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

#161

Post by guelo » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 6:24 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…

> It's not just a 'perception of gov't incompetence': it's a widespread phenomenon

How do you know? I know a couple of talented, hard working statisticians that work for the census. They tell me a lot of good work gets done there. Well, at least until this year when they have suffered complete demoralization after a Trump political appointee crashed their china shop.

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

#162

Post by zeep » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 6:26 AM UTC

Now they really won't be able to analyze all that data...

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

#163

Post by ENOTTY » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 6:29 AM UTC

candiodari wrote: post #108

> the nation’s 17 spy agencies. 17. WTF.

From Wikipedia[1]: CIA, NSA/CSS, NRO, DIA, NGA, intelligence elements of the five armed forces (Air Force, Army, Navy, Marines, and Coast Guard), and intelligence elements of the State Department, Department of Energy, DHS, Treasury, DEA, FBI, and finally overseeing them all, ODNI.

Each specializes in collecting a different kind of intelligence or in a different focus for analysis.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Intelligence_Com...

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

#164

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 6:29 AM UTC

vonmoltke wrote: post #16

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…

> 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…

[deleted]

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

#165

Post by crispinb » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 6:29 AM UTC

dqpb wrote: post #79

659087 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you're going to invade privacy on a massive scale, you better be ready for the consequences. Like a job at Google/Facebook, where you'll continue invading privacy on a massive scale?

I like Google and Facebook. They provide a lot of value to a lot of people, invest in R&D, and contribute to the open source community. I've seen an uptick of negativity on HN lately, especially targeted at the big SV companies. Not intelligent criticism mind you, just basic trolling. For example your account appears to be 99% dedicated to shitting on SV companies.

> Google and Facebook .. provide a lot of value to a lot of people, invest in R&D, and contribute to the open source community.

VS

> Facebook is attempting to kill all open communication protocols and force everyone to communicate through their platform with powerful network effects.

There's no contradiction here. Both can be true at the same time. Large organisations (government & commercial alike) have even less of a fixed & permanent nature than do individuals, and can carry out huge numbers of activities in parallel, some harmful, some beneficial.

You can try some sort of rough consequentialist calculus on an organisation's overall benefits / harms to society, which is complex and subjective to an extent that gives almost completely free play to prejudice.

Alternatively you can look at the systems within which organisations grow and assess the functioning of the whole thing. I think this is the more powerful approach, having more potential for sidelining empty moralising. Personally I believe that for fundamental reasons, hypergrowth-oriented technological society inevitably leads to the destruction of everything of value (in truth a subject for a book, not a forum comment). Facebook & Google are natural & unwitting agents of these fundamental forces. At the same time, decent & capable humans work for them in large numbers, so inevitably make positive countervailing contributions.

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

#166

Post by acct1771 » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 6:30 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #120

genzoman wrote: post #30

the CIA funded Washington Post sullying the good name of those noble domestic spying NSA'ers? Faker News

Would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments here?

The only real problem I see is a lack of elaboration on some of the important little-known politics at play, here.

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

#167

Post by raz32dust » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 6:31 AM UTC

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…

I was just thinking about how social welfare would improve quality of government workers. With social welfare like that of Denmark, it is possible that the best people will want to work for the government. I suspect the difference in standard of living for the top talent in private sector and public sector is not that much in Denmark. In the US, a public-sector employee probably cannot afford college education expenses for his/her two kids.

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

#168

Post by kodablah » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 6:34 AM UTC

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #150

natch wrote: post #122

There's a lot of blaming of external factors being injected into this discussion. Namely, government pay scales, and the Trump factor. But let's not forget the NSA's own self-inflicted wounds as well. Let's see, here's what I remember: * mission creep * overreach * LOVEINT * massive collection of bulk intelligence with dubious justifications * withholding information about 0 days it wanted to stockpile for its own us…

Yes, you forgot one thing: * We need a powerful spy organization to compete on the world stage. This is an unpopular truth that people in our circles tend to forget. Rome was an influence solely due to the success of their military. What do you think will happen when ours becomes ineffective? And the NSA is a key part of our military. Intelligence is everything. I think it's good the overreach was exposed, but I was…

> We need a powerful spy organization to compete on the world stage

I disagree or at least don't agree to the extent I might have in a more embattled time (i.e. any time in the past). I do agree intelligence serves the military well, I just don't agree with military intelligence scope growth at a time when military use is shrinking. I'm not sure history repeats itself here as much as perpetuates the justifications being used.

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

#169

Post by fern12 » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 6:35 AM UTC

metaphor wrote: post #132

latch wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.fraserin…

> I don't know if this is a problem in the US... With respect to STEM career fields, that's a gratuitous no . For an idea of what a grunt GS-12/13 engineer's salary in Silicon Valley (highest locality adjustment in the country) looks like, see [1]; management is at GS-14/15 level. For the sake of completeness, other locality rates can be found here[2]. Keep in mind that it takes 18 years to progress from Step 1 to St…

>Keep in mind that it takes 18 years to progress from Step 1 to Step 10.

This is true in some cases, but not all. I was hired at the GS-11/2 level without any prior government/military experience. A coworker of mine worked as a contractor for a few years, and was hired as a GS-15 last year. This is all in Silicon Valley (although he has a tech background, while I do not).

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

#170

Post by metaphor » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 6:35 AM UTC

kodablah wrote: post #156

smallnamespace wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 re…

> ...I think we can either assume...

If I may posit a third for consideration: for-cause termination is such an insurmountable bureaucratic hurdle that supervisors pragmatically opt to pursue inter/intradepartmental transfer, effectively making the employee "someone else's problem".