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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

#391

Post by pm90 »

mabbo wrote: post #315
pm90 wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It worked better for you and I'm glad to hear that. For some people, the stability of a Govt. job, the regularity of promotions, the lack of long term uncertainty and perhaps the absence of as high expectations makes it worthwhile to pursue a job that pays less.

Actually, this stability and security was another big reason I chose not to join Government. I had done a few internships in the public service, and what I saw horrified me. When you have job security and low expectations placed on you, it's wonderful. When everyone does, it's horrible. There is relatively little room for the lazy and useless in the private sector.

Again, I ask that you refrain from characterizing everyone as lazy and useless. I know a lot of women friends who choose to join Government service because of its long term stability which is important for them as they raise a family. They are some of the hardest working and smartest people I know.

Sure bad apples are harder to eliminate, but that doesn't mean everyone is bad.

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

#392

Post by dv_dt »

auntienomen wrote: post #38
atonse wrote: post #2

Not surprising. They’ve gone from having the perception of being the most elite organization for hackers to more of what is described in Good Will Hunting [1]. Perception is everything. I say this as someone who dreamt of working at the NSA for most of my high school years, but would now never even consider it. Edit: although I bet a lot of it is the 4x-5x salary jump you can get in cyber security jobs by having the…

I think it's become pretty clear recently -- looking at what Snowden leaked and at the trouble the Iranians had with their centrifuges or at the way Comey knew that Sessions was going to recuse himself -- that the NSA _is_ the most elite organization for hackers/crackers. It's hard to be certain from the outside, of course, but when I look at what Henninger et al have written about what they're doing... well, it's a…

They may be highly sophisticated for individual operations, but it's hard for individual citizens to assess how well the NSA is doing in terms of systematically protecting the nation or even their own assets. Looking at the scope leak of data from multiple sources such as Snowden, as well as the inability of the agency to protect the government from hacks such as OPM leaks leaves a lot to be desired in terms of comprehensiveness.

And maybe it's not in their charter, but failures to promote security among private industry leading to hacks like equifax, or home depot, or many many others, looks to me like leadership is off chasing political objectives while at home we get pecked to death and damaged by a million small cuts of fixable security problems.

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

#393

Post by nimbius »

Speaking from experience, I applied to the NSA a few years ago and its surreal how unrealistic the expectations were.

a major problem with NSA employment is the mandatory 5 year contractor like status period with half-pay. the NSA expects seasoned professionals from the private sector to join its ranks with a 33k salary? get real. The agency also prides itself on an almost obscene reliance on Polygraphs, a technology no more accurate or scientifically sound than a babushka shuffling chicken bones and reading tea leaves.

I also wasnt exactly blown away by the interview questions. my technical screening for a Linux position came from former members of the military, who grilled me on 2 unix questions before asking if they could switch to windows, confessing they 'didnt know much linux.'

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

#394

Post by throwaway9982 »

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…

> What's stopping them from pulling a bait-and-switch.

If you're a contractor, you can just quit and find another contracting position. When I worked as a contractor at NASA, I routinely quit (3 times) when the job turned undesirable and then found another contracting gig through networking in under a month.

>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.

No, these places (NSA and NASA) are in the not-so-close suburbs. When I was working at NASA at $85K I bought a condo and biked to work.

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

#395

Post by softawre »

wang_li wrote: post #376
qmalzp wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That top pay grade is less than the starting compensation for PhD's at the big tech co's. Not to mention free food, potential for career growth, and an open non-militaristic culture where you can wear a hoodie instead of a tie. I honestly don't understand why someone would work for the NSA given the choice.

>where you can wear a hoodie instead of a tie. A little off topic observation here, but people who can't handle adhering to a business professional dress code are exhibiting a low resilience personality. Not a good thing. Not to mention the reality that a button down shirt, slacks and a tie, when properly fitted, are not constrictive at all.

People who can't handle life at minimum wage aren't showing much resilience either, but why put yourself through that?

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

#396

Post by tooltalk »

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…

Firstly, you won't hear about banks botching major IT projects and wasting $$ because it's their money they just wasted. The public doesn't have any stake in those private institution's decision making or their wallets -- and they are not necessarily harmed by their failures. Unless their IT projects are funded by the public, it's not really our business. They have their own investors, auditors and oversight committee who should worry about their IT projects and cost control.

Having worked in public sector (for a small gov't agency in NYC), I know for the fact that most voters or taxpayers don't hear much about most of botched projects or millions of dollars wasted extravagant IT purchases that incompetent gov't career bureacrats make. Or why the last president of my organization was "forced" to resign years ago after a major IT f'up. Normally, there would be no firing, but the scale of the f'up was so gross that the president had to resign, but, despite his public standing as the head of the second largest library system in the country (funded by taxpayers and private donors), nobody got to hear what really happened.

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

#397

Post by mrep »

girardthelinear wrote: post #192
mrep wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And about matches FANG companies for bachelor degree graduates (I know Amazon's is now 145k total comp starting and I think the others are even higher).

145 total comp would not be very high lol. FB returning intern bonus was 100k alone thanks also NSA Intern/FT pay was much much lower. I'm not sure where you're seeing that they match

> That top pay grade is less than the starting compensation for PhD's at the big tech co's.

The top pay was 150k so that closely matches Amazon new grad offer of 145k which is what my comment was responding too.

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

#398

Post by throwaway9982 »

qaq wrote: post #233
rdtsc wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why?

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

#399

Post by watwut »

Chris_Jay wrote: post #317
watwut wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"if level of tolerance to short-term disruption is strongly positively correlated to general 'ability'" That is seriously odd assumption. It sounds like confusing "personality trait that appeals to me on emotional level" with ability. Plenty of inable unstable people around as far as I can tell. Plenty of low ability risk takers too.

Would intolerance to a level of risk typically encountered in civilian life not make someone unable to function there? My own experience in the public service was not so much of people unable to do their jobs but people unmotivated by them. My welcoming speech included the warning 'don't get attached to outcomes', and this was in a department disliked by the elected party where a lot of people had already been forced…

> Would intolerance to a level of risk typically encountered in civilian life not make someone unable to function there?

I think it is rarely that extreme. Preference for stability rarely means complete inability to deal with instable situations. Also, let's not overstate instability of average tech job. It is not that bad.

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

#400

Post by throwaway9982 »

kowdermeister wrote: post #221
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…

> want me to list them? Yes, please

I'm not the OP, but here's what I did at NASA that I found interesting:

- Developed the space lidar that will measure the polar ice cap melting

- Created a dashboard to monitor a spacecraft in deep space (and then ran ops for it)

- Developed learning models on a top500 supercomputer

- Optimization of 1000-GPU (yes) detailed simulation of the earth's magnetosphere

Yes, I knew that the industry will pay more, but honestly, I was young and just wanted to have a good time and stay around family in the area. The other jobs in the area didn't seem as exciting.

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