Comment by warner25 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by warner25 | Hacker News Reader

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As an active duty officer approaching 20 years of service myself, I think this is a good comment except for your first couple of statements. I'm very skeptical.

I think that an enlisted service member who's good enough, and lucky enough, to learn and do some technical things can easily 3x their pay by working as a contractor after their initial enlistment. But their starting point is low as an E-3, E-4. They can go from making $40k to $120k, sure, especially if they're willing to work in a combat zone.

I don't know a single O-4, O-5, O-6 (and I'm talking aviators and IT/cyber officers) who has "fallen into" making 3x as a civilian. Their pay in uniform is $160-240k. Many of them seem to opt for civil service jobs as a GS-14, GS-15, which will match their previous pay at best (but be in addition to the $50-90k pension).

I hope you're right, but I'm certainly not counting on a $600k job offer when my time comes.

I could have this figured as more of an exponential curve when it’s really as S-curve with your E-8s and your mid-scale officers on roughly the same flattish (but fairly high!) part. Could be I’ve got that bit wrong.

I do think the really high paid ones usually require living in one of a few areas (NOVA, say) and some travel, which isn’t in a lot of folks’ life plan for their 40s and 50s. But yeah, I may just have the “graph” wrong.

[edit] my more narrow point was just that an ex-officer with enough money to safely invest in a real estate business that might plausibly grow to $11m value under even moderate success, isn’t that weird a notion.

To your last point, I agree. I think that most people (including most people in uniform) don't realize how well it actually pays to be an officer. The corollary is that it's not easy to make much more by transitioning to the civilian world. But yes, one can leave active duty in their early 40s in a really good position - a couple million in savings, the pension, the retiree healthcare, the GI Bill for the kids - and keep making similar money in a new job or launch a new venture (having plenty to fall back on if it fails). Ending up with $11M later in life is not out of the question.

I'm still thinking about the exponential curve vs. S-curve. I do think there are a lot of jobs, regardless of someone's final military rank like you said, that will pay low six-figures just for the security clearance and knowledge of certain systems. The few jobs that pay much more - getting into the world of corporate executives, board members, consultants, lobbyists, media personalities, guest speaking - might be accessible to some retired flag officers, but there aren't a lot of retired flag officers to begin with.

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