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Mar 12 2020
Mar 12

Category 1: Web development

Government organizations want to modernize and build web applications that make it easier for constituents to access services and information. Vendors in this category might work on improving the functionality of search.mass.gov, creating benefits calculators using React, adding new React components to the Commonwealth’s design system, making changes to existing static sites, or building interactive data stories.

Category 2: Drupal

Mass.gov, the official website of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a Drupal 8 site that links hundreds of thousands of weekly visitors to key information, services, and other transactional applications. You’ll develop modules to enhance and stabilize the site; build out major new features; and iterate on content types so that content authors can more easily create innovative, constituent-centered services.

Category 3: Data architecture and engineering

State organizations need access to large amounts of data that’s been prepared and cleaned for decision-makers and analysts. You’ll take in data from web APIs and government organizations, move and transform it to meet agency requirements using technology such as Airflow and SQL, and store and manage it in PostgreSQL databases. Your work will be integral in helping agencies access and use data in their decision making.

Category 4: Data analytics

Increasingly, Commonwealth agencies are using data to inform their decisions and processes. You’ll analyze data with languages such as Python and R, visualize it for stakeholders in business intelligence tools like Tableau, and present your findings in reports for both technical and non-technical audiences. You’ll also contribute to the state’s use of web analytics to improve online applications and develop new performance metrics.

Category 5: Design, research, and content strategy

Government services can be complex, but we have a vision for making access to those services as easy as possible. Bidders for this category may work with partner agencies to envision improvements to digital services using journey mapping, user research, and design prototyping; reshape complex information architecture; help transform technical language into clear-public facing content, and translate constituent feedback into new and improved website and service designs.

Category 6: Operations

You’ll monitor the system health for our existing digital tools to maintain uptime and minimize time-to-recovery. Your DevOps work will also create automated tests and alerts so that technical interventions can happen before issues disrupt constituents and agencies. You’ll also provide expert site reliability engineering advice for keeping sites maintainable and building new infrastructure. Examples of applications you’ll work on include Mass.gov, search.mass.gov, our analytics dashboarding platform, and our logging tool.

Apr 04 2019
Apr 04
Julia GutierrezMassachusetts Digital ServicePublished in

4 min read

Apr 4, 2019

DrupalCon2019 is heading to Seattle this year and there’s no shortage of exciting sessions and great networking events on this year’s schedule. We can’t wait to hear from some of the experts out in the Drupalverse next week, and we wanted to share with you a few of the sessions we’re most excited about.

Adam is looking forward to:

Government Summit on Monday, April 8th

“I’m looking forward to hearing what other digital offices are doing to improve constituents’ interactions with government so that we can bring some of their insights to the work our agencies are doing. I’m also excited to present on some of the civic tech projects we have been doing at MassGovDigital so that we can get feedback and new ideas from our peers.”

Bryan is looking forward to:

1. Introduction to Decoupled Drupal with Gatsby and React

Time: Wednesday, April 10th from 1:45 pm to 2:15 pm

Room: 6B | Level 6

“We’re using Gatsby and React today on to power Search.mass.gov and the state’s budget website, and Drupal for Mass.gov. Can’t wait to learn about Decoupled Drupal with Gatsby. I wonder if this could be the right recipe to help us make the leap!”

2. Why Will JSON API go into Core?

Time: Wednesday, April 10th from 2:30 pm to 3:00 pm

Room: 612 | Level 6

“Making data available in machine-readable formats via web services is critical to open data and to publish-once / single-source-of-truth editorial workflows. I’m grateful to Wim Leers and Mateu Aguilo Bosch for their important thought leadership and contributions in this space, and eager to learn how Mass.gov can best maximize our use of JSON API moving forward.”

I (Julia) am looking forward to:

1. Personalizing the Teach for America applicant journey

Time: Wednesday, April 10th from 1:00 pm to 1:30 pm

Room: 607 | Level 6

“I am really interested in learning from Teach for America on how they implemented personalization and integrated across applications to bring applicants a consistent look, feel, and experience when applying for a Teach for America position. We have created Mayflower, Massachusetts government’s design system, and we want to learn what a single sign-on for different government services might look like and how we might use personalization to improve the experience constituents have when interacting with Massachusetts government digitally. ”

2. Devsigners and Unicorns

Time: Wednesday, April 10th from 4:00 pm to 4:30 pm

Room: 612 | Level 6

“I’m hoping to hear if Chris Strahl has any ‘best-practices’ and ways for project managers to leverage the unique multi-skill abilities that Devsigners and unicorns possess while continuing to encourage a balanced workload for their team. This balancing act could lead towards better development and design products for Massachusetts constituents and I’d love to make that happen with his advice!”

Melissa is looking forward to:

1. DevOps: Why, How, and What

Time: Wednesday, April 10th from 1:45 pm to 2:15 pm

Room: 602–604 | Level 6

“Rob Bayliss and Kelly Albrecht will use a survey they released as well as some other important approaches to elaborate on why DevOps is so crucial to technological strategy. I took the survey back in November of 2018, and I want to see what those results from the survey. This presentation will help me identify if any changes should be made in our process to better serve constituents from these results.”

2. Advanced Automated Visual Testing

Time: Thursday, April 11th from 2:30 pm to 3:00 pm

Room: 608 | Level 6

“In this session Shweta Sharma will speak to what visual testings tools are currently out there and a comparison of the tools. I am excited to gain more insight into the automated visual testing in faster and quicker releases so we can identify any gotchas and improve our releases for Mass.gov users.

P.S. Watch a presentation I gave at this year’s NerdSummit in Boston, and stay tuned for a blog post on some automation tools we used at MassGovDigital coming out soon!”

We hope to see old friends and make new ones at DrupalCon2019, so be sure to say hi to Bryan, Adam, Melissa, Lisa, Moshe, or me when you see us. We will be at booth 321 (across from the VIP lounge) on Thursday giving interviews and chatting about technology in Massachusetts, we hope you’ll stop by!

Interested in a career in civic tech? Find job openings at Digital Services.
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