How is it possible that the FBI has so much advanced stuff when I’ve never met a skilled developer willing to work for what the government pays? Are their tools developed by high paid contractors?
I'd like to talk about your other point though:
> I’ve never met a skilled developer willing to work for what the government pays
So there are a lot of very skilled developers working for the government right now. I'd agree you probably haven't met them. I've found that people who work for the government, especially on TS/SCI systems, do not go out and "network". They usually can't or won't talk about their work. Yes they get paid far lower than what they'd get from a SV startup, but maybe people aren't solely motivated by money. There are some nice things about working for certain parts of the government. First off, there is excellent job security. You pretty much never have to worry about getting fired, it isn't even in the back of your brain. Comparing that to a startup where you are almost always out of breath being worked too hard and you have that fear every day your job is going to disappear. Second, while the pay not be totally up to par, it also isn't bad. The hours are also great, there are laws that govern contracts and projects that limit employees to 40 hours per week. You will not be asked to work over that, even in "crunch" time, because it breaks competition laws when contracts are offered up to outside agencies who put in bids to do the work. Lastly, and most importantly, there is often a sense of pride or duty involved in the job. I know HN isn't exactly the most rah-rah-yay-government crowd, but there are a lot of people out there who have a desire to serve the public somehow. They believe they can do more good on the inside compared to those on the outside who just simply complain about the government.
I do make a lot less money in this role than I would in a startup environment or SV. But, work life balance is significantly better. Benefits are actually the best I've ever seen (no cost health plan and they put the full amount of the deductible in an HSA for me each year, generous 401k match with only a 1 year vesting schedule, summer hours so I can spend more time in daylight, a pension with a very easy vesting schedule, plenty of time off, etc).
I'd work a government job for similar reasons. It's not about pay for me. I need enough to live, enough to plan for retirement, and a little extra to enjoy my life.
I work to enjoy my life, I don't work to die early or just to work. My life comes first, work comes second and finding a company that respects that and encourages it to some extent, is worth more to me than high pay and a worse environment to work in.
But then that’s evidently true of Google (and FAANG in general) as well.
As you get older, you are more valuable. No "silicon valley" syndrome about age: you'd never have to dye your hair, wear a hoodie to fit in, nobody will blink if you have to take a day off to take care of the kids.
You can be a real adult - nobody comes into those programs and expects a ball pit or a foosball table, and nobody seriously thinks someone right out of college but who is up on the "latest framework" could take their job - because the jobs are deeply, deeply technical and require lots of experience. If you blow the doors off of everyone else in programming, great! That's one dimension. But it usually isn't the only one.
"The pay is worse" - for software, undoubtedly. For hardware? It's usually a wash after adjusting for cost of living and the benefits are better on the defense side.
I like defense because the systems are usually pretty badass. We have people leave for FAAMG occasionally, so it's not like we don't know who the people who are "that good" are! :)
It was amusing to read and I don’t disagree with what you said but I don’t feel super qualified to judge either.
I’ve only seen that silicon valley start up culture from the outside when my partner worked at a YC company while they were going through a later stage fundraising round.
It wasn’t as cartoonish as you make it sound at all but your impression at least seemed in the ballpark of true.
Solving really hard problems is valuable. Little gets easier, but you can get better at it.
You have me wondering .. Does expertise from experience (whether compressed into a few years or a lot) qualify as reverse ageism? Is anyone being excluded or denigrated?
It seems plausible (but not exclusively) that the more time and effort you apply to something, the better you will probably get at it. Time alone isn’t a measure of experience and expertise but it doesn’t hurt.
It’s just describing what the experience of someone who has been at something for a while.. might end up like.
No, of course not - isn't it silly that we have to ask if that is "reverse ageism" to say that people who spend time at something are generally better at it? That's universally true of every single human endeavor, isn't it?
"It seems plausible (but not exclusively) that the more time and effort you apply to something, the better you will probably get at it." - Why does it sound like you're shying away from stating something that should be immediately obvious to every single person? Is it because you're afraid of the charge of reverse ageism if you agree? If so...isn't that silly?
"It seems plausible (but not exclusively) that the more time and effort you apply to something, the better you will probably get at it. Time alone isn’t a measure of experience and expertise but it doesn’t hurt." - I agree wholeheartedly - again, I thought that was obvious.
Many years ago, when my career first started, I was an idealist who thought the way I could give back (as someone who couldn't get into the military for physical reasons) was to work in the defense sector. I also tried very hard to get interviewed by an SV company, but I didn't qualify for an interview due to going to the wrong college and getting the wrong degree.
And I have worked on some seriously badass programs and with some really cool systems and people. In my older age, it's funny because I've come full circle. I'm actually using my experience, and the new all-remote world, to interview with some tech companies. I'm also starting to sour a lot on working with the government and military because my idea of "giving back" has become much more cynical. EDIT- I meant to say here that I've become much more cynical, and working with the government no longer feels like "giving back." Nowadays I give back by working on social issues.
BTW, I'm also upvoting / interacting with your comment because (a) I think you're getting downvoted by people who disagree with you, rather than by people who think you've broken some rule, and (b) I think your perspective represents a pretty common way of looking at SV from the outside world.
It's more about the impression they get from you in five or six 45-minute slots. It's just a numbers game if you're getting that far, so just keep at it right? Take notes, improve, watch some Coursera courses, do some silly coding exercises - basically what we all do for fun anyway.
Glad you could find work on social issues though; I know what you mean about the cynicism, but I think I've gotten around that - I realized it came on with bad programs with lots of waste or highly political teams/programs, so I just avoid those. It was a long road to get there though... :)
There have been many times the temptation of “badassery” has sorely pulled against my own moral/ethical stances. Lots of projects I’d have genuinely enjoyed working on, but which I’d have hated myself knowing all the ways the tech I’d have been building could be misused (and too often in the fullness of time, when developed by other people, was misused in exactly the obvious ways).
There's no way to only have a positive impact as well - there are always side effects.
In HN terms, life isn't functionally pure.
Is that your bubble that's poorly skilled?
1. job security.
2. ideology.
3. attractive retirement plans.
4. interesting domain / things to work on.
If you have a burning passion for catching bad guys, then you go working for the people that are catching bad buys. Pretty simple.
Sure - the tech can (and probably will) be abused against regular folks, but for some people it's worth the price if it means busting another pedophile/human trafficking/terrorist/etc. ring.
It's a bit like asking why some doctors dedicate their professional lives to humanitarian work, when they could make 10x more as a GP in some cushy suburb. For some, ideology and mission counts A LOT.
What exactly are you asking?
Many defense contractors (can't speak to the intel side of things) get paid 25-100% more than their GS counterparts, if they have an actual counterpart. Though that's not universal. Their pay is also not capped, like civilian pay is in the US federal government.
EDIT: For further context, a technical GS employee (engineer, computer scientist) will be in a minimum of a GS-12 position after a few years of experience (usually 3-5). Most technical positions cap at GS-14. GS-15 is the highest of the GS grades, but mostly reserved for management and a select smaller group of senior technical people. A GS employee programmer will usually be a GS-12 or GS-13 until they reach a more senior position (usually with a higher degree than just a BS and often 10-20 years of experience, tending towards the higher end of that).
Here is a link to the base pay, everyone gets more than this but it depends on where they work: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries...
Federal employees also get a 5% match on their 401k equivalent (TSP), 13-26 days of leave a year (rolls over, cap at 30), 13 days of sick leave a year (rolls over, no max), 10 federal holidays, a pension (1% of pay for each year of service, 20 years = 20%), and pretty decent insurance. If the goal isn't "get rich quick", it's not a bad gig.
For those interested, here is a link to the base pay with the locality adjustment for each geographic area: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries...
They almost certainly also have just as many shittily paid employees that FAANG like to pretend they do not employ, offloading admin/janitorial/support staff to 3rd party “low caste” status employment.
I’d also guess BD and Sales roles at those companies pay at least as well as FAANG too. Commissions on defence contracts are worth a lot more than selling another bunch of SaaS seats to some promising VC backed startup...
I’m not sure $120k (in 2013) counts as “paid like garbage” for his role. What were SREs getting paid at Google back then? I get the feeling that was a reasonably close match for the role he had?
At any rate, the U.S. government imposes many standards on federal government contractors including minimum wage standards, hiring practices, paid sick leave, a host of responsibilities that any contractor that wishes to do business with the federal government MUST adhere to. For example, in the area of construction all federal contractors must pay employees at a minimum, the prevailing wage including benefits for the locality of the construction site. It's not unreasonable to think and to ask what are the requirements and responsibilities that IT professionals working as federal contractors might also have. There are a ton of other requirements and conditions that you can read more about some of those requirements here:
https://www.employer.gov/EmploymentIssues/Federal-contractor...
2. The appeal of effectively being a spook has to attract some people to working for 3-letter agencies.
When the Roman Empire wanted something like water engineering or gold mining they found out who did it best, and then did invade the territory and enslave those who knew how to do it.
Steel traders from India will tell Romans it came from China so they did not invade it.
When the US three letter agencies want something from some company, they use a similar strategy: You are with us or against us. You can let us install backdoors in your software or you are a terrorist that support terrorists.