> You get paid an excellent defense sector salary unconditionally

I would imagine CIA officers get a regular civil service salary, which is emphatically not the high salaries that contractors earn.

I also assure you the only people working for defense contractors with high salaries are the executives. Engineers are high but majority are nowhere even near tech industry high.

> I would imagine CIA officers get a regular civil service salary

What is a "regular civil service salary"? Presumably CIA officers are better paid than the clerk behind the DMV counter? Perhaps a CIA officer salary is still "excellent" if not on par with defense contractors?

It would be on the GS scale [1]. The GS scale has a set of levels and steps. If you're promoted, you generally go up a GS level. You go up steps with more time in service. There are a number of adjustments, including an adjustment for cost of living. Generally if you only have a bachelor's, you're limited to GS-9.

Of course, the federal government provides excellent job security and good benefits, but the salary is not competitive for a software person.

The main problem is that the GS system essentially assumes that all PhDs and all Master's degrees are equally valuable, but the private market does not agree.

[1] https://www.federalpay.org/gs/2020

One correction here is that you are not limited to GS-9 with a BS only. GS-9 is often people with zero experience and a BS only depending on the position - like everything it's based on competitiveness.

Recognize that the GS scale starts with people who have no formal education at all.

Starting out of school with a BS in computer science or computer engineering was GS 7 or 8, so around $40-50k/year. The salaries are public for each level.

Additional degrees do not move you off the GS scale.

Reaching the equivalent of executive level can mean moving beyond GS to the senior executive service (SES).

But is total compensation competitive? I suspect it is closer than it seems since a career in the federal government can leave you retiring in your fifties getting nearly as much as you were making in the last few years until the day you die. Additionally, you continue to receive all the health benefits.

I don't know of any tech companies offering defined benefit plans and health insurance after you retire.

I suspect places that require particular expertise have some mechanism to pay above the scale.

That's the case in Australia, anyway.

How do you know this?

Federal civil service is all on the same scale, and it tops out below what new grad engineers typically make at defense contractors, to say nothing of FAANG.

There are (legitimate) ways to get paid more in government service. Years ago, I sold a Ferrari to a guy who worked on nuclear weapons at Los Alamos. His boss drove a Lamborghini.

I've never understood how this fit in with the whole GS scale thing, but the reasoning was straightforward: if we don't pay them well, somebody else might.

The employees of the DOE labs aren't civil servants on the GS scale. They're paid more like defense contractors. The base salaries at a DOE lab can be comparable to FAANG base salaries if you ignore RSU part of the compensation you also get at a FAANG (which can be a significant portion of the overall salary).

Can you explain? I thought they were compressed pay “bands” still limited ton the GS pay scale? E.g., DB pay band still tops out at the equivalent of GS15

the federal government is not the employer of anyone I've ever met from a Department of Energy Lab. LBNL you work for the University of California. LLNL and LANL used to be the same, but UC lost the contract to run LLNL and LANL in 2006. Bectel and UC formed a partnership that still has LLNL but got fired from LANL.

National Labs (and sites, e.g. Y-12) are either DOE or NNSA facilities. The government uses a government owned, contractor operated M&O (management and operations) contract to run the labs. M&O contractors are usually public/private consortiums or one of a few private contractors (see:Bechtel). M&O contractors are responsible for staff and operations, and are paid a fee based on a percentage (based o performance) of business the lab did over that FY. National Lab (and site) employees are employees of the M&O contractor, not the federal government.

Ah, ok I don’t think agencies like national labs are true “civil servant” employers but quasi civil servants and essentially contractors. I was referring to DoD labs

True, but the CoL translates quite a bit. For example, I was offered a position that looked not-so-great on paper but once you looked at cost-of-living was competitive (comparable to $400-$500k/yr in SV) plus had other things I valued like little commute etc.

It sounds like you are using a CoL in ratios, not in terms of real dollar adjustments (salary minus costs). If you buy things online, or save to move to another area, cost of living adjustments as a ratio don’t make as much sense. Unless the area is extremely cheap, you have lots more costs than me for things like childcare and housing, and you were paid above the GS payscale, that is. Back of the envelope calculations for me seem to show you can comfortably save over 200k, or more than an entire GS salary at 500k in the Bay Area a year in real dollar terms. I don’t know how to weight for pension value or stability but that’s a lot.

That being said, it’s hard to put a number on an area and commute you like.

The numbers I used were direct costs across a number of categories. Much of the discrepancy is housing costs. Others like transportation and healthcare factor in, but are not nearly as big. Pension is a bit more difficult to compare because defined benefit pensions are hard to compare to direct stock or 401k due to volatility of the latter, but a rough rule of thumb is they are worth roughly 8%-10% of equivalent annual salary. They also depend widely on when you join the govt.

But your total projected CoL was really over 300k in the Bay Area though? You can spend 120k on a mortgage, 80k on taxes, 20k on food, 10k on commuting, 30k on miscellaneous additional costs and 40k on childcare and still have 200k left over on a 500k salary.

It’s nearly $100k more a year just for a median home mortgage, so I don’t think it was ludicrous. Local and state income taxes are essentially triple as well. I don’t think $80k will cover property, Federal, State, and local taxes at that level. Those taxes exacerbate the pre-tax income necessary to cover that median mortgage.

Again, I’m sure I could get by just fine on under $300k in SV. But it’s still not comparable in terms of being as comfortable. For example, if I really wanted to pay off that median home in five years it’s possible elsewhere; I don’t think that’s a reasonable option in SV.

You can have bonuses for things like special skills or location pay.

> ...with all the defense sector benefits, some very exclusive.

Could you elaborate on that?

Not affiliated with them, this is just what I found on Google, but here are their benefits [1]. They don't seem that great honestly. New hires need to work for 3 years before they can get more than 13 days of PTO, and you only get 20+ days after working there for 15 YEARS.

For comparison I work at a university and we get 20 days PTO on day 1. Plus very long holidays (2 weeks in december / january when the semester is out).

[1]: https://www.cia.gov/careers/benefits.html?tab=list-7

The referenced page seems say you get an additional 13 days of sick time per year, carried over in an unlimited amount. So that would be 26 days per year from the start.

I believe that’s just “annual leave” and doesn’t count “sick leave” (which doubles the baseline PTO) and the federal holidays (10 days per year I believe)

Clearance for one.

If you think that's a perk you don't belong doing that work. It's not the james bond life you think it is and the people who think of it that way are insufferable.

Try living in a windowless box for 8 hours a day and having no resume.

Every once in a while you do collect some fun stories.

I remember vividly one training session where they explained to us that if an attractive woman approached us, it wasn't because we were particularly interesting. And if that happened we should notify the security group immediately.

I remember in orientation for my first internship the HR lady disparaging Chinese Communist party and the phrase "happy ending" may have made an appearance during that part of the presentation. It was absolutely perfect for the demographics of the audience (a bunch of college kids) but man did it ruin every BigCo orientation since. I think she missed he calling as a comedian or some sort of entertainment professional.

I had one orientation where the presenter showed images of the men and women who had jumped out of the WTC during 9/11

Then he cut to slides with several enemy combatants, followed by a massive explosion, followed by a large smoldering crater, and said "Pay back is a real bitch."

The most gruesome briefing I remember from the military was the dermatologist prior to fortnight leave.

Everyone who deals with company confidential information (hopefully!) understands the 'pause' you experience when having a conversation about related topics with someone outside the company. ("hm, what am I allowed to say here?"). Now imagine it where you have to have the same question even with many people inside your company, and if you f* it up, you can go to jail. And unlike most corporate information, some or most of it will remain classified through the end of your life, and your obligation to keep it confidential never ends.

It's a burden.

A position with a defense contractor that requires a special-access clearance can pay very well. The problem is that you very often need to have the clearance to get the job. Getting a special-access clearance for an employee can take six months or more, and there may be some costs involved. Also, there would be that time waiting for the clearance before you could start working on a special-access project. Many (most?) defense contractors would rather pay extra to get someone who already has the clearance.

This was my understanding. You basically get the gov't to pay for your clearance (which I hear can take a long time). Once you separate, your clearance can get your jobs in the private sector that people without clearance can't.[1]

I'm not saying it's a ticket to being filthy rich, but it opens doors to some lucrative careers that you wouldn't otherwise be able to get.

[1]https://www.clearancejobs.com/

I was told that an active clearance with SSBI can add $30-50k (or something, this was years ago) to your salary. These days that doesn't seem like anything super special given tech salaries in major metros. But it probably goes a real long way in Huntsville, AL or wherever.

I remember being emotionally exhausted after a particularly rough week at work, and not being able to talk about it to my wife beyond the barest "yeah, it's been a tough one". It isn't cool or sexy, at best its a layer of inconvenience and red tape over your day-to-day work life. Looking back, it was by far my least favorite job I've ever held

And on top of that you can't read HN at work from your air-gapped locked-down PC!

and you have to leave your mobile phone at the door!

Is that part really so bad, though?

In addition to things people have already commented on, the ability to obtain and maintain a security clearance also comes with requirements such as: being mindful and reporting things like contact with foreign nationals, reporting plans for and completed foreign travel, generally being able to account for your whereabouts during those travels to the day.

(Caveat: these are "rules" for regular people that have been given the privilege of holding a US national security clearance. There are many examples of people that have held security clearances that get away with conduct that would otherwise result in revocation and criminal charges for regular persons)

I think you meant the inverse. If you value optionality to work on government projects that require clearance wouldn’t one view already having said clearance as a perk?

If you don’t want to do that work you would not view it as a perk.

I'm not trying to nitpick or anything, but to my ears calling a clearance a "perk" speaks to misconceptions about the reality of working in that ecosystem. But job mobility is a real thing, so yeah that's a good point to talk about.

I can only speak from the contractor side of things, and it is true that many job openings list "must have active [clearance X]" as a requirement, which certainly keeps the candidate pool to within people already in that community. It takes 12-24 months to get some clearances, with no guarantee that after that time invested, you will actually be approved. So it is a massive gate.

But the flip side, as others pointed out, is you have large chunks of time where you cannot talk about what you did in anything approaching the detail someone who worked on a non-cleared job can. Even if you worked on some stealth mode startup's top-secret project, with NDAs and whatnot, there's nothing like the very real threat of decades in federal prison. The best way to avoid falling afoul of an unauthorized disclosure is strongly compartmentalizing your work life - this is strongly encouraged within the industry. You talk about work at work, in a vault where the only other people there are cleared. You STFU everywhere else. Easy and simple to remember. The only time this is _ever_ a problem is when you're trying to get out of the industry, where you must talk about your work experience to potential employers. That's how your perk becomes a trap.

It ropes you into that ecosystem and that ecosystem only. Most consumer/web tech companies won't understand a resume that's just "I did a thing, can't talk about it".

Tell that to employees at Lockheed, Boeing, Honeywell, Booz Allen... the list of private enterprises or people engaged in government work requiring clearance is large and varied.

They're part of that ecosystem as well. In my experience they're all miserable places to work though, LM in particular.

Have you never hired an ex-Apple employee?

Apple employees/people from other NDA obsessed firms have nothing on the cleared workers. Yea they can be cagey but their products eventually ship and they can talk about them. When you're in defense, once your project ships it stays on orbit for a decade or two.

The federal government pays a comfortable six figures (if I were offered this kind of job without being told the salary, I would value that opportunity estimating the salary to be $150,000). Plus you retire really early (I'm not certain whether CIA lets you retire after 20 years, but many fed roles do, with full salary), plus you have access to really hard to find information (valuable from the point of view of sheer curiosity). Not to mention, if in the course of your research you make enemies out of say hackers in Russia (totally plausible if you're researching computer security) they'll think twice before messing with you because you're part of the team (some liken it to being a "made man").

And you get paid that salary and those benefits even if for reasons outside of your control you don't come up with anything. I would speculate there's a limit to how much you can keep trying and failing, but at that limit you get moved to a different role where you don't need as much luck, but I know this is a smooth process.

It's a far cry from an entrepreneur with no backing, or even VC backing. VC's generally don't take technical risk, only market risk: they won't pay for you to come up with a 10x better product, instead their contribution is backing an working 10x better product and helping it debut in the market (product-market fit, or final stages of development, but no research). And if for reasons outside your control your research fails in the market, venture capital practices "venture capitalism", you had a shot, you tried an adventure, it was an incredible journey, but they can't afford patience and faith like the federal government can, so they pull the proverbial plug.

Getting your SF-86 leaked by OPM does not, in fact, make you feel cool, like part of the team, or a "made man".

Federal civil service does not let you retire with full salary. With 20 years of service (plus minimum age requirement) you'll get about 25% of the average salary of your top three years.

> The federal government pays a comfortable six figures

Nope, it doesn't. Cracking 100k in the civil service requires being very very senior (equivalent of at least a colonel in the military).

It is a cool opportunity, but it does not pay well. Even the civil service salary PLUS the maximum $150k patent royalties is less than what a 27 year old at a FAANG earns.

This is immediately falsifiable with public documents from OPM:

https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries...

A mid-grade GS-12 in SF/DC/NY makes 100k+ which would be a non supervisory Individual Contributor with a BS.

Colonel equivalent (GS-15) is indeed rare and would be closer to $150k+

To be fair, GS-12 isn't that common in some agencies. Because of hiring wickets, you'll see a lot more GS-11 or 13.

I don't know any GS-12s that don't have a Masters. Most would have come in as an 11 with a Masters, then promoted to 12. Extra skills would have earned additional extra steps (steps are 12 different levels of compensation between grades). Of course it's possible, but in my agency unlikely.

Also a GS-13 would be equivalent to a half bird Colonel. 14/15 would be full bird. SES levels would be equivalent to the different general levels.

Contrary to the comment below, you don’t need to be in an expensive area to make that amount. I know quite a few making that amount without graduate education and in areas where the average cost-of-living is a small fraction of Silicon Valley

If adding $150K doubles my salary, is that really an excellent salary?

For where you'll be located, you're damn right it's an excellent salary.

And don't forget one of the biggest benefits of all... actually making something useful rather than spending your most important years working on how to get people to click a button or stare longer at their screens to enrich your employer.

> And don't forget one of the biggest benefits of all... actually making something useful rather than spending your most important years working on how to get people to click a button or stare longer at their screens to enrich your employer.

Yeah, the only way to make something useful is to work for the government agency that has a wikipedia article about their human rights violations [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_violations_by_the...

Yes, the only two options are ads and the CIA.

I think a lot of us find the CIA more amoral and destructive than adtech by the way.

> I think a lot of us find the CIA more amoral and destructive than adtech by the way.

I understand that view, and I think history will show just how terribly wrong it is.

The machinations of the CIA don't even begin to compare to the long-term ills that social-media and screen addiction are going to cause all over the world over the next few decades.

I mean, Youtube and its recommendation algorithms alone have via radicalisation set the USA on a path to destruction from within. Throw in Twitter with their mob bubbles and it's beyond redemption.

Well I definitely don't want to get into a "which thing is more bad" argument, but the CIAs crimes are really well documented too.