Defense subcontractor posted a job listing for XKEYSCORE 2 weeks ago

(For example it is suspected that FOGBANK, which is a codeword for a material used in the construction of nuclear physics packages, refers to a silica aerogel)

Perhaps you and I have a different perspective on quality of staffing. Too often, I find a lot of people in academia/life sciences research/NGO's have a propensity to feel or appear to others that they are altruistic or making a difference. But when push comes to shove, the same "altruistic" person will resort to the same old Machiavellian tactics for personal gains that's commonly seen everywhere.

Best way IMO to establish a fair society and company is to make everyone as informed as possible how you will be exploited and lied to; and I find that honest attitude to be more prevalent in BigCo vs. startup's where management appeals more to the "startup" culture to manipulate people to do more work and take less pay.

1 - http://www.battelle.org/

I've tried to make the jump out West a handful of times, but getting good jobs for me and my family at the same time out that way, at this point in our careers, and with resumes that read like random acronym spaghetti, has been near to impossible.

Even with the higher cost of living in the Bay Area, many of the places I've interviewed have balked at my salary requirements. During interviews with one big West Coast company, I made it through all of the phone screens, phone interviews, work history discussions, face-to-face interviews, lunch, meeting with the senior management, and then it all fell apart when we got to salary. "You realize Mr. Bane that not even the CEO for this organization pulls that kind of salary down?" "That's fine, I'd be willing to take a pay cut in exchange for preferred stock options" and that usually is the end of the discussion.

The interviews I've had with the Googles and the Facebooks have also left the interviewer at a loss for words as they tried to untangle my resume and ask reasonable interview questions. The environments: the technology, the politics, the hiring practices, the career progression, the titles, everything is just so different that at some point the interviewer and I inevitably end up just realizing it's not going to work.

For example, most people out West with a similar career progression as me might have done a year long stint in Hyderabad or Shanghai trying to setup a new office. In a normal interview we'd chat about the challenges doing that, how it's so hard to get approval from the local government for the kind of high speed internet business line we'd need or the difficulty in ensuring overnight delivery of important data center parts or whatever and how I'd solve that with a reasonable inventory of spare parts but not provision too many blah blah blah.

When the topic comes up with me I have to talk about my time in a couple of combat zones, dodging mortar fire or stepping over a pile of gore that used to be a man. My principal challenge wasn't recruiting local talent, it was finding cover from a late night firefight or figuring out how to get fiber in my diet after a month underground in a bunker eating MREs so I could use the toilet. After all that was accomplished, then I got to figuring out how to coax industry obsolete technology running off of a jury-rigged diesel generator to do something useful for my work.

I don't regret it out here, I've managed to be involved in some history making events, had some awesome travel, met incredible people and did far more than figure out how to get people to click ads. There's a concept I've heard from PhD students [1] where they describe that moment where, before they publish their first paper or their dissertation, they know something new that nobody else in history or on the planet knows. Working here is kind of like that. There's been moments where I've solved a problem or learned something that nobody else on the planet knows and it's pretty awesome to be there at that moment.

But at the same time, you don't really ever "build" anything in the sense of creating something that will advance the species. It's not what I would call "life affirming" work. You build siege engines that become obsolete as soon as the walls of the enemy are penetrated. You become Leonardo da Vinci looking for work. [2]

If you want to see what's being looked for check this site out: http://clearedjobs.net/

1 - http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/

2 - http://gizmodo.com/5460442/leonardo-da-vincis-resume-explain...

The mega-contractors are a different kind of hell, you have to stay engaged and you have to have lots of drive, only it doesn't get spent in the actual work you're doing, it's all jammed up in office politicking and contract cycles. It's remarkably the same experience at the different mega corps also. I think being so close to the culture of the government, it bleeds down and creates this weird kind of secondary effect that seems the same no matter where you go...even if their public image and mission seem quite different.

The places I've enjoyed the most have been the smaller sub-contractors or product companies that vend into the government. I think it's because they're allowed to define their own culture and do things their way, with the primes as a shield to soak up all that badness. That all being said, shit rolls downhill, and being a sub or sub to a sub or a vendor like that does end up with your company in some bad positions from time to time...this includes getting acquired by one of the big guys.

Don't like football? You can refuse to hire someone for having participated once in a football game when they were seven. If you live in an employment-at-will state, you can fire them for watching a football game on their own time at home. You can even fire them for suspicion of watching a football game. For that matter, you can fire them for watching a football game or, in the alternative, not having watched a football game, for failure to complete the labors of Hercules, or for any reason or no reason at all, unless that reason is membership in a protected class.

I would hire bob snowden, or Bob manning though.

Just because they work for a contractor for the NSA, or they have a TS or S or Q clearance, doesn't mean they are not very smart and hard working. Hell, you know they went through the ringer to prove they are trustworthy and loyal. Because they wanted to help out all of us here in the US and then they felt they could no longer, that does NOT mean they should be punished. What did they themselves do wrong?

Besides, this is ONE program the NSA runs. Mostly likely the majority of the TS cleared people out there have nothing to do with all this stuff. Those people do make a lot of sacrifices for their job and for the US. A lot are multiply divorced because of the stress, the secrecy, and the unpredictability of the job.

"Hey Sugar, gotta go. I can't tell you where, for how long, or if I will be safe, or talk about a really traumatizing experience afterwards so I'll drink hard liquor quietly on the back porch a lot. Pick the kids up at basketball, will yah?"

Hell Google and Oracle were CIA funded at the beginning. Guess anybody who worked at those places or any of their contracting companies are out.

I went through a few rounds with a company and after they asked me how much I make they were stunned because they wanted to pay someone 40% of what I make for that position.

Then I realized that my thinking was disconnected from reality. There is a HUGE difference between my situation, and that of the Founding Fathers.

They knew that they could win.

They were selfish people. They would not have started the Revolution if there had been no chance of actually gaining something and actually winning.

We cannot win, at least, not that way. The only way we can probably hope to win is by speaking up and slowly changing the culture. We are far closer to 1984 than the Founding Fathers were.