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After all what we learned about how the CIA operates: How can you as an engineer/any other staff, work or want to work there? This is a genuine question - I re

After all what we learned about how the CIA operates: How can you as an engineer/any other staff, work or want to work there? This is a genuine question - I really would like to learn more about why someone is OK working at a company with such an investor.

sageabilly 11y ago
Money and prestige on a resume, plus the ability to work with really innovative technologies and projects. Plus, at least in DC, morality doesn't come into play for a lot of people when choosing who to work for because there are so many government contractors here that if morality came into it you'd automatically cull 60% [edit- 54.7%, see my comment downthread] of employers off your list.
- SebKba 11y ago
  Would you want to hire somebody who has worked at a company like that? I know a lot of people won't care but still.
- bakhy 11y ago
  60%? wow. people really don't put a high price on themselves.
  - _drFaust 11y ago
    Let me have a turn at randomly pulling a statistic deep out of a recess in my rectal cavity. 99% of statistics are made up and 60% of the time they are accurate everytime.
    - sageabilly 11y ago
      You're right, that was a made-up statistic that I guessed on the spot. Government-financed jobs (private and public sector jobs financed directly by the government) make up 27.3% of employers in DC, 29.8% of employers in Virginia, and 15.9% of employers in Maryland[1]. Federal job share (how many jobs are working directly for the government) in DC is 27.4%, in Virginia it's 4.6%, and in Maryland it's 5.5%[2]. So if you live in DC 54.7% of employers are either the federal government itself or working for an employer that is financed directly by the government. I apologize for the rounding error in my made-up statistic earlier. [1]http://mercatus.org/publication/government-financed-employment-and-real-private-sector-50-states http://mercatus.org/publication/government-financed-employme... [2]http://www.governing.com/gov-data/federal-employees-workforce-numbers-by-state.html http://www.governing.com/gov-data/federal-employees-workforc...
      - _drFaust 11y ago
        And you are claiming that of the 54.7% government financed jobs, ALL have questionable morality. So Health and Human Services, Department of Ed., etc have the same morality check as working for the DoD? That is surely what you attempted to portray with the original comment. That if you want to check the morality at the door you can't work in ANY government financed occupation in the DC region. Having worked for a government consulting firm in DC, there was a line of business that received funding for social research projects to help inform and ultimately guide government initiatives to improve the welfare and education of certain demographics. This company would be included in your statistic, and there is no moral check needed for that work. While this is anecdotal, it's pretty obvious that a blanket statistic like yours cannot hold up.
dogma1138 11y ago
https://www.iqt.org/portfolio/ https://www.iqt.org/portfolio/ (CIA's investment arm) Also whats wrong with the CIA?
- chinathrow 11y ago
  It's torture program, isn't that enough?
- fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
  A lot of people are probably okay with the US having an organization that murders and tortures people, sabotages other sovereign nations' interests, and helps US corporations compete globally through espionage; but not one that does so much of it as the CIA. An organization like that needs to be neither seen nor heard, and it ought to be used infrequently enough that our country can ostensibly say that we only do those kinds when we have to. To turn your question on its head, what's not wrong with them? It's not controversial at all that there are many people who don't wish to work in the defense side of aerospace, or on other weapons tech, why would it be controversial that someone wouldn't want to work in intelligence. Some people take professional codes of ethics (or their own personal ethics) more seriously than others.
  - dogma1138 11y ago
    Yeah but this is like 3rd degree the CIA also has invested in Facebook. The DOD is the largest provider of grants in the academia. And at the end various arms (quite often defense related) of the US public sectors are quite often one of the biggest investors and drivers behind new technologies. The valley could not exist without the USG and specifically without DOD money. While I completely understand people that say would not like to work on the next generation of guided missiles, one would be hard pressed to find job in the tech sector that is not partially funded by the more militant parts of the US government, and if they completed STEM studies in the US more likely than not that some of their grants and scholarships were funded by the DOD directly.
    - JackFr 11y ago
mathetic 11y ago
I have more than enough friends, even good friends, working for them. The answer is they are not political at all, the problems company working on appeal to them, and the pay is unmatched.
- mtbcoder 11y ago
  > and the pay is unmatched. Agreed, the cost of living is high in DC and these contractors are the only game in town who are going pay a person big bucks to create poorly written HTML. On a less sarcastic note, an average developer working for a gov contractor can receive a high salary which affords a very nice lifestyle in the DC area while still allowing them to save for retirement. This is something that is much more difficult to achieve or even impossible in the private sector. It's not surprising why defense contractors can attract fresh employees.
  - Bahamut 11y ago
    The caveat is you have to survive the bureaucracy, which is probably unmatched elsewhere. Just a month ago I visited DC and a contractor asked for help on some of his code...the JSP was quite cringeworthy, and I was amazed the contractor could not figure out what was a simple CSS issue. Even though I had lived in DC for about 4 years and started my development career there, it had finally clicked how old technology was in the government, along with the methods of development (I had never done any development for the government, although I've been on the receiving end of some very bad bugs on software created by contractors).
    - mosdave 11y ago
      > the JSP was quite cringeworthy not as cringeworthy as the fact that people are still using JSP. TIL
      - tamana 11y ago
        JSP is simple, functional, and has already survived longer than most trendy JS and Ruby frameworks ever will.
finid 11y ago
Maybe he's the CIA type, believes in what they do and considers working for them a badge of honor. There are many, many, many people just like that. You might as well be asking why people join the mob or why some women love mobsters.
strictnein 11y ago
This may surprise you but many people view the CIA/NSA/FBI as flawed government agencies that still do very important and necessary work.
lordCarbonFiber 11y ago
It may shock you, but, most people are fairly limited in terms of job options; this is especially true if they got their degree in a less relevant field (speaking as an electrical engineer by education). Maybe you're fine with being homeless and unemployed for some concept of ~values~ but Im not. I'm quite confident most people when given the choice of 'work for a morally questionable company vs be unemployed' will choose the former. Especially if the company in question is doing interesting work.
eip 11y ago
Ask the people who work at Google and Facebook.
PeCaN 11y ago
The problems seem really interesting. I'd work for them in a heartbeat. Some people just don't care about what the ends are used for. But more importantly, just because some of their stuff may be used for Big Evil™, most of it may also be used for good.
tn13 11y ago
Government as customer and near monopoly means you dont have to worry so much about job security.

sageabilly 11y ago

Money and prestige on a resume, plus the ability to work with really innovative technologies and projects. Plus, at least in DC, morality doesn't come into play for a lot of people when choosing who to work for because there are so many government contractors here that if morality came into it you'd automatically cull 60% [edit- 54.7%, see my comment downthread] of employers off your list.

SebKba 11y ago
Would you want to hire somebody who has worked at a company like that? I know a lot of people won't care but still.
bakhy 11y ago
60%? wow. people really don't put a high price on themselves.
- _drFaust 11y ago
  Let me have a turn at randomly pulling a statistic deep out of a recess in my rectal cavity. 99% of statistics are made up and 60% of the time they are accurate everytime.
  - sageabilly 11y ago
    You're right, that was a made-up statistic that I guessed on the spot. Government-financed jobs (private and public sector jobs financed directly by the government) make up 27.3% of employers in DC, 29.8% of employers in Virginia, and 15.9% of employers in Maryland[1]. Federal job share (how many jobs are working directly for the government) in DC is 27.4%, in Virginia it's 4.6%, and in Maryland it's 5.5%[2]. So if you live in DC 54.7% of employers are either the federal government itself or working for an employer that is financed directly by the government. I apologize for the rounding error in my made-up statistic earlier. [1]http://mercatus.org/publication/government-financed-employment-and-real-private-sector-50-states http://mercatus.org/publication/government-financed-employme... [2]http://www.governing.com/gov-data/federal-employees-workforce-numbers-by-state.html http://www.governing.com/gov-data/federal-employees-workforc...
    - _drFaust 11y ago
      And you are claiming that of the 54.7% government financed jobs, ALL have questionable morality. So Health and Human Services, Department of Ed., etc have the same morality check as working for the DoD? That is surely what you attempted to portray with the original comment. That if you want to check the morality at the door you can't work in ANY government financed occupation in the DC region. Having worked for a government consulting firm in DC, there was a line of business that received funding for social research projects to help inform and ultimately guide government initiatives to improve the welfare and education of certain demographics. This company would be included in your statistic, and there is no moral check needed for that work. While this is anecdotal, it's pretty obvious that a blanket statistic like yours cannot hold up.

dogma1138 11y ago

https://www.iqt.org/portfolio/ https://www.iqt.org/portfolio/ (CIA's investment arm) Also whats wrong with the CIA?

chinathrow 11y ago
It's torture program, isn't that enough?
fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
A lot of people are probably okay with the US having an organization that murders and tortures people, sabotages other sovereign nations' interests, and helps US corporations compete globally through espionage; but not one that does so much of it as the CIA. An organization like that needs to be neither seen nor heard, and it ought to be used infrequently enough that our country can ostensibly say that we only do those kinds when we have to. To turn your question on its head, what's not wrong with them? It's not controversial at all that there are many people who don't wish to work in the defense side of aerospace, or on other weapons tech, why would it be controversial that someone wouldn't want to work in intelligence. Some people take professional codes of ethics (or their own personal ethics) more seriously than others.
- dogma1138 11y ago
  Yeah but this is like 3rd degree the CIA also has invested in Facebook. The DOD is the largest provider of grants in the academia. And at the end various arms (quite often defense related) of the US public sectors are quite often one of the biggest investors and drivers behind new technologies. The valley could not exist without the USG and specifically without DOD money. While I completely understand people that say would not like to work on the next generation of guided missiles, one would be hard pressed to find job in the tech sector that is not partially funded by the more militant parts of the US government, and if they completed STEM studies in the US more likely than not that some of their grants and scholarships were funded by the DOD directly.
  - JackFr 11y ago

mathetic 11y ago

I have more than enough friends, even good friends, working for them. The answer is they are not political at all, the problems company working on appeal to them, and the pay is unmatched.

mtbcoder 11y ago
> and the pay is unmatched. Agreed, the cost of living is high in DC and these contractors are the only game in town who are going pay a person big bucks to create poorly written HTML. On a less sarcastic note, an average developer working for a gov contractor can receive a high salary which affords a very nice lifestyle in the DC area while still allowing them to save for retirement. This is something that is much more difficult to achieve or even impossible in the private sector. It's not surprising why defense contractors can attract fresh employees.
- Bahamut 11y ago
  The caveat is you have to survive the bureaucracy, which is probably unmatched elsewhere. Just a month ago I visited DC and a contractor asked for help on some of his code...the JSP was quite cringeworthy, and I was amazed the contractor could not figure out what was a simple CSS issue. Even though I had lived in DC for about 4 years and started my development career there, it had finally clicked how old technology was in the government, along with the methods of development (I had never done any development for the government, although I've been on the receiving end of some very bad bugs on software created by contractors).
  - mosdave 11y ago
    > the JSP was quite cringeworthy not as cringeworthy as the fact that people are still using JSP. TIL
    - tamana 11y ago
      JSP is simple, functional, and has already survived longer than most trendy JS and Ruby frameworks ever will.

finid 11y ago

Maybe he's the CIA type, believes in what they do and considers working for them a badge of honor. There are many, many, many people just like that. You might as well be asking why people join the mob or why some women love mobsters.

strictnein 11y ago

This may surprise you but many people view the CIA/NSA/FBI as flawed government agencies that still do very important and necessary work.

lordCarbonFiber 11y ago

It may shock you, but, most people are fairly limited in terms of job options; this is especially true if they got their degree in a less relevant field (speaking as an electrical engineer by education). Maybe you're fine with being homeless and unemployed for some concept of ~values~ but Im not. I'm quite confident most people when given the choice of 'work for a morally questionable company vs be unemployed' will choose the former. Especially if the company in question is doing interesting work.

eip 11y ago

Ask the people who work at Google and Facebook.

PeCaN 11y ago

The problems seem really interesting. I'd work for them in a heartbeat. Some people just don't care about what the ends are used for. But more importantly, just because some of their stuff may be used for Big Evil™, most of it may also be used for good.

tn13 11y ago

Government as customer and near monopoly means you dont have to worry so much about job security.