Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 547 posts

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

#231

Post by forapurpose »

latch wrote: post #106
eadmund wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.fraserin…

> https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/comparing-government....

Who is the Fraser Institute? Looking at their website, they seem to turn out libertarian and conservative arguments. For example, playing down income inequality, complaining about difficult investing in oil and gas, "Top 20 per cent of families pay 56 per cent of all taxes in Canada", etc. Wanting to reduce public sector pay would fit with that.

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

#232

Post by swarnie_ »

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.

> the Presidency should be motivated by public service

I don't see who this applies to in your last election

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

#233

Post by qaq »

rdtsc wrote: post #205
mozumder wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I designed & architected supercomputers at the NSA as a teenager, starting as a co-op, using manufacturing tech that still isn't public decades later. LOL @ the idea of anyone in private industry giving me the opportunity to do that. These are some of the smartest, yet most normal people in the world. They don't go apeshit about free food or Silicon Valley startups. You'll never get fired, and you can raise a family…

Saw you were being down-voted, seems unfair, it's good to have a counter-example or an opposing view in a discussion. Maybe it seems to much like a recruiting advertisement... > After about $70k in salary, people are happy anyways. Unfortunately living in DC/VA/MD on that you are competing with private companies which pay more and thus housing and well just about everything is a bit hard to manage on that salary. > I…

He/She was down-voted because a) Never worked for NSA b) never lived in DC metro.

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

#234

Post by smallnamespace »

zorpner wrote: post #189
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…

it's usually the most capable people with that cash available (because they had more earning power in the past) It's far more typically because of inherited wealth, which has no bearing on ability but is quite often misinterpreted as such.

Well, this might be a very unpopular opinion, but if generating wealth correlates to intelligence and ability, and these traits are transmissible to children (either genetically, or through practices that parents teach to their children, or through higher educational investment), then you would expect a positive correlation between ability and amount of parental wealth.

This above argument could easily be wrong, but assuming that inherited wealth reveals nothing about ability on average seems like a rather strong claim.

Whether it's fair that parents can try to give their children an advantage, of course, is a totally separate question.

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

#235

Post by esrauch »

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…

> others like the flexible hours and the paid sick leave for their children

I have the opposite perception about this in the US: government jobs seem to be 'butt at desk 9-5' where private sector provides the opportunity for flexibility.

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

#236

Post by crdoconnor »

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. 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.

You've just described every large institution I've ever worked for.

IME, large companies that were well insulated from competition were way more dysfunctional than the government, too.

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

#237

Post by pjc50 »

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.

The President is billing the secret service to stay in Trump Tower.

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

#238

Post by bryanrasmussen »

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…

in my experience in non-US government job, it not only offers more stability but also better retirement benefits, as such pay is not as far off as it might seem. Furthermore I'm in a country with paid vacations, but the Governmental vacations offered longer paid vacations - not sure if they do this in the U.S but I could expect they actually do offer paid vacations? Which would be something people might value.

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

#239

Post by latch »

forapurpose wrote: post #231
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…

> https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/comparing-government... . Who is the Fraser Institute? Looking at their website, they seem to turn out libertarian and conservative arguments. For example, playing down income inequality, complaining about difficult investing in oil and gas, "Top 20 per cent of families pay 56 per cent of all taxes in Canada", etc. Wanting to reduce public sector pay would fit with that.

It's definitely libertarian and conservative (by Canadian standards). But that doesn't mean it can't be right. FWIW, it's high on the list of known/established Canadian think tanks.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business has done its own reports on this [1].

This also seem to be true in the UK, but at least there they say the gap is closing [2].

The IFS report says what I've also observed and what this [3] economist article states:

"Wage differentials are relatively small in the public sector. Lower-level workers, such as secretaries, are usually better paid than their private-sector equivalents, whereas higher-level workers are worse paid."

[1] https://www.cfib-fcei.ca/en/advocacy/wage-watch-comparison-p...

[2] http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-40480766

[3] http://www.economist.com/node/17849199

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

#240

Post by bryanrasmussen »

Actually I remember reading at some point that the people who have the best careers in tech move between government and private at the right times, when there is going to be a downturn in the economy they move into the security of government work and work on the rules and regulations that will govern the future, as the economy turns back up they move into consulting regarding those particular rules and regulations.

This actually points to one of my major career mistakes in that when I left my government job I was burned out on the standard I had just spent some years seeing through to law, and instead of working consulting on it I took a totally unrelated job (based on the enticements of a friend who promised we would get to work on something I really wanted to work on)

I left millions on the table just by that one stupid decision. but then again I was really burned out on it.

on edit: improved formatting

Post reply on HN