Why do people deal with security clearances and government jobs? The pay is better in the private sector, and fucking up won't land you in prison.
The market is clearly not efficient.
The market is clearly not efficient.
The government is a great place for mediocre people to work.
Still astounds me how you can have such an eclectic mix of brilliant and less than mediocre people working on the same projects. I guess that's everywhere though.
Clearly they aren't necessarily top-end Silicon Valley salaries, but people working with security clearances can still make respectable salaries.
http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Bank-of-America-Vice-Preside...
The top end of "Senior Developer" at Lockheed is around $100k. The top end for the same job at BofA (with an impressive-sounding but meaningless title) is $200k. And you don't have to lie about being investigated by the FBI. And if you get bored, you can just jump ship to their competitors across the street.
Dunno, but I'm not convinced that anyone should worry about security clearance unless they are completely unable to write even the simplest computer program.
Additionally, Lockheed built (among other things) the SR-71 and the F22. Its probably a safe bet to say that writing the control systems for those machines took more skill than "the simplest computer program."
(BofA has since purchase MER, long after I left.)
Other people work for the government directly, and most of these people (that I've known) also have security clearances, although there are some government jobs that probably don't require one. Why people work directly for the government I have no idea -- good pension plan, I guess? Doesn't appeal to me in the slightest.
But government contracting can be good work and good money IMO. There's more paperwork and overhead than straight commercial work, but you sometimes get to solve weird/unique problems too.
In some areas (DC) there is a big pay difference depending on what level of security clearance you have. Someone with TS/SCI can expect to make very good money, on top of whatever their experience and education would dictate, as a result of holding the clearance. This is because there are some projects which require people with those clearances, and for the highest clearances it's a relatively small pool of people (they're expensive).
However I'll agree with you on the market being inefficient. The labor market very rarely is, however. The natural tendency of people to not want to move around all the time ensures a certain amount of inefficiency, before you even involve the government.
And I'd be surprised if the pay is much better in the private sector for equivalent IT jobs; I've never heard any programmer with a clearance being upset with pay or not being able to live the lifestyle he liked (well, as long as it was average American suburban).
"Fucking up" is pretty easy to avoid; you can talk about the technology you're using (e.g. Suns/UNIX, .NET, Java (the CIA was a 100% Java shop in the middle of the last decade), just not about the domain. Which is often true in the civilian market, it's just that the penalties are higher.
That, or wanting to live in the DC area. Some very large percentage of the jobs there are either government or government contractors.
That being said, private sector work is usually for more fulfilling and less frustrating.
Working a private sector job, with a clearance (and the pay bump that brings) making software for the government, now that's not a bad way to burn through a work week.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-03-04-federal-pay_N...