Seems like we should redirect some of the funding the traditional military branches get to the NSA. The work they do is more relevant and important than ever before, and it doesn't look like we're going to have a hot war any time soon.
NSA’s top talent is leaving because of low pay, flagging morale, unpopular reorg
301–310 of 547 posts
Re: NSA’s top talent is leaving because of low pay, flagging morale, unpopular reorg
#302It 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 agree with the point that as long as wages are down for the majority of voters it will be almost impossible to get government pay in line with high-end private sector jobs.
Re: NSA’s top talent is leaving because of low pay, flagging morale, unpopular reorg
#303Let's be honest for a minute: There's been a major regime change in the US. The "talent" leaving were probably given a choice between going quietly or being prosecuted. Mr. Binney may have had something to do with all of it.
Re: NSA’s top talent is leaving because of low pay, flagging morale, unpopular reorg
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
For clarity, let me emphasize: The people I'm talking about stood out among professional mathematicians, not just among the general population.
Presumably that's because the alternative line of employment for mathematicians is academia, which I can imagine pays even worse.
Most math PhDs work in industry, not in academia or government. Industry pays the best of the 3 by far. But NSA has nonetheless attracted some very smart cookies. Personally, I sleep a bit better knowing that they're there.
Re: NSA’s top talent is leaving because of low pay, flagging morale, unpopular reorg
#305Earlier 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…
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…
> 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.
Have you ever worked for government? I'm a civilian contractor in a software architecture role to a public safety agency in a state government. Half the "senior application developers" haven't written code in 15 years and don't know what a unit test is. There are maybe 2-3 individual contributors for each manager. Not team lead, manager, and is in a $105-110k+/yr position that does annual reviews, on call scheduling, etc.
The floor I'm on has 25-35 developers, DBAs, and BAs, and I can count on one hand the number of people who could get hired into a junior technical position at my employer. There are people who are unironically counting the days they have left until they can retire and draw their pension when they have more than 5 years left.
> Anyone working the counter at your local Post Office could easily work the register at any grocery store in your town.
And they'd take a 60% pay cut to do so, wouldn't they? Anyway, this is about folks in technical roles. Running a register and handing out stamps isn't particularly technical.
> Second, take a look at what happens to people who do leave the government. Very often, their salaries go up in the private sector. This is especially true for specialists like the folks who work at the NSA. Seems like they can hack it.
Well that's sort of tautological, isn't it? "The people who get a civilian job are capable of getting a civilian job." These folks are in the "Patriot, not inept" section of the diagram.
> Firing has little to do with it.
Firing has a lot to do. I've spoken candidly about my colleagues here with higher ups in the agency. They've openly bemoaned their inability to fire anyone, especially the people who they know for a fact do nothing all day. Those people are soaking up hundreds of thousands, even millions a year, in taxpayer dollars, doing little work of substance or value, and preventing their positions from being filled by someone capable.
Re: NSA’s top talent is leaving because of low pay, flagging morale, unpopular reorg
#306Earlier 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…
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…
What you mention never happens in private business, either. I'm far more competent than pretty much everyone I ever worked under and it didn't mean I got promoted to their job. Far from it--US private corporations reward idiocy because idiots are loyal.
Re: NSA’s top talent is leaving because of low pay, flagging morale, unpopular reorg
#307Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 be…
Who knows what the future will bring -- on a 10 to 20 year horizon anything can happen. US prestige is waning and China's role is growing. Middle East is all fucked up and so is most of Africa. Russia will do something if somebody does something stupid in Belarus. North Korea is a wildcard, and of course there is Israel too. Being vigilant doesn't hurt. There are plenty of rats in sewers left too -- people just choose not to see them when it isn't convenient. Information flows faster now and is globally accessible so that helps to dampen things somewhat.
Re: NSA’s top talent is leaving because of low pay, flagging morale, unpopular reorg
#308Earlier 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…
The legal floor of difficulty will always be greater with Federal employees as opposed to private employees as Federal employees have a property interest in their job. In other words, no Federal employee can be fired without some sort of paper trail. This is a constitutional Due Process issue and not something that Congress can easily address. That said, I think the difficulty--or at least the consequence of the diff…
Serious question, why is being fired from your government job a due process issue while being fired from your private sector job is not? If tomorrow, all government jobs were made At Will and the pay increased accordingly, what property of due process has been violated?
Re: NSA’s top talent is leaving because of low pay, flagging morale, unpopular reorg
#309Earlier 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.
> they seem to turn out libertarian and conservative arguments
Better ignore everything they say, then!
> Top 20 per cent of families pay 56 per cent of all taxes in Canada
If that's wrong, then why not cite why? If it's correct, I suspect there's a good reason for it (e.g. progressive tax structures work and are objectively a good thing for society).
Re: NSA’s top talent is leaving because of low pay, flagging morale, unpopular reorg
#310Disclaimer: I work for the federal government, but my thoughts are my own.
From what I have seen, there are a mix of issues that cause this: - It takes a long time to hire someone (usually 2-3 months), and if they need a clearance, the process is even longer (some clearances can take easily over a year now, and that person cannot do any work until they have them). - A lot of people want to go into these organizations to do cool things, but then find out they have a lot of additional duties they do not wish to do. - Government salaries are capped, and it is very difficult to fire a government civilian.
The issue of taking a long time to hire someone means that if someone leaves, their job does not go away. So their duties have to go somewhere, usually on someone else, and that will take a minimum of 3 months if you hire someone off the street. If the job requires a clearance, you now are waiting over a year if the person did not have the right clearance (while the person sits on that spot, so you can't hire anyone else if they come up).
From what I have seen, most people hired off of the streets are from college/grad school, and they are excited to do technical work. However, since the government caps civilian salaries, they will frequently contract out technical work (so they can hire the very expensive technical personnel). This means most of the technical work is done by contractors. Civilians more often than not oversee the contractors doing the technical work. If you have a technically inclined government civilian, then those contractors frequently snatch them up.
So now you have a compounding problem of it is difficult to hire/keep technical people, and the work they do is more and more non-technical, as most of the work to oversee contractors is what is called an "inherently governmental function", so those have to be done by a government person. This is a negative feedback loop that really hurts keeping these types of technical people.