NSA’s top talent is leaving because of low pay, flagging morale, unpopular reorg

Post by DontGiveTwoFlux » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 3:57 AM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #54

vonmoltke wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those employers contract with our government for totally uncapped contract sums. No, they don't. Billing rates are fixed based on the experience and education levels of the people working on the contract. If the government says they won't pay more than, say, $250/hour for a security expert that is all the contractor is going to get, and that in turn limits the amount the contractor can make. Pay at government contr…

Assuming $250/hr is a real example, that’s $470k/year. Is that really a problem? (Assuming 40h per week, 47 weeks per year because systematic staff shortage and EU-duration holidays because that’s what I’m used to).

Post by auntienomen » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 3:58 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #25

smallnamespace wrote: post #3

It seems like it's pretty hard for the government to compete with private industry in compensation. Federal pay grades are capped by Congress, and the top grade is around ~$150k a year [1]. And note that since it's the top of the scale, you have to start people off lower so that there is salary progression. Pretty sure a top cryptographer or security expert should be worth several times that, especially if they are a…

> if the NSA is going to spy on us, wouldn't you like that to be as secure as possible? I have a friend who worked for the NSA. We had a heart to heart over drinks about a year ago. She asked what I thought about her working there. I responded, honestly, that if I didn't know her personally I'd be starting to wonder if she was, for whatever reason, unable to pass muster at Google et cetera . Not the best decision to…

Post by ENOTTY » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 3:59 AM UTC

GlenTheMachine wrote: post #57

TheCondor wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the top pay grade on the gs scale, there are special rates schedules and exceptions for specialists. NIH has Dual MD and research PhDs on payroll, those are unicorns... (I know a mid to top tier research university that has to start offers at over $700k for those, they don’t hardly exist, and that’s a university, they don’t make products) Nih doesn’t pay them GS rates either. NIST doesn’t pay gs rates. NSA cou…

I am a civil servant. There are special pay scales for scientists and engineers, but they are still capped by law at the top end at the same level as the GS scale. In the DC area last year that was $166,000. I am not aware of any exceptions to the law, unless you mean the Special Executive Service. You can - eventually - make it into the Special Executive Service (SES), which pays somewhat higher (around $200k per ye…

Post by Tyrannosaur » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 4:00 AM UTC

Post by yoklov » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 4:03 AM UTC

aisofteng wrote: post #13

bsilvereagle wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2. normal people ask 'why are we paying people so much for doing a bad job?' The problem is that a normal tax payer doesn't interact with the R&D scientific side of the government. To them, their local BMV office (state govt) is representative of the entire (state+federal) government bureaucracy. When reports of government pay leading/lagging private industry come out, their first thought is that BMV worker, not th…

BMV stands for Bureau of Motor Vehicles, and is called the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) in some states.