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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

#151

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

millstone wrote: post #134
dimva wrote: post #82

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 Hillar…

Presidential pay is not outrageous because those seeking the Presidency should be motivated by public service, not remuneration. Of course, the President doesn't really have bills. He or she doesn't exactly pay to rent the White House.

> He or she doesn't exactly pay to rent the White House.

Actually the first family does have to pay for many incidentals, like every day food, and it comes in the form of a bill.

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

#152

Post by snowwrestler »

shaklee3 wrote: post #131
snowwrestler wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's popular to say things like some government employees are "folks who can't hack it in civilian life," but there's basically no evidence this is true. First of all, let's make sure we look at the full scope of civilian life with a sober eye. Anyone working the counter at your local Post Office could easily work the register at any grocery store in your town. And any medium to large company has plenty of internal p…

I agree with what you say, but you attacked OP for not providing evidence, and you didn't provide any either.

Folks interested in a taste of how the federal government manages people can take a look at:

https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/

Much of the information in there carries the force of law; that is, a hiring supervisor cannot legally deviate from the process even if they think it is dumb and hurting their chances of getting the best candidate.

My example of the subordinate who can't just get promoted has happened to two personal friends who work for the federal government (both of whom have graduate degrees in their field of work BTW). To be clear, there are "promotions" in federal pay, from say a GS-9 to GS-10. I'm talking about a promotion into a different position, like from a specialist to a manager (to use generic example terms).

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

#153

Post by itronitron »

Tyrannosaur wrote: post #68

Might it also be because of the cost of overcoming their conscience? I understand that there are multiple groups in the NSA that do things other than illegal surveillance and hacking, but I would have an even higher price than other companies' offers I would require in exchange for my moral values if the NSA ever offered me any position at all...

still less than the cost of someone overcoming their conscience for working at Facebook

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

#154

Post by pdkl95 »

cryoshon wrote: post #21

with luck, mentioning NSA on your resume results in an immediate trip to the discard pile during applications at most tech companies. if you're going to invade privacy on a massive scale, you better be ready for the consequences.

This is why people that finally realize they can no longer work for the NSA for moral reasons should be given support in exiting and finding a new job. Bruce Schneier and Tho9mas drake both endorse[1] Intelexit[2].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=panT9P_VdyE

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelexit

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

#155

Post by pascalxus »

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…

Yes, but those government jobs often come with great work life balance which is extremely difficult to find in the private sector.

If you're newer than 3 years at facebook or google, there's no way in hell you're going to have any work life balance. And even if you make it past the 3 year mark, it still depends on which team your on.

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

#156

Post by kodablah »

smallnamespace wrote: post #137
snowwrestler wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's popular to say things like some government employees are "folks who can't hack it in civilian life," but there's basically no evidence this is true. First of all, let's make sure we look at the full scope of civilian life with a sober eye. Anyone working the counter at your local Post Office could easily work the register at any grocery store in your town. And any medium to large company has plenty of internal p…

I have no data to offer, but I do have a simple, heuristic model that might hint at GP's thinking process: 1. tolerance to short-term career uncertainty varies greatly between individuals (e.g. changing jobs, moving, having money in the bank to cushion the cashflow turbulence) 2. the gov't largely underpays in dollars in return for high career stability 3. if level of tolerance to short-term disruption is strongly po…

I too agree with GGP's characterization of the majority of government employees and I too have no evidence beyond anecdotal experience. But I think a reasonable model for evidence would be accountability information. I'll settle for numbers on government employee termination for dissatisfactory work by department (I'm sure it's somewhere, link anyone?). If, as I suspect, termination rates are very minimal in areas requiring skills like IT, I think we can either assume accountability is lower than the private sector or they magically hire the best on first try most of the time. Based on my naive knowledge built from discussions with career-public-sector employees, I suspect the former.

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

#157

Post by itronitron »

Balgair wrote: post #86
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-…

Yeah, I expect that the only tech companies still around from when the grey-beards first hired on include AT&T and Apple who now makes phones for AT&T.

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

#158

Post by kodablah »

snowwrestler wrote: post #152
shaklee3 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with what you say, but you attacked OP for not providing evidence, and you didn't provide any either.

Folks interested in a taste of how the federal government manages people can take a look at: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/ Much of the information in there carries the force of law; that is, a hiring supervisor cannot legally deviate from the process even if they think it is dumb and hurting their chances of getting the best candidate. My example of the subordinate who can't just get promoted has happene…

Wouldn't all of these (legal) rules, red tape, stories from your two personal friends, etc support the original argument that they employ patriots or the less qualified? Otherwise, why would a highly qualified person without any preference towards civic duty subject themselves to all of this when they have their pick of jobs? Especially in IT.

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

#159

Post by memorymappings »

eksemplar wrote: post #127
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…

I work in the public sector, in Denmark, but I think a lot of the myths around public IT are just that, myths. We have some of the best talent in our country. We pay them less, but a lot of people prefer working in the public sector for a variety of reasons. Some are idealists who want to build a better society, others like the flexible hours and the paid sick leave for their children, others again like the relative…

Lol Denmark government vs the U.S. government. Quite a difference there. Good input to juxtapose but not many parrallels to draw. Dennark pays to educate it's people (the u.s. has more student loan debt than all credit card debt combined with the worst literacy and math competency rates of most first world countries and soon to fall behind industrializing second world countries whose educated elite outnumber the entire u.s. population. ) And Denmark has things like good public transportation, pays for grad school even and an entire department dedicated to happiness for Danish people. The closest thing we have to that is welfare (canned sardines and Doritoes on food stamps with a smug and condescending scoff from white Republicans with a "just pick yourself up by the bootstraps" attitude to a population it had enslaved only a few decades earlier with a complete dismissal of the globally consistent studies that across most socioeconomic situations countries and arenas it takes an average of five generations for a family to rise out of poverty.

Definitely some differences to be had.

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

#160

Post by memorymappings »

eksemplar wrote: post #127
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…

I work in the public sector, in Denmark, but I think a lot of the myths around public IT are just that, myths. We have some of the best talent in our country. We pay them less, but a lot of people prefer working in the public sector for a variety of reasons. Some are idealists who want to build a better society, others like the flexible hours and the paid sick leave for their children, others again like the relative…

Oh yeh forgot to mention. We have masogynists for President. Enough said
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