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

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

#81

Post by GlenTheMachine »

ENOTTY wrote: post #66
GlenTheMachine wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That simply isn't true. Via fedsdatacenter.com, the highest paid employee of a federal government agency earns $403,849. Note that this dataset excludes sensitive government agencies. https://i.imgur.com/bgFxOkh.png

Here is the executive order, signed by President Obama, governing the pay for all federal employees, including the GS and SES scales. It tops out at $207,000 per year.

I'm not saying that there is no civil servant anywhere who makes more than that. But such positions are extremely rare. The Vice President only makes $240,000.

https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries...

If you read the fine print, the executive order allows agency-level directors of the Department of Veterans' Affairs who are physicians to be paid market rates. That is probably who these people are.

This exemption doesn't appear to apply to any other agency or profession.

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

#82

Post by dimva »

This is a problem across all of government. As a mediocre senior software engineer with no reports, I was paid more last year than the goddamn President of the United States (and no, it's not because I got lucky with stock). This is completely stupid and unacceptable.

Of course our choices are going to be Hillary vs Trump if we pay the top leader in the country less than a mediocre software engineer. Of course Hillary will give secret speeches to Wall St firms - how else is she going to pay her bills? Of course the government is going to be incompetent and corrupt - we can't hire good people at the salaries we're paying unless they use their influence to obtain side gigs in the private sector (often after their service, but that means they won't do anything to annoy their future bosses).

Why does Sundar Pichai make 500x more than the President? Do we, as a society, value running Google well 500x more than running our government well?

Government salaries need to be raised significantly (2-500x) across the board, or the government will continue being the mess it is now.

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

#83

Post by [deleted] »

GlenTheMachine wrote: post #81
ENOTTY wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That simply isn't true. Via fedsdatacenter.com, the highest paid employee of a federal government agency earns $403,849. Note that this dataset excludes sensitive government agencies. https://i.imgur.com/bgFxOkh.png

Here is the executive order, signed by President Obama, governing the pay for all federal employees, including the GS and SES scales. It tops out at $207,000 per year. I'm not saying that there is no civil servant anywhere who makes more than that. But such positions are extremely rare. The Vice President only makes $240,000. https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries... If you read the fine print,…

[deleted]

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

#84

Post by [deleted] »

ggg9990 wrote: post #17
speby wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one cares about government pay scales. You don't have to work FOR the government to work for the government. Many top NSA specialists work for contractor firms and do earn tremendous compensation from their employers. Those employers contract with our government for totally uncapped contract sums. Obviously the contracts have to be reviewed for budget and capex limitations but otherwise no such thing as a salary c…

Like Edward Snowden's $200k salary from Booz Allen Hamilton.

[deleted]

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

#85

Post by gigl »

Xorlev wrote: post #61
ben_w wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Depends, for a leader in their field that's on the low end. But, I understood $250/hr to be what the firm received -- usually contractors don't get nearly that much, but I don't have any experience with government contractors.

From my experience, you're dead on for the majority of "staff augmentation" full time contracts that come from tech-related consulting+contracting firms. Most organizations I've been around (East Coast, DC region) charge around $250/hr to big government, and the people they assign make anywhere from $40-$125/hr depending on the specifics of their role.

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

#86

Post by Balgair »

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…

A sibling got a fellowship to the other NSA, the NNSA (National Nuclear Security Admin). Arguably, a much smaller though important Admin too. Their time in the fellowship resulted in mostly the same: Google pays more. So ALL of the last 8 years of fellows have gone off to private from gov.

The fellowship is really good money for grad school, about 36k, and you get good interning in the various national labs and good-ish mentoring (if you want it). My sibling was telling me about the dinners though, a real hoot. The old grey-beards from the pre-Apollo days really are clueless as to why all the fellows are leaving for the tech companies. They really just cannot understand why 'millenials' don't want to do the work. My sibling had to inform them that many (likely all) of the candidates are lying on their applications when they say that nuclear security is important to them. In addition to that, the ability to make more money, not have a black hole on the ol resume, and be able to talk about their job to a Tonder date are important. From what I was told, Tinder really blew their minds (pun not intended). I guess they don't get out from behind the fence much?

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

#87

Post by kakaorka »

auntienomen wrote: post #64
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Response to your postscript: I know quite a few people who've worked for the NSA's mathematical research arms. They're not numpties. They're among the smartest people I've ever met (and I've been hanging around tier 1 research institutes, both public and private, my whole adult life).

Maybe that's because one of the biggest hiring firms for mathematicians is the NSA.

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

#88

Post by eadmund »

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…

The problem is that we can (and should!) raise government pay scales, but we must also make it easier to fire people (or manage them downwards) for incompetence. Government work is for two types of people (and there's some overlap on the Euler diagram): patriots, and folks who can't hack it in civilian life.

It's not just a 'perception of gov't incompetence': it's a widespread phenomenon. Government employees tend to excel at working organisational politics (i.e., in serving their organisational customers) rather than in serving their taxpaying customers. Government work is a kind of kabuki theatre, in which everyone agrees to praise the emperor's new clothes and ignore the boy who points out that he's naked.

The unfortunate thing is that government work is really important: it requires the best and the brightest, not the lazy and the uninspired. Patriotism should of course be a sine qua non for the civil service, but so should excellence. We should pay market rates, but we should pay them for market quality.

Raising rates without working to improve quality would mean getting mutton when we pay for lamb.

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

#90

Post by duxup »

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…

Not just the cost of competence, but the cost of SUCCESS too.

Lots of highly competent people out there in the market making big market wages ... and they fail all the time. Even just paying isn't enough.

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