Hacker News Reader

Comment by treyfitty | Hacker News Reader

That “government employee doesn’t get paid enough to attract talent” trope has to die. I work with many government employees that are not beholden to the government pay scales and get special exemptions to be compensated “at market rates.” You’d be surprised how many tech employees inside government clear $750k

View on HN

Also ignores the entire defense and aerospace industry. It's laughably ignorant to just write off the STEM talent at places like Lockheed, Boeing, Honeywell, etc because FAANG is a popular destination for CS grads. Also, people here (and in SV in general) doubt the capabilities and talent in the public sector until suddenly a Stuxnet is brought to light.

As a former government employee, I doubt they work directly for the government. The government loves to outsource everything remotely technical to contractors in my (dated) experience. The GS and even the SES pay scales they offer are laughable in comparison to what one can get in the private sector.

Correct, but if you do 5 years in the military, and 15 in FedGov, you can then retire at your GS-15 / SES grade and get a pension + guaranteed healthcare.

Then you start your 2nd career at GD or Lockheed or Microsoft, et al, and get 300k per annum.

I think you're really overstating it. I know guys that have done the military / fed / contractor shuffle. Getting above gs 12 damned near impossible, and when they figure that out, they go into contracting for ~100k+ positions, but it's not 300k. If you play it right, yeah you can fully retire at 55 with a small pension and (hugely important!) health insurance, but someone who went tech sector from the jump can easily retire at 40 if they really set their minds to it.

For other fields though, it can make sense.

They typical pattern is they work for one of the government contractors L3 (now L3Harris), Northrop Grumman, etc. Of course it's a revolving door as well.

> You’d be surprised how many tech employees inside government clear $750k

That does sound a little high. But it seems you have more recent info than I do.

> That does sound a little high. But it seems you have more recent info than I do

This is the solo special contractor rate. You aren't paying a person a million bucks. You're paying a "company" that because that's what expertise in how carbon fibers set in a particular resin matrix subjected to a high-frequency supersonic detonation ring or something, an expertise that globally numbers maybe five, and within the U.S., three, is worth.

Agree, for the solo special contractor rate that is quite plausible.

Yes I'm a bit skeptical of the parent's numbers, but if true, I imagine it's very much the exception, not the norm. Technical employees at the contractors did not do much better than the price ranges posted for government job boards (even distinguished/principal engineers capped out at what is probably around $300-350k today after inflation) except in management positions, in my experience. All the most talented engineers I knew were gone within a few years.

Not to mention the red-taped filled work environment does not exactly encourage innovation.

It is an exception but specialized technical expertise can definitely bill out that high to the US government. (source: I've billed out higher)

Then how do I join?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com