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

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

#101

Post by smhenderson » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 5:03 AM UTC

learc83 wrote: post #52

smhenderson wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or DOT, Deprtment of Transportion in others, e.g. PennDOT.

To make things even more confusing the DOT is sometimes separate from the DMV, and sometimes not. In Georgia we have the DOT that handles road construction etc..., and the Department of Driver Services that handles drivers licenses.

In Pennsylvania they handle both, plus tolls and even snow removal on the highways and major roads. I’d never heard of BMV before tonight and thought it was just DMV everywhere until I was twenty something.

You’re right, state bureaucracy is confusing!

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

#102

Post by averagewall » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 5:04 AM UTC

Semiapies wrote: post #69

username223 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 drop that after a day of drinking together. But I'm glad I did--it was apparently the nudge she needed to quit. So she stopped being an indirect servant of popular will, and started selling ads. Great. > She now works in the private sector and is thrilled wit…

Another POV might break it down as: stopped helping spy on her fellow citizens and got an honest job.

Nevermind fellow citizens. The NSA openly spies on other countries people and certainly doesn't do it with their interests at heart. Americans hypocritically don't like being spied on but they're more than happy to do it to everyone else.

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

#103

Post by metaphor » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 5:05 AM UTC

speby wrote: post #12

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…

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…

> No one cares about government pay scales.

NSA leadership has clearly acknowledged the impediment:

The big change these days is there’s a supply-demand imbalance between the outside and the inside

Total compensation for [SV and other cities that tech start-ups call home] jobs can reach $200,000 or more, meaning even relatively junior cyber professionals in the industry can make more than top officials at the NSA.

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

#104

Post by shliachtx » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 5:05 AM UTC

learc83 wrote: post #52

smhenderson wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or DOT, Deprtment of Transportion in others, e.g. PennDOT.

To make things even more confusing the DOT is sometimes separate from the DMV, and sometimes not. In Georgia we have the DOT that handles road construction etc..., and the Department of Driver Services that handles drivers licenses.

To add to the alphabet soup you have DPS (Department of Public Safety) in Texas.

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

#105

Post by jhiska » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 5:11 AM UTC

>If the NSA is going to spy on us, wouldn't you like that to be as secure as possible?

I'd rather those perverts not peep on us; this isn't an unreasonable request.

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

#106

Post by latch » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 5:14 AM UTC

eadmund wrote: post #88

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…

I agree.

I don't know if this is a problem in the US, but something else worth mentioning is that for many jobs, public sectors pay much more (higher pay, better pensions, more sick leave, better job security, ...). So it isn't just about firing people for incompetence. [1]

If the govt should be increasing pay to match market rates, then it should also be decreasing pay to match market rates.

[1] https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/comparing-government...

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

#107

Post by zaro » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 5:15 AM UTC

Finally some good news from NSA.

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

#108

Post by candiodari » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 5:16 AM UTC

> the nation’s 17 spy agencies.

17.

WTF.

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

#109

Post by ENOTTY » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 5:17 AM UTC

By way of comparison, GCHQ personnel seem to be leaving for 4-5x salary from big tech companies[1]. So do the math and figure out what the GCHQ folks are being paid.

Also, GCHQ has hired 494 contractors for 71m GBP[2].

[1]: https://sites.google.com/a/independent.gov.uk/isc/files/2016..., page 40

[2]: Ibid, page 70

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

#110

Post by asveikau » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 5:17 AM UTC

bsilvereagle wrote: post #8

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…

> 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…

I feel like a lot of people asking this question 2 are also in low cost of living areas. DC isn't quite San Francisco or New York but it's higher cost than average, and especially higher cost than places where people tend to complain more about federal government waste.