tell your coworkers how they can best communicate with you, work with you, give you feedback, and support you.
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Long-term teams, not sudden handoffs
on December 3, 2019
Don’t let your agency waste knowledge and opportunity. Instead of planning for a handoff to operations and maintenance, plan for a long-term team. Instead of launching your project and then keeping it running, plan for ongoing development.
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Measuring culture on our engineering team
on October 29, 2019
To be inclusive and effective, a team needs a culture where everyone is respected, treated fairly, and feels that they belong. We don’t see this diversity, equity, and inclusion work as a “nice-to-have” or optional.
