It gets worse - the UI team lead had an associate's degree in Art & Web Design from a community college, and a bachelor's in Zoology. [1] Normally, I would say credentials generally don't matter - but combined with the code quality, the argument writes itself.
I started looking him up after seeing this mention (and the awful code below). [2]
Really lame to attempt to name and shame someone by (ultimately) mocking their credentials and linking to code without context. Sure, some of that JS is bad, but I've seen much worse code that has been successfully deployed to solve problems.
Naming him wasn't the right approach and I apologize for that - however I cannot edit or delete the post. His involvement as the UI team lead is, however, public information. His credentials are not the main issue, of course.
There are serious quality issues along the entire codebase and a number of snippets that strongly suggest the team's primary skill is not JS. Given the cost and gravity of the project, I believe it is fair to say that the American public expects (and deserves) better. It speaks to the vast inefficiencies of the RFP process and gov IT contracting in general that code quality is so far down on the priority list.
It's not just aesthetic, either. There are serious functionality issues, as anybody who has used the site will attest to. And those bugs are not just limited to the backend. Backend bugs have seriously compromised the security of user accounts [1] and frontend bugs prevent major sections of the site from running at all [2].
It is one thing when ugly code is "successfully deployed to solve problems". It is quite another when ugly code on such a high-profile, expensive project is deployed to such disastrous effect.
The constructive part of the post is the repository I linked to (issues are being reported and fixed, for better or worse), and in bringing attention to the fact that government IT does not follow serious engineering practices. Serious attention needs to be brought to the problem so that it can be fixed. I am not happy about it, I am not pointing fingers with glee. I just hope that it has embarrassed HHS & the administration enough to make substantive change.
Oh god. Not only does [2] feature extremely creative uses of eval() (always a good sign), but also features the comment gem "create a new java date" in reference to a call to "new Date( ... )". Always nice to see nothing short of profound gulfs in understanding when it comes to our $9-digit technology initiatives...
I started looking him up after seeing this mention (and the awful code below). [2]
1. http://www.linkedin.com/in/mkayan
2. https://github.com/STRML/Healthcare.gov-Marketplace/blob/mas...