61–70 of 147 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're well credentialed, tech-smart, greedy, and morally bankrupt, it's probably more lucrative to work for Google than the NSA.
It's probably more lucrative to work for the NSA then Google.
I have a question for the HN audience. Many here have gone to top schools and studied crypto, ML, etc with the best. And are probably the best in their field. Do you currently work for any three letter agencies? Did your smartest colleagues go to work at three letter agencies? I am trying to gauge the quality of talent at CIA, NSA, FBI, etc. All of my best colleagues went to the private sector, usually tech or securi…
I have a question for the HN audience. Many here have gone to top schools and studied crypto, ML, etc with the best. And are probably the best in their field. Do you currently work for any three letter agencies? Did your smartest colleagues go to work at three letter agencies? I am trying to gauge the quality of talent at CIA, NSA, FBI, etc. All of my best colleagues went to the private sector, usually tech or securi…
I have a question for the HN audience. Many here have gone to top schools and studied crypto, ML, etc with the best. And are probably the best in their field. Do you currently work for any three letter agencies? Did your smartest colleagues go to work at three letter agencies? I am trying to gauge the quality of talent at CIA, NSA, FBI, etc. All of my best colleagues went to the private sector, usually tech or securi…
Do you realise that almost nobody working in this kind of job can disclose that?
I have a question for the HN audience. Many here have gone to top schools and studied crypto, ML, etc with the best. And are probably the best in their field. Do you currently work for any three letter agencies? Did your smartest colleagues go to work at three letter agencies? I am trying to gauge the quality of talent at CIA, NSA, FBI, etc. All of my best colleagues went to the private sector, usually tech or securi…
Some of my old buddies worked for the NHS. They said they all accept a paycut compared to the private sector because of the value and prestige of the agency itself. In a way I think those in the spy-ish agencies also think along the same lines but they get no recognition from the public about the benefit compared to national health care.
It’s my experience that the NHS is taken for granted in the UK, and I can’t for one second believe that there’s ANY prestige there.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of my best friends worked at the NSA, then the CIA. Smart guy. Unfortunately he got charged for Vault7 leaks and is going to spend the rest of his life in jail. So, in short, don’t work for them. It might seem cool, but it’s not worth it. If they don’t like you, they’ll fuck you.
How do you get charged for leaks if you weren't the leaker?
I have a question for the HN audience. Many here have gone to top schools and studied crypto, ML, etc with the best. And are probably the best in their field. Do you currently work for any three letter agencies? Did your smartest colleagues go to work at three letter agencies? I am trying to gauge the quality of talent at CIA, NSA, FBI, etc. All of my best colleagues went to the private sector, usually tech or securi…
There are ex-Googlers and such as well, but they're not super common. One guy said he got bored at Google because he was rebasing code all the time so switched over. Not everyone will take the more money for a job where your role can feel meaningless. In comparison, these DOD jobs definitely feel meaningful, almost no matter your role. Feelings inside are very similar to what you hear from military servicemembers about feeling like you're making an important difference. If you don't, it's easy to change positions; it is very desirable to have a load of different skills, and learning/training is not only available but pushed hard. Internal and external classes, paying for degrees and having partnerships with local colleges, externships with large private corporations, internships in other departments are all common. If you like to learn, it is appealing. As a result, there are certainly a lot of very smart people.
Being government, you still have a chunk of the pool who are basically done but hanging on til retirement. I'd say it's past the 15-20 year mark that people really start to phone it in in technical positions. I won't get into this too much, but someone who is not known as top of their field but is close to or has maxed out the pay scale, they're probably not useful anymore. There are a lot of these (everywhere in government).
I have a question for the HN audience. Many here have gone to top schools and studied crypto, ML, etc with the best. And are probably the best in their field. Do you currently work for any three letter agencies? Did your smartest colleagues go to work at three letter agencies? I am trying to gauge the quality of talent at CIA, NSA, FBI, etc. All of my best colleagues went to the private sector, usually tech or securi…
I work for a 4 letter agency that is trying to go back to the "mall" in 5 years. The talent is a bit lackluster, compared to what I expected.
The solution would be to partner with universities for the post-grad research stuff and hire people from "industry" as much as possible. Hopefully the people from industry could pick better people to hire from the post-grad research programs. Likely this will never happen, and it might not fix everything (or anything).