How Go helped save HealthCare.gov ♻️

Go Time: Golang, Software Engineering

Paul Smith (from “Obama’s Trauma Team”) tells us the tale of how Go played a big role in the rescuing and rebuilding of the HealthCare.gov website. Along the way we learn what the original team did wrong, how the rescue team kept it afloat during huge traffic spikes, and what they’ve done since to rebuild it to serve the people’s needs.

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Featuring:

• Paul Smith – Twitter, Website
• Mat Ryer – Twitter, GitHub, LinkedIn, Website
• Johnny Boursiquot – Twitter, GitHub, Website
• Jerod Santo – Mastodon, Twitter, GitHub, LinkedIn

Show Notes:

• HealthCare.gov
• Paul’s company Ad Hoc is hiring
• Obama’s Trauma Team
• Paul on MSNBC talking about the rescue

Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Kapitler

1. It's Go Time! (00:00:00)

2. Welcoming Paul to the show (00:00:57)

3. Paul's background (00:02:12)

4. From startup to government contractor (00:09:18)

5. HealthCare.gov's failed launch (00:11:42)

6. Your country needs you! (00:14:38)

7. Putting a team together (00:15:37)

8. They didn't know what they didn't know (00:18:03)

9. Fundamentally, they built the wrong thing (00:19:23)

10. How government contracting works (00:23:01)

11. How HealthCare.gov works (00:26:18)

12. Paul's political imperative (00:27:54)

13. The team's motivation (00:30:14)

14. A pragmatic change to achieve scale (00:32:13)

15. Deploying code was a nightmare (00:36:10)

16. Low tech in a good way (00:40:00)

17. The aftermath (00:42:09)

18. It's time for Unpopular Opinions! (00:47:38)

19. Paul's unpop (00:48:04)

20. Jerod's unpop (00:53:04)

21. Mat as Captain Jack Sparrow (00:56:29)

22. Time to Go! (00:57:40)

23. Outro (00:58:10)