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It seems like it's pretty hard for the government to compete with private industry in compensation. Federal pay grades are capped by Congress, and the top grade

It seems like it's pretty hard for the government to compete with private industry in compensation. Federal pay grades are capped by Congress, and the top grade is around ~$150k a year [1]. And note that since it's the top of the scale, you have to start people off lower so that there is salary progression. Pretty sure a top cryptographer or security expert should be worth several times that, especially if they are also dealing with classified information and safeguarding all the data collection (e.g. if the NSA is going to spy on us, wouldn't you like that to be as secure as possible?). This is another reason why we're going to enter an era of corporate feudalism. There has been a cycle of: 1. perception of gov't incompetence 2. normal people ask 'why are we paying people so much for doing a bad job?' 3. gov't pay scales fall further behind private industry 4. rise in relative mediocrity 5. repeat I think voters largely don't realize how much competence actually costs in the market now and will vent about their justified perceptions of inequality by preventing equalization of pay between the gov't and private sectors, but that will paradoxically just make things worse in the long run as the private sector snaps up all the talent and we end up with a barely-functioning federal bureaucracy. [1] http://work.chron.com/nsa-pay-scale-16399.html http://work.chron.com/nsa-pay-scale-16399.html

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zitterbewegung 9y ago
The weird thing is that they have lowered their standard to hire. I don't see any PhD positions advertised as much as now they want to just higher Undergraduates. Maybe they figured out that they don't need any more math and its all exploit engineering and data collection?
qmalzp 9y ago
That top pay grade is less than the starting compensation for PhD's at the big tech co's. Not to mention free food, potential for career growth, and an open non-militaristic culture where you can wear a hoodie instead of a tie. I honestly don't understand why someone would work for the NSA given the choice.
- paloaltokid 9y ago
  Some people are genuinely patriotic.
  - 1001101 9y ago
    It's a requirement given the stringency of clearances. The article didn't touch on it, but since Binney/Snowden and revelations about the domestic focus, you may not have the same kind of recruitment/retention you would have otherwise in this demographic.
  - mindslight 9y ago
    You'd think the genuinely patriotic would avoid working for the NSA, since it apparently results in exile to Russia.
    - Codestare 9y ago
      He's not exiled? The US wants him back very much.
      - westmeal 9y ago
        (Presumably so they can kick his teeth in)
      - TheCoelacanth 9y ago
        To be unfairly tried in a trial where he won't even be allowed to argue to the jury that his actions were justified.
    - prewett 9y ago
      Generally breaking the law and seeking to escape the consequences has always resulted in effective exile, throughout history. In fact, how could it not? Would you like the law to be suspended in this case, but not in the case of people leaking secrets to China? Where's the difference? Is it just that what you like should be an exception? You could argue it was patriotic to break the law, but working for the NSA hardly forced him to break the law, nor did it force him to avoid the consequences. He could have been like Rosa Parks who accepted the consequences. Admittedly, hers were smaller in magnitude, but there are other options than what Snowden took.
bsilvereagle 9y ago
> 2. normal people ask 'why are we paying people so much for doing a bad job?' The problem is that a normal tax payer doesn't interact with the R&D scientific side of the government. To them, their local BMV office (state govt) is representative of the entire (state+federal) government bureaucracy. When reports of government pay leading/lagging private industry come out, their first thought is that BMV worker, not the PhD engineer building mine sweeping robots. The federal government doesn't make this any better by keeping NASA on GS tables. If NASA made the jump off the GS system (the Air Force and other DoD agencies have with lab-demo [1]), I think it would go a long way in separating scientist/engineer salaries from bureaucrat salaries. Once the separation is in place, you'd think it would be easier for the R&D pay tables to get higher bumps than the normal GS tables. OPM does have special pay tables for engineers at the lower end of the GS spectrum [2] so there is some precedent for giving scientists/engineers pay priority. The talks of a federal pay freeze in 2019 have not helped morale at all for the younger S&Es I know. It's miserable to get a 1.85% COLA increase when your peers get a 7-10% raise. Patriotism only carries you so far and it seems like the NSA is figuring this out the hard way. [1] http://www.wpafb.af.mil/Welcome/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/831901/afrl-air-force-laboratory-personnel-demonstration-project/ http://www.wpafb.af.mil/Welcome/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/... [2] https://apps.opm.gov/SpecialRates/2018/Table041401012018.aspx https://apps.opm.gov/SpecialRates/2018/Table041401012018.asp...
- aisofteng 9y ago
  BMV stands for Bureau of Motor Vehicles, and is called the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) in some states.
  - smhenderson 9y ago
    Or DOT, Deprtment of Transportion in others, e.g. PennDOT.
    - learc83 9y ago
      To make things even more confusing the DOT is sometimes separate from the DMV, and sometimes not. In Georgia we have the DOT that handles road construction etc..., and the Department of Driver Services that handles drivers licenses.
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speby 9y ago
No one cares about government pay scales. You don't have to work FOR the government to work for the government. Many top NSA specialists work for contractor firms and do earn tremendous compensation from their employers. Those employers contract with our government for totally uncapped contract sums. Obviously the contracts have to be reviewed for budget and capex limitations but otherwise no such thing as a salary cap would be imposed on the various "consultants" or "contractors" coming in from a vendor.
- vonmoltke 9y ago
  > Those employers contract with our government for totally uncapped contract sums. No, they don't. Billing rates are fixed based on the experience and education levels of the people working on the contract. If the government says they won't pay more than, say, $250/hour for a security expert that is all the contractor is going to get, and that in turn limits the amount the contractor can make. Pay at government contractors is better than the government itself, but it is still shit compared to the rest of the tech industry. This is particularly true when you look at variable compensation (which is virtually nonexistent in government contractor land).
  - irishcoffee 9y ago
    You have glossed over and simplified how contracts and billing rates work, your synopsis is not accurate.
    - mturmon 9y ago
      You have been down voted, but your observation is correct, and the parent comment is misleading as to rates. Source: I’m a government contractor and line manager.
      - vonmoltke 9y ago
        I worked for government contractors for almost 15 years (until October 2016) and participated in proposal efforts ranging from $750k SBIRs to a $1B+ multi-year prime contract for a radar system. Every one had established billing rates for labor, based on the type of employee rendering the labor. How is this misleading?
jedanbik 9y ago
That’s the thing about working for the government. You’ll never make more money than the president.
- gaius 9y ago
  In the UK it’s not unusual for the head of a local council (running a city or a county) to make more than the PM. University chancellors make even more.
  - peoplewindow 9y ago
    Yes but pay for both is a topic of frequent controversy. Does anyone really think it's harder to find a university chancellor, or that it requires more skill and time, than being prime minister? Or is it the result of correspondingly greater monitoring and accountability on politician's salaries vs the essentially unaccountable university system?
Spooky23 9y ago
I think they are a victim of their own success. They had a good thing going, especially when the DC region was basically an army of clerks and was affordable. They made a little bit more than than average Federal employee and had nice benefits and retirement — a good gig. Now there’s no way to pay a government employee market rate without a scandal. The public views government employees as conniving sloths, but doesn’t understand that they pay 3x for a contractor (including sales, legal, compliance, risk premium, profit).
- perl4ever 9y ago
  My experience at a federal contractor suggested the main cost was probably due to lack of communication. Due government clients (sensibly) not trusting the contractor, there are extreme efforts at oversight, and that makes the people at the lowest levels cynical, because they're just ordinary people trying to do a decent job and the management slightly above them seems to see their mission as preventing any information from passing to/from their clients because it equates to risk. A government employee could waste 2/3 of their time and still get more done because of the cost of coordinating with others when you're external.
wavefunction 9y ago
70% of the NSA's budget goes to private defense contracting firms: https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/private-contractors-play-key-role-in-us-intelligence-work/ https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/private-contractor...
JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> if the NSA is going to spy on us, wouldn't you like that to be as secure as possible? I have a friend who worked for the NSA. We had a heart to heart over drinks about a year ago. She asked what I thought about her working there. I responded, honestly, that if I didn't know her personally I'd be starting to wonder if she was, for whatever reason, unable to pass muster at Google et cetera. Not the best decision to drop that after a day of drinking together. But I'm glad I did--it was apparently the nudge she needed to quit. Going to work and feeling like you're working on secret, cutting edge kit with the smartest people in the country is tremendously important to many people. The NSA lots its veneer of whiz kids confidentially cracking codes for good with Snowden. It now feels like another federal bureaucracy. Postscript: She now works in the private sector and is thrilled with how much closer to her intelligence her new colleagues are. If you work for the NSA and are not a numpty, you're selling yourself short.
- username223 9y ago
  > if I didn't know her personally I'd be starting to wonder if she was, for whatever reason, unable to pass muster at Google et cetera. Not the best decision to drop that after a day of drinking together. But I'm glad I did--it was apparently the nudge she needed to quit. So she stopped being an indirect servant of popular will, and started selling ads. Great. > She now works in the private sector and is thrilled with how much closer to her intelligence her new colleagues are. Not only richer, but less moral and more likely to pat herself on the back. Even better.
  - SamReidHughes 9y ago
    Ads are incredibly useful and have prevented trillions of dollars of waste.
    - username223 9y ago
      And sold cigarettes. Don't forget that.
  - jstanley 9y ago
TheCondor 9y ago
That’s the top pay grade on the gs scale, there are special rates schedules and exceptions for specialists. NIH has Dual MD and research PhDs on payroll, those are unicorns... (I know a mid to top tier research university that has to start offers at over $700k for those, they don’t hardly exist, and that’s a university, they don’t make products) Nih doesn’t pay them GS rates either. NIST doesn’t pay gs rates. NSA could certainly do it too, and almost certainly does, it'd be difficult to live near hq on gs pay. It still might be challenging to get a decent raise short of leaving for competition though. Pay is very easy to address in the grand scheme, the work environment, the politics at many levels, the organization, the idea that you could and will go to prison if you were to violate a policy or blow a whistle, inability to talk with your spouse, peers, or even coworkers about work, etc.. those things are hard and they probably suck there.
- GlenTheMachine 9y ago
  I am a civil servant. There are special pay scales for scientists and engineers, but they are still capped by law at the top end at the same level as the GS scale. In the DC area last year that was $166,000. I am not aware of any exceptions to the law, unless you mean the Special Executive Service. You can - eventually - make it into the Special Executive Service (SES), which pays somewhat higher (around $200k per year, depending on specifics). But that typically takes 20+ years of service and is reserved to less than 1% of the total workforce of a lab or agency. It is extremely rare for someone to be hired directly into the SES, unless that person is a presidential appointee. Which means that under ordinary circumstances, my lab cannot offer a Nobel Laureate more than $200,000 per year.
  - ENOTTY 9y ago
    That simply isn't true. Via fedsdatacenter.com, the highest paid employee of a federal government agency earns $403,849. Note that this dataset excludes sensitive government agencies. https://i.imgur.com/bgFxOkh.png https://i.imgur.com/bgFxOkh.png
    - GlenTheMachine 9y ago
ransom1538 9y ago
"Federal pay grades are capped by Congress, and the top grade is around ~$150k a year [1]." If you make over $80k a year -- you are doing well in NSA [i]. The 150k number is pretty much fantasy land. With NSA on your resume I am sure a penetration testing firm would love to have you at 100k. https://www.indeed.com/cmp/NSA/salaries https://www.indeed.com/cmp/NSA/salaries
- rdtsc 9y ago
  Interesting. The highest one there is "Clinical Psychologist" at $110k sure it must be a joke or it's a different NSA than the one we are talking about. Or maybe that's "the polygraph" department.
marco_salvatori 9y ago
> if the NSA is going to spy on us, wouldn't you like that to be as secure as possible? If I was an American, I would deny the premis. If the NSA is going to spy on you, wouldnt you like your fellow country men to refuse to work for them.
- steveeq1 9y ago
  So much this. I often wonder if I'm the only person on this list that wouldn't work for them simply because I feel its WRONG.
Balgair 9y ago
A sibling got a fellowship to the other NSA, the NNSA (National Nuclear Security Admin). Arguably, a much smaller though important Admin too. Their time in the fellowship resulted in mostly the same: Google pays more. So ALL of the last 8 years of fellows have gone off to private from gov. The fellowship is really good money for grad school, about 36k, and you get good interning in the various national labs and good-ish mentoring (if you want it). My sibling was telling me about the dinners though, a real hoot. The old grey-beards from the pre-Apollo days really are clueless as to why all the fellows are leaving for the tech companies. They really just cannot understand why 'millenials' don't want to do the work. My sibling had to inform them that many (likely all) of the candidates are lying on their applications when they say that nuclear security is important to them. In addition to that, the ability to make more money, not have a black hole on the ol resume, and be able to talk about their job to a Tonder date are important. From what I was told, Tinder really blew their minds (pun not intended). I guess they don't get out from behind the fence much?
- itronitron 9y ago
  Yeah, I expect that the only tech companies still around from when the grey-beards first hired on include AT&T and Apple who now makes phones for AT&T.
eadmund 9y ago
The problem is that we can (and should!) raise government pay scales, but we must also make it easier to fire people (or manage them downwards) for incompetence. Government work is for two types of people (and there's some overlap on the Euler diagram): patriots, and folks who can't hack it in civilian life. It's not just a 'perception of gov't incompetence': it's a widespread phenomenon. Government employees tend to excel at working organisational politics (i.e., in serving their organisational customers) rather than in serving their taxpaying customers. Government work is a kind of kabuki theatre, in which everyone agrees to praise the emperor's new clothes and ignore the boy who points out that he's naked. The unfortunate thing is that government work is really important: it requires the best and the brightest, not the lazy and the uninspired. Patriotism should of course be a sine qua non for the civil service, but so should excellence. We should pay market rates, but we should pay them for market quality. Raising rates without working to improve quality would mean getting mutton when we pay for lamb.
- latch 9y ago
  I agree. I don't know if this is a problem in the US, but something else worth mentioning is that for many jobs, public sectors pay much more (higher pay, better pensions, more sick leave, better job security, ...). So it isn't just about firing people for incompetence. [1] If the govt should be increasing pay to match market rates, then it should also be decreasing pay to match market rates. [1] https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/comparing-government-and-private-sector-compensation-in-ontario-2017 https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/comparing-government...
  - metaphor 9y ago
    > I don't know if this is a problem in the US... With respect to STEM career fields, that's a gratuitous no. For an idea of what a grunt GS-12/13 engineer's salary in Silicon Valley (highest locality adjustment in the country) looks like, see [1]; management is at GS-14/15 level. For the sake of completeness, other locality rates can be found here[2]. Keep in mind that it takes 18 years to progress from Step 1 to Step 10. Not all federal organizations apply the GS scale (the NSA may be one), but they don't deviate far from it either. [1] https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/salary-tables/18Tables/html/SF.aspx https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries... [2] https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/2018/general-schedule/ https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries...
duxup 9y ago
Not just the cost of competence, but the cost of SUCCESS too. Lots of highly competent people out there in the market making big market wages ... and they fail all the time. Even just paying isn't enough.
pimlottc 9y ago
NB, that article is slightly out of date, the current top rate for GS-15 step 10 in the DC area is $161,900: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/salary-tables/17Tables/html/DCB.aspx https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries...
eksemplar 9y ago
I work in the public sector, in Denmark, but I think a lot of the myths around public IT are just that, myths. We have some of the best talent in our country. We pay them less, but a lot of people prefer working in the public sector for a variety of reasons. Some are idealists who want to build a better society, others like the flexible hours and the paid sick leave for their children, others again like the relative stability or safety or the fact that they get to work on big projects. I think the bad image comes from the fact that our scandals are public. When the banking sector does a big project that fails you typically won't hear about it. When the government fails, you'll be reading news articles, blogposts and the likes as well as having researchers from prominent universities trying to pour their take on what the government needs (typically to ask said researchers). The public sector does fail more though. I think there was a study in the 00's that showed around 75% failures on major IT systems in the private sector and around 85-90% in the public sector. But then we have to digitize an un-digitizable law, so I think this is only natural. In my municipality we don't do complete failures often, but we don't always succeed in implementing as successful as we wanted, leading to a lack of benefit realization. That being said, we operate around 370 different systems 50-70 of which we've build ourselves, and most of these are working fine. I think I'm a nice example. I get headhunter a lot, and I could be making a lot more money in the private sector, but I prefer the public sector because I have Children and since my job comes with paid lunch breaks I work two and a half hours less per week. On top of that, I'm not expected to work 40-50 hours a week despite being in management. I sometimes still do, but then it's typically for interesting projects such as heading the digital voter registration process during elections. This may be very different in America, but I suspect that the NSA would be able to attract the best of the best on image alone.
- Johnny555 9y ago
  We have some of the best talent in our country. I worked for a well known (in this area) science non-profit agency, and while we did attract good talent, after I moved to the private sector (and literally earning twice the salary) that I found much more brilliant people working at the high paid private sector jobs. So while I agree that public sector jobs can attract good people, I think that most of the best people are in the private sector where they can earn more money.
100pctremote 9y ago
DOE national laboratories (LANL, LLNL, etc) must compete with private industry and large universities. They are successful at this because the DOE awards contracts for the management of each lab to outside entities such as Johnson Controls, University of California, Lockheed Martin, etc.
kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
Not to worry. There are plenty of contractors in this space providing competitive salaries beyond government pay scales. NSA can still sub out much of its work to them and the taxpayers get to prop up more middlemen.
BinaryIdiot 9y ago
> It seems like it's pretty hard for the government to compete with private industry in compensation. Federal pay grades are capped by Congress, and the top grade is around ~$150k a year [1]. And note that since it's the top of the scale, you have to start people off lower so that there is salary progression. I feel like this has to be the biggest issue. When I worked in the DoD space as a constractor the amount of clearance required to work in an NSA SCIF would net a contractor a base of $160k a year (with benefits as you'd be working for a contracting company). With government employees making less to manage or do the same job as contractors, why would you stay on as a government employee? Most of the government employees I knew ended up transitioning to private companies.
- Rebelgecko 9y ago
  I think the 2 main reasons to stick around long term would be the pension and getting 6+ weeks off a year. Not many private employers do that, and I imagine it is a huge boon for retention.
  - BinaryIdiot 9y ago
    Hmm yeah fair point. We had about the same time off (I worked at 3 different companies one that had less, One the same and one “unlimited” vacation) but I bet the pension is a big one.
    - walshemj 9y ago
      but it is open to political risk and you have to forgo any equity participation
SilasX 9y ago
For a fair comparison, you’d need to include federal pensions, which are very generous compare to what you’d have to earn to get that annuity with your own savings.
kamaal 9y ago
>>It seems like it's pretty hard for the government to compete with private industry in compensation. Pension, and other retirement benefits are awesome though. Over a period of time that actually makes up for everything else.
caloon 9y ago
I think this does not tell the whole story. I will show you three countries that are outperforming the vast majority of countries and why: - Switzerland: Switzerland is undoubtedly one of the richest countries. I contribute this largely to the fact that they have a direct democracy. All laws are voted upon by the people which makes lobbying much harder. Who profits from lobbying? Almost exclusively BigCos. - Singapore: Singapore pays it’s top officials a competitive salary. The Prime Minister earns close to 2m dollars. As a result, Singapore attracts higher qualified staff for state positions. - Estonia: Estonia’s growth since its independence some 25 years ago has outperformed nearly every Eastern European country. The reasons for this growth are their lean government, a high degree of digitalisation (nearly all government services can be accessed online), and an innovative culture at the state level. In brief, a lot of the inefficiencies in government agencies come down to the facts that in many countries these agencies are intensively lobbied, risk-averse and - as stated by you - do not reward performance (i.e. efficiency improvements and innovation).
- peoplewindow 9y ago
  Well that depends how you define lobbying. I live in Switzerland and referendums very frequently have large advertising campaigns attached to them - sometimes unopposed (that is, there is no noticeable advertising campaign for one of the options). There is definitely money in politics. Of course that is not necessarily a bad thing. The adverts alert people to an upcoming vote they may find interesting, primarily. Also Switzerland is notoriously bureaucratic. Even very simple tasks require visits to one of the many, many small government offices that dot the landscape and each interaction always costs hundreds of dollars ... even when the act itself is basically "print out a piece of paper and give it to you". But I fully agree that direct democracy creates better quality of government in general.
- myaso 9y ago
  The populations of these countries is significantly smaller than the US. Apples and oranges dude, things are always simpler when your bureaucracy doesn't have to cover 330m people -- you get a combinatorial explosion from all the additional interests and incentives with a larger population. Your points sound like they come from a bad econ textbook or a collation from poor reporting -- I know I heard them somewhere before.
justonepost 9y ago
Does that count for contractors as well? I don't think so.
erikb 9y ago
Government wants to have two kinds of people: The mediocre slackers, because they usually don't break stuff, and people who really believe in what the government stands for. Both are coming to you independent of having the best pay or not. Therefore I think government jobs shouldn't even compete on pay. In some areas they are higher than the free market though, and this is actually weird.
wolfgke 9y ago
> It seems like it's pretty hard for the government to compete with private industry in compensation. Federal pay grades are capped by Congress, and the top grade is around ~$150k a year [1]. And note that since it's the top of the scale, you have to start people off lower so that there is salary progression. > Pretty sure a top cryptographer or security expert should be worth several times that, especially if they are also dealing with classified information and safeguarding all the data collection (e.g. if the NSA is going to spy on us, wouldn't you like that to be as secure as possible?). I don't want to deny your argument, but as I often write on HN, the "interesting salary metric" is not the salary per se but "salary minus cost of living [in the respective region where you work]". I would bet that the costs of living are much lower near Fort George G. Meade than in the Bay Area.
ptero 9y ago
> It seems like it's pretty hard for the government to compete with private industry in compensation But you should not compare compensation for the top tech experts. It is not in general the function of the government to develop technology. There are some exceptions (for which there are opportunities for sweetening the pot), but in general government manages things, buying tech when needed. Majority of it's bureaucrats are very expensive, non-fireable paper pushers. Non-fireabilitg leads to a huge waste. Raising the GS rates will make government even more expensive. To fix things you need to completely reorg promotions, allow for easy firing, do a RIF and give those remaining significantly more authority and autonomy. Current schedule is pretty generous already once you factor additional pay scale multipliers and benefits. And if you must raise pay for top tech, at least go for the NH schedule, not GS. My 2c.
- GlenTheMachine 9y ago
  "But you should not compare compensation for the top tech experts. It is not in general the function of the government to develop technology." I disagree. The US Government is the single largest investor in R&D in the country, and does much of that R&D work in house. The National Institutes of Health, by itself, does the vast majority of basic and applied biomedical research in the US. That research feeds commercial R&D. The commercial guys can't afford to do the decades worth of basic research needed before a new medical treatment can be tested in human subjects. NASA, DOE, and DoD research labs basically invented the modern world. NASA and DoD developed spaceflight, satellites, satcomm, GPS, and digital computer networking. NASA was the single biggest purchaser of, and investor in, integrated circuits right up to about 1970. NASA did much, if not most, of the grunt work to make commercial aviation safe enough to be commercially viable. The US Navy did much of the early research work in radio, due to the need to communicate with a worldwide fleet, and is co-listed with MIT as the primary US innovators in radar.
lr4444lr 9y ago
Compensation is not all about salary. Protected work hours, due process protection, job stability, and the honor of helping safeguard your country are motivators too.
Shivetya 9y ago
there are over two million civil servants at the Federal level and combine that with nearly twenty million at state and local levels it is easy for people to think they spend too much on government which in turn prevents the ability of government to spend more money on salaries of those who are truly that valuable. so the first step is to pare down civil employment so that the general populace feels that they are getting a good investment. government needs to start selling itself on being a good investment instead of a jobs program. its not hard for the general populace to get this idea when there is news all the time about bloated pensions and high debt in their cities and states because of government pensions. so since the 60s the size of government at all levels has tripled where the population hasn't. part of the explosion and state and local levels is from Congress funneling money to hire people outside of the Federal level but instead at local. then when the funding dries up the jobs tend to stay anyway
mathattack 9y ago
Specific to NSA, we're also in a time when their skills happen to be in enormous demand. Crypto is hot, having NSA/CIA on your resume is great for starting a security startup, and the math experts can reposition themselves as data scientists. For a comparison, in the 90s Singapore tried targeting a rate of 2/3 of private salaries for their public servants. I haven't seen evidence that this is still a format target, but their public services are fantastic. (Of course it's a small island country, so hard to compare with larger places)
youdontknowtho 9y ago
I agree with the point that as long as wages are down for the majority of voters it will be almost impossible to get government pay in line with high-end private sector jobs.
crispyambulance 9y ago
> Pretty sure a top cryptographer or security expert should be worth several times that [~150K x several times] On the other hand, I often wonder whether folks who are pulling in nearly a half million dollars in compensation in the private sector (as individual contributors) are really worth that much or if they're just benefiting from a relatively temporary windfall caused by scarcity in tech talent. Keep in mind that government salaries still do come with decently good benefits and vastly more job security than start-ups. That is attractive to lots of people especially late in their careers. Cutting edge IT-related positions aside, non-cutting edge jobs in government do not face such stark competition with the private sector.
wdn 9y ago
The problem is not the pay, it is the pay grade. If you are a GS 11, you will get a GS11 pay regardless of your responsibility. And since this is union, you performance has nothing to do with what you will be paid.
wang_li 9y ago
>It seems like it's pretty hard for the government to compete with private industry in compensation. Federal pay grades are capped by Congress, and the top grade is around ~$150k a year [1]. And note that since it's the top of the scale, you have to start people off lower so that there is salary progression. For the kind of work that some divisions of the NSA does, it's the only place you can do it legally. If that's your passion and you don't want to risk fines and jail time, well you have to take the pay disadvantage.
deleted 9y ago
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pixelpp 9y ago
"how much competence actually costs in the market now". This was a beautiful statement! I have worked with sooooooo many incompetent "leaders". I left my last role because the guy at the top was a phony, and did not have the emotional intelligence to control his arrogance, so he looked like a god damn fool in every meeting.
bkeroack 9y ago
Imagine seriously believing that guaranteed lifetime employment, very generous pension and health benefits (unheard of in the private sector), a well-defined career ladder as well as a six figure salary somehow aren't enough. Out of the other side of your mouth claim that these people are public servants selflessly working for the good of all. The reality is that the compensation package for government workers primarily appeals to those with average to mediocre ability and a strong aversion to risk (often also a tolerance for boring, repetitive work and/or bureaucratic infighting). When was the last time you met a bright, creative superstar working at your local DMV office? That's why the US Digital Service is actually a pretty good idea. Tours of duty are preferable to lifetime career hires. I'd like to see much more of the federal government adopt that model.
imgabe 9y ago
The work around is you go work for a defense contractor who pays you the market rate and that contractor charges the government 3-5x that.
scottlocklin 9y ago
Contractors do most of the real work. See Ed Snowden for example.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

zitterbewegung 9y ago

The weird thing is that they have lowered their standard to hire. I don't see any PhD positions advertised as much as now they want to just higher Undergraduates. Maybe they figured out that they don't need any more math and its all exploit engineering and data collection?

qmalzp 9y ago

That top pay grade is less than the starting compensation for PhD's at the big tech co's. Not to mention free food, potential for career growth, and an open non-militaristic culture where you can wear a hoodie instead of a tie. I honestly don't understand why someone would work for the NSA given the choice.

paloaltokid 9y ago
Some people are genuinely patriotic.
- 1001101 9y ago
  It's a requirement given the stringency of clearances. The article didn't touch on it, but since Binney/Snowden and revelations about the domestic focus, you may not have the same kind of recruitment/retention you would have otherwise in this demographic.
- mindslight 9y ago
  You'd think the genuinely patriotic would avoid working for the NSA, since it apparently results in exile to Russia.
  - Codestare 9y ago
    He's not exiled? The US wants him back very much.
    - westmeal 9y ago
      (Presumably so they can kick his teeth in)
    - TheCoelacanth 9y ago
      To be unfairly tried in a trial where he won't even be allowed to argue to the jury that his actions were justified.
  - prewett 9y ago
    Generally breaking the law and seeking to escape the consequences has always resulted in effective exile, throughout history. In fact, how could it not? Would you like the law to be suspended in this case, but not in the case of people leaking secrets to China? Where's the difference? Is it just that what you like should be an exception? You could argue it was patriotic to break the law, but working for the NSA hardly forced him to break the law, nor did it force him to avoid the consequences. He could have been like Rosa Parks who accepted the consequences. Admittedly, hers were smaller in magnitude, but there are other options than what Snowden took.

bsilvereagle 9y ago

> 2. normal people ask 'why are we paying people so much for doing a bad job?' The problem is that a normal tax payer doesn't interact with the R&D scientific side of the government. To them, their local BMV office (state govt) is representative of the entire (state+federal) government bureaucracy. When reports of government pay leading/lagging private industry come out, their first thought is that BMV worker, not the PhD engineer building mine sweeping robots. The federal government doesn't make this any better by keeping NASA on GS tables. If NASA made the jump off the GS system (the Air Force and other DoD agencies have with lab-demo [1]), I think it would go a long way in separating scientist/engineer salaries from bureaucrat salaries. Once the separation is in place, you'd think it would be easier for the R&D pay tables to get higher bumps than the normal GS tables. OPM does have special pay tables for engineers at the lower end of the GS spectrum [2] so there is some precedent for giving scientists/engineers pay priority. The talks of a federal pay freeze in 2019 have not helped morale at all for the younger S&Es I know. It's miserable to get a 1.85% COLA increase when your peers get a 7-10% raise. Patriotism only carries you so far and it seems like the NSA is figuring this out the hard way. [1] http://www.wpafb.af.mil/Welcome/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/831901/afrl-air-force-laboratory-personnel-demonstration-project/ http://www.wpafb.af.mil/Welcome/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/... [2] https://apps.opm.gov/SpecialRates/2018/Table041401012018.aspx https://apps.opm.gov/SpecialRates/2018/Table041401012018.asp...

aisofteng 9y ago
BMV stands for Bureau of Motor Vehicles, and is called the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) in some states.
- smhenderson 9y ago
  Or DOT, Deprtment of Transportion in others, e.g. PennDOT.
  - learc83 9y ago
    To make things even more confusing the DOT is sometimes separate from the DMV, and sometimes not. In Georgia we have the DOT that handles road construction etc..., and the Department of Driver Services that handles drivers licenses.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

speby 9y ago

No one cares about government pay scales. You don't have to work FOR the government to work for the government. Many top NSA specialists work for contractor firms and do earn tremendous compensation from their employers. Those employers contract with our government for totally uncapped contract sums. Obviously the contracts have to be reviewed for budget and capex limitations but otherwise no such thing as a salary cap would be imposed on the various "consultants" or "contractors" coming in from a vendor.

vonmoltke 9y ago
> Those employers contract with our government for totally uncapped contract sums. No, they don't. Billing rates are fixed based on the experience and education levels of the people working on the contract. If the government says they won't pay more than, say, $250/hour for a security expert that is all the contractor is going to get, and that in turn limits the amount the contractor can make. Pay at government contractors is better than the government itself, but it is still shit compared to the rest of the tech industry. This is particularly true when you look at variable compensation (which is virtually nonexistent in government contractor land).
- irishcoffee 9y ago
  You have glossed over and simplified how contracts and billing rates work, your synopsis is not accurate.
  - mturmon 9y ago
    You have been down voted, but your observation is correct, and the parent comment is misleading as to rates. Source: I’m a government contractor and line manager.
    - vonmoltke 9y ago
      I worked for government contractors for almost 15 years (until October 2016) and participated in proposal efforts ranging from $750k SBIRs to a $1B+ multi-year prime contract for a radar system. Every one had established billing rates for labor, based on the type of employee rendering the labor. How is this misleading?

jedanbik 9y ago

That’s the thing about working for the government. You’ll never make more money than the president.

gaius 9y ago
In the UK it’s not unusual for the head of a local council (running a city or a county) to make more than the PM. University chancellors make even more.
- peoplewindow 9y ago
  Yes but pay for both is a topic of frequent controversy. Does anyone really think it's harder to find a university chancellor, or that it requires more skill and time, than being prime minister? Or is it the result of correspondingly greater monitoring and accountability on politician's salaries vs the essentially unaccountable university system?

Spooky23 9y ago

I think they are a victim of their own success. They had a good thing going, especially when the DC region was basically an army of clerks and was affordable. They made a little bit more than than average Federal employee and had nice benefits and retirement — a good gig. Now there’s no way to pay a government employee market rate without a scandal. The public views government employees as conniving sloths, but doesn’t understand that they pay 3x for a contractor (including sales, legal, compliance, risk premium, profit).

perl4ever 9y ago
My experience at a federal contractor suggested the main cost was probably due to lack of communication. Due government clients (sensibly) not trusting the contractor, there are extreme efforts at oversight, and that makes the people at the lowest levels cynical, because they're just ordinary people trying to do a decent job and the management slightly above them seems to see their mission as preventing any information from passing to/from their clients because it equates to risk. A government employee could waste 2/3 of their time and still get more done because of the cost of coordinating with others when you're external.

wavefunction 9y ago

70% of the NSA's budget goes to private defense contracting firms: https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/private-contractors-play-key-role-in-us-intelligence-work/ https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/private-contractor...

JumpCrisscross 9y ago

> if the NSA is going to spy on us, wouldn't you like that to be as secure as possible? I have a friend who worked for the NSA. We had a heart to heart over drinks about a year ago. She asked what I thought about her working there. I responded, honestly, that if I didn't know her personally I'd be starting to wonder if she was, for whatever reason, unable to pass muster at Google et cetera. Not the best decision to drop that after a day of drinking together. But I'm glad I did--it was apparently the nudge she needed to quit. Going to work and feeling like you're working on secret, cutting edge kit with the smartest people in the country is tremendously important to many people. The NSA lots its veneer of whiz kids confidentially cracking codes for good with Snowden. It now feels like another federal bureaucracy. Postscript: She now works in the private sector and is thrilled with how much closer to her intelligence her new colleagues are. If you work for the NSA and are not a numpty, you're selling yourself short.

username223 9y ago
> if I didn't know her personally I'd be starting to wonder if she was, for whatever reason, unable to pass muster at Google et cetera. Not the best decision to drop that after a day of drinking together. But I'm glad I did--it was apparently the nudge she needed to quit. So she stopped being an indirect servant of popular will, and started selling ads. Great. > She now works in the private sector and is thrilled with how much closer to her intelligence her new colleagues are. Not only richer, but less moral and more likely to pat herself on the back. Even better.
- SamReidHughes 9y ago
  Ads are incredibly useful and have prevented trillions of dollars of waste.
  - username223 9y ago
    And sold cigarettes. Don't forget that.
- jstanley 9y ago

TheCondor 9y ago

That’s the top pay grade on the gs scale, there are special rates schedules and exceptions for specialists. NIH has Dual MD and research PhDs on payroll, those are unicorns... (I know a mid to top tier research university that has to start offers at over $700k for those, they don’t hardly exist, and that’s a university, they don’t make products) Nih doesn’t pay them GS rates either. NIST doesn’t pay gs rates. NSA could certainly do it too, and almost certainly does, it'd be difficult to live near hq on gs pay. It still might be challenging to get a decent raise short of leaving for competition though. Pay is very easy to address in the grand scheme, the work environment, the politics at many levels, the organization, the idea that you could and will go to prison if you were to violate a policy or blow a whistle, inability to talk with your spouse, peers, or even coworkers about work, etc.. those things are hard and they probably suck there.

GlenTheMachine 9y ago
I am a civil servant. There are special pay scales for scientists and engineers, but they are still capped by law at the top end at the same level as the GS scale. In the DC area last year that was $166,000. I am not aware of any exceptions to the law, unless you mean the Special Executive Service. You can - eventually - make it into the Special Executive Service (SES), which pays somewhat higher (around $200k per year, depending on specifics). But that typically takes 20+ years of service and is reserved to less than 1% of the total workforce of a lab or agency. It is extremely rare for someone to be hired directly into the SES, unless that person is a presidential appointee. Which means that under ordinary circumstances, my lab cannot offer a Nobel Laureate more than $200,000 per year.
- ENOTTY 9y ago
  That simply isn't true. Via fedsdatacenter.com, the highest paid employee of a federal government agency earns $403,849. Note that this dataset excludes sensitive government agencies. https://i.imgur.com/bgFxOkh.png https://i.imgur.com/bgFxOkh.png
  - GlenTheMachine 9y ago

ransom1538 9y ago

"Federal pay grades are capped by Congress, and the top grade is around ~$150k a year [1]." If you make over $80k a year -- you are doing well in NSA [i]. The 150k number is pretty much fantasy land. With NSA on your resume I am sure a penetration testing firm would love to have you at 100k. https://www.indeed.com/cmp/NSA/salaries https://www.indeed.com/cmp/NSA/salaries

rdtsc 9y ago
Interesting. The highest one there is "Clinical Psychologist" at $110k sure it must be a joke or it's a different NSA than the one we are talking about. Or maybe that's "the polygraph" department.

marco_salvatori 9y ago

> if the NSA is going to spy on us, wouldn't you like that to be as secure as possible? If I was an American, I would deny the premis. If the NSA is going to spy on you, wouldnt you like your fellow country men to refuse to work for them.

steveeq1 9y ago
So much this. I often wonder if I'm the only person on this list that wouldn't work for them simply because I feel its WRONG.

Balgair 9y ago

A sibling got a fellowship to the other NSA, the NNSA (National Nuclear Security Admin). Arguably, a much smaller though important Admin too. Their time in the fellowship resulted in mostly the same: Google pays more. So ALL of the last 8 years of fellows have gone off to private from gov. The fellowship is really good money for grad school, about 36k, and you get good interning in the various national labs and good-ish mentoring (if you want it). My sibling was telling me about the dinners though, a real hoot. The old grey-beards from the pre-Apollo days really are clueless as to why all the fellows are leaving for the tech companies. They really just cannot understand why 'millenials' don't want to do the work. My sibling had to inform them that many (likely all) of the candidates are lying on their applications when they say that nuclear security is important to them. In addition to that, the ability to make more money, not have a black hole on the ol resume, and be able to talk about their job to a Tonder date are important. From what I was told, Tinder really blew their minds (pun not intended). I guess they don't get out from behind the fence much?

itronitron 9y ago
Yeah, I expect that the only tech companies still around from when the grey-beards first hired on include AT&T and Apple who now makes phones for AT&T.

eadmund 9y ago

The problem is that we can (and should!) raise government pay scales, but we must also make it easier to fire people (or manage them downwards) for incompetence. Government work is for two types of people (and there's some overlap on the Euler diagram): patriots, and folks who can't hack it in civilian life. It's not just a 'perception of gov't incompetence': it's a widespread phenomenon. Government employees tend to excel at working organisational politics (i.e., in serving their organisational customers) rather than in serving their taxpaying customers. Government work is a kind of kabuki theatre, in which everyone agrees to praise the emperor's new clothes and ignore the boy who points out that he's naked. The unfortunate thing is that government work is really important: it requires the best and the brightest, not the lazy and the uninspired. Patriotism should of course be a sine qua non for the civil service, but so should excellence. We should pay market rates, but we should pay them for market quality. Raising rates without working to improve quality would mean getting mutton when we pay for lamb.

latch 9y ago
I agree. I don't know if this is a problem in the US, but something else worth mentioning is that for many jobs, public sectors pay much more (higher pay, better pensions, more sick leave, better job security, ...). So it isn't just about firing people for incompetence. [1] If the govt should be increasing pay to match market rates, then it should also be decreasing pay to match market rates. [1] https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/comparing-government-and-private-sector-compensation-in-ontario-2017 https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/comparing-government...
- metaphor 9y ago
  > I don't know if this is a problem in the US... With respect to STEM career fields, that's a gratuitous no. For an idea of what a grunt GS-12/13 engineer's salary in Silicon Valley (highest locality adjustment in the country) looks like, see [1]; management is at GS-14/15 level. For the sake of completeness, other locality rates can be found here[2]. Keep in mind that it takes 18 years to progress from Step 1 to Step 10. Not all federal organizations apply the GS scale (the NSA may be one), but they don't deviate far from it either. [1] https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/salary-tables/18Tables/html/SF.aspx https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries... [2] https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/2018/general-schedule/ https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries...

duxup 9y ago

Not just the cost of competence, but the cost of SUCCESS too. Lots of highly competent people out there in the market making big market wages ... and they fail all the time. Even just paying isn't enough.

pimlottc 9y ago

NB, that article is slightly out of date, the current top rate for GS-15 step 10 in the DC area is $161,900: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/salary-tables/17Tables/html/DCB.aspx https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries...

eksemplar 9y ago

I work in the public sector, in Denmark, but I think a lot of the myths around public IT are just that, myths. We have some of the best talent in our country. We pay them less, but a lot of people prefer working in the public sector for a variety of reasons. Some are idealists who want to build a better society, others like the flexible hours and the paid sick leave for their children, others again like the relative stability or safety or the fact that they get to work on big projects. I think the bad image comes from the fact that our scandals are public. When the banking sector does a big project that fails you typically won't hear about it. When the government fails, you'll be reading news articles, blogposts and the likes as well as having researchers from prominent universities trying to pour their take on what the government needs (typically to ask said researchers). The public sector does fail more though. I think there was a study in the 00's that showed around 75% failures on major IT systems in the private sector and around 85-90% in the public sector. But then we have to digitize an un-digitizable law, so I think this is only natural. In my municipality we don't do complete failures often, but we don't always succeed in implementing as successful as we wanted, leading to a lack of benefit realization. That being said, we operate around 370 different systems 50-70 of which we've build ourselves, and most of these are working fine. I think I'm a nice example. I get headhunter a lot, and I could be making a lot more money in the private sector, but I prefer the public sector because I have Children and since my job comes with paid lunch breaks I work two and a half hours less per week. On top of that, I'm not expected to work 40-50 hours a week despite being in management. I sometimes still do, but then it's typically for interesting projects such as heading the digital voter registration process during elections. This may be very different in America, but I suspect that the NSA would be able to attract the best of the best on image alone.

Johnny555 9y ago
We have some of the best talent in our country. I worked for a well known (in this area) science non-profit agency, and while we did attract good talent, after I moved to the private sector (and literally earning twice the salary) that I found much more brilliant people working at the high paid private sector jobs. So while I agree that public sector jobs can attract good people, I think that most of the best people are in the private sector where they can earn more money.

100pctremote 9y ago

DOE national laboratories (LANL, LLNL, etc) must compete with private industry and large universities. They are successful at this because the DOE awards contracts for the management of each lab to outside entities such as Johnson Controls, University of California, Lockheed Martin, etc.

kevin_thibedeau 9y ago

Not to worry. There are plenty of contractors in this space providing competitive salaries beyond government pay scales. NSA can still sub out much of its work to them and the taxpayers get to prop up more middlemen.

BinaryIdiot 9y ago

> It seems like it's pretty hard for the government to compete with private industry in compensation. Federal pay grades are capped by Congress, and the top grade is around ~$150k a year [1]. And note that since it's the top of the scale, you have to start people off lower so that there is salary progression. I feel like this has to be the biggest issue. When I worked in the DoD space as a constractor the amount of clearance required to work in an NSA SCIF would net a contractor a base of $160k a year (with benefits as you'd be working for a contracting company). With government employees making less to manage or do the same job as contractors, why would you stay on as a government employee? Most of the government employees I knew ended up transitioning to private companies.

Rebelgecko 9y ago
I think the 2 main reasons to stick around long term would be the pension and getting 6+ weeks off a year. Not many private employers do that, and I imagine it is a huge boon for retention.
- BinaryIdiot 9y ago
  Hmm yeah fair point. We had about the same time off (I worked at 3 different companies one that had less, One the same and one “unlimited” vacation) but I bet the pension is a big one.
  - walshemj 9y ago
    but it is open to political risk and you have to forgo any equity participation

SilasX 9y ago

For a fair comparison, you’d need to include federal pensions, which are very generous compare to what you’d have to earn to get that annuity with your own savings.

kamaal 9y ago

>>It seems like it's pretty hard for the government to compete with private industry in compensation. Pension, and other retirement benefits are awesome though. Over a period of time that actually makes up for everything else.

caloon 9y ago

I think this does not tell the whole story. I will show you three countries that are outperforming the vast majority of countries and why: - Switzerland: Switzerland is undoubtedly one of the richest countries. I contribute this largely to the fact that they have a direct democracy. All laws are voted upon by the people which makes lobbying much harder. Who profits from lobbying? Almost exclusively BigCos. - Singapore: Singapore pays it’s top officials a competitive salary. The Prime Minister earns close to 2m dollars. As a result, Singapore attracts higher qualified staff for state positions. - Estonia: Estonia’s growth since its independence some 25 years ago has outperformed nearly every Eastern European country. The reasons for this growth are their lean government, a high degree of digitalisation (nearly all government services can be accessed online), and an innovative culture at the state level. In brief, a lot of the inefficiencies in government agencies come down to the facts that in many countries these agencies are intensively lobbied, risk-averse and - as stated by you - do not reward performance (i.e. efficiency improvements and innovation).

peoplewindow 9y ago
Well that depends how you define lobbying. I live in Switzerland and referendums very frequently have large advertising campaigns attached to them - sometimes unopposed (that is, there is no noticeable advertising campaign for one of the options). There is definitely money in politics. Of course that is not necessarily a bad thing. The adverts alert people to an upcoming vote they may find interesting, primarily. Also Switzerland is notoriously bureaucratic. Even very simple tasks require visits to one of the many, many small government offices that dot the landscape and each interaction always costs hundreds of dollars ... even when the act itself is basically "print out a piece of paper and give it to you". But I fully agree that direct democracy creates better quality of government in general.
myaso 9y ago
The populations of these countries is significantly smaller than the US. Apples and oranges dude, things are always simpler when your bureaucracy doesn't have to cover 330m people -- you get a combinatorial explosion from all the additional interests and incentives with a larger population. Your points sound like they come from a bad econ textbook or a collation from poor reporting -- I know I heard them somewhere before.

justonepost 9y ago

Does that count for contractors as well? I don't think so.

erikb 9y ago

Government wants to have two kinds of people: The mediocre slackers, because they usually don't break stuff, and people who really believe in what the government stands for. Both are coming to you independent of having the best pay or not. Therefore I think government jobs shouldn't even compete on pay. In some areas they are higher than the free market though, and this is actually weird.

wolfgke 9y ago

> It seems like it's pretty hard for the government to compete with private industry in compensation. Federal pay grades are capped by Congress, and the top grade is around ~$150k a year [1]. And note that since it's the top of the scale, you have to start people off lower so that there is salary progression. > Pretty sure a top cryptographer or security expert should be worth several times that, especially if they are also dealing with classified information and safeguarding all the data collection (e.g. if the NSA is going to spy on us, wouldn't you like that to be as secure as possible?). I don't want to deny your argument, but as I often write on HN, the "interesting salary metric" is not the salary per se but "salary minus cost of living [in the respective region where you work]". I would bet that the costs of living are much lower near Fort George G. Meade than in the Bay Area.

ptero 9y ago

> It seems like it's pretty hard for the government to compete with private industry in compensation But you should not compare compensation for the top tech experts. It is not in general the function of the government to develop technology. There are some exceptions (for which there are opportunities for sweetening the pot), but in general government manages things, buying tech when needed. Majority of it's bureaucrats are very expensive, non-fireable paper pushers. Non-fireabilitg leads to a huge waste. Raising the GS rates will make government even more expensive. To fix things you need to completely reorg promotions, allow for easy firing, do a RIF and give those remaining significantly more authority and autonomy. Current schedule is pretty generous already once you factor additional pay scale multipliers and benefits. And if you must raise pay for top tech, at least go for the NH schedule, not GS. My 2c.

GlenTheMachine 9y ago
"But you should not compare compensation for the top tech experts. It is not in general the function of the government to develop technology." I disagree. The US Government is the single largest investor in R&D in the country, and does much of that R&D work in house. The National Institutes of Health, by itself, does the vast majority of basic and applied biomedical research in the US. That research feeds commercial R&D. The commercial guys can't afford to do the decades worth of basic research needed before a new medical treatment can be tested in human subjects. NASA, DOE, and DoD research labs basically invented the modern world. NASA and DoD developed spaceflight, satellites, satcomm, GPS, and digital computer networking. NASA was the single biggest purchaser of, and investor in, integrated circuits right up to about 1970. NASA did much, if not most, of the grunt work to make commercial aviation safe enough to be commercially viable. The US Navy did much of the early research work in radio, due to the need to communicate with a worldwide fleet, and is co-listed with MIT as the primary US innovators in radar.

lr4444lr 9y ago

Compensation is not all about salary. Protected work hours, due process protection, job stability, and the honor of helping safeguard your country are motivators too.

Shivetya 9y ago

there are over two million civil servants at the Federal level and combine that with nearly twenty million at state and local levels it is easy for people to think they spend too much on government which in turn prevents the ability of government to spend more money on salaries of those who are truly that valuable. so the first step is to pare down civil employment so that the general populace feels that they are getting a good investment. government needs to start selling itself on being a good investment instead of a jobs program. its not hard for the general populace to get this idea when there is news all the time about bloated pensions and high debt in their cities and states because of government pensions. so since the 60s the size of government at all levels has tripled where the population hasn't. part of the explosion and state and local levels is from Congress funneling money to hire people outside of the Federal level but instead at local. then when the funding dries up the jobs tend to stay anyway

mathattack 9y ago

Specific to NSA, we're also in a time when their skills happen to be in enormous demand. Crypto is hot, having NSA/CIA on your resume is great for starting a security startup, and the math experts can reposition themselves as data scientists. For a comparison, in the 90s Singapore tried targeting a rate of 2/3 of private salaries for their public servants. I haven't seen evidence that this is still a format target, but their public services are fantastic. (Of course it's a small island country, so hard to compare with larger places)

youdontknowtho 9y ago

I agree with the point that as long as wages are down for the majority of voters it will be almost impossible to get government pay in line with high-end private sector jobs.

crispyambulance 9y ago

> Pretty sure a top cryptographer or security expert should be worth several times that [~150K x several times] On the other hand, I often wonder whether folks who are pulling in nearly a half million dollars in compensation in the private sector (as individual contributors) are really worth that much or if they're just benefiting from a relatively temporary windfall caused by scarcity in tech talent. Keep in mind that government salaries still do come with decently good benefits and vastly more job security than start-ups. That is attractive to lots of people especially late in their careers. Cutting edge IT-related positions aside, non-cutting edge jobs in government do not face such stark competition with the private sector.

wdn 9y ago

The problem is not the pay, it is the pay grade. If you are a GS 11, you will get a GS11 pay regardless of your responsibility. And since this is union, you performance has nothing to do with what you will be paid.

wang_li 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

pixelpp 9y ago

"how much competence actually costs in the market now". This was a beautiful statement! I have worked with sooooooo many incompetent "leaders". I left my last role because the guy at the top was a phony, and did not have the emotional intelligence to control his arrogance, so he looked like a god damn fool in every meeting.

bkeroack 9y ago

Imagine seriously believing that guaranteed lifetime employment, very generous pension and health benefits (unheard of in the private sector), a well-defined career ladder as well as a six figure salary somehow aren't enough. Out of the other side of your mouth claim that these people are public servants selflessly working for the good of all. The reality is that the compensation package for government workers primarily appeals to those with average to mediocre ability and a strong aversion to risk (often also a tolerance for boring, repetitive work and/or bureaucratic infighting). When was the last time you met a bright, creative superstar working at your local DMV office? That's why the US Digital Service is actually a pretty good idea. Tours of duty are preferable to lifetime career hires. I'd like to see much more of the federal government adopt that model.

imgabe 9y ago

The work around is you go work for a defense contractor who pays you the market rate and that contractor charges the government 3-5x that.

scottlocklin 9y ago

Contractors do most of the real work. See Ed Snowden for example.