6 ms·

I didn't think it could be that bad, and then I went looking. Apparently to get a pay level that aligns with typical base salary in tech for senior level IC po

I didn't think it could be that bad, and then I went looking. Apparently to get a pay level that aligns with typical base salary in tech for senior level IC positions, you'd have to be an agency director of a large agency or in the Cabinet. And that doesn't even take into account losing RSUs and smaller bonus payouts. This actually goes a long way in my mind of explaining why the US government does so much contracting of people for work as well. It's probably not possible in the current legal framework to pay high quality tech workers a fair compensation for the market, but they could hire a firm as contractors for a project and that firm could pay fair compensation. I just wish more firms were honest rather than milking the government.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
The current system also incentivize quid pro quo via revolving door for high level government employees. You accept under market pay with the government, but expect to be repaid for favors to the governed entities by taking a job with them afterwards. Or selling your services to them. Or getting a niece or nephew hired. Etc.
killjoywashere 5y ago
This is one of the great accomplishments of the "small government" efforts in politics: all the money leaves the system. Imagine a business that losses all it's money, every year, by design.
- teaearlgraycold 5y ago
  Not weighing in on small/big gov. But a government isn’t a business.
- dylan604 5y ago
  So, Uber? Or really any tech startup with aggressvie growth only surviving because of VC investment.
giaour 5y ago
There are a few ways to get an IC role that pays more than the GS salary cap, but they are fairly rare. Some jobs have an "ST" level that is classified above GS for senior individual contributors in scientific or technical roles, and some agencies (like the CFPB) have their own pay scales that go beyond what the GS schedule allows. I only worked with one computer scientist in an ST role during my two years at USDS. He was an ACM Fellow and had a PhD from MIT, so it's not something anyone should expect to get just because they had "senior" in their title at a FAANG. Contractors don't have the same statutory caps on how much an individual role can pay, but salaries are part of contract bids, and a bid can be rejected if an individual salary is too high.
- paulmd 5y ago
  Yup, to emphasize, this is "we want to hire linus torvalds for a specific project" level exception, not "we'll be handing these out to line programmers because comp is higher in that sector" level exception. You won't be getting one of those unless you're exceptionally well-known enough that an average practitioner in your field would perk up their ears when someone mentions your name as a potential hire. And really, for the tier of people that would be getting those exceptions, that's still not a great rate of pay and they'd still be taking huge paycuts to work for the government. Like ok, we can get $300k a year for Linus but... he can walk into fifty companies and drop off a resume, cold, asking for triple that and get offers before he's back to his desk.
bmelton 5y ago
> I just wish more firms were honest rather than milking the government. Generally speaking, they aren't. I remember commenting (years ago) on here on an article about the government paying a million dollars for what amounted to basically a Wordpress installation that anyone here could do in ~half an hour. Maybe a million dollars sounds like a lot, but to those who've actually _worked_ as a government contractor, it seems fairly reasonable. Consider: * You need to have past relevant qualifications for other government agencies, so the only people who can install blogs for the government are those who have installed blogs for the government. If nobody has ever installed a blog for the government, they'll leverage the closest relevant experience they can. * You need to have a contracts attorney on staff for the duration of the contract, and since you likely don't want to fire them every few weeks, that's a year's commitment at (conservatively) $200k * You need to have a physical address -- weirdly, the government isn't keen on home addresses and/or 100% distributed teams * You'll need to hire a software architect (maybe 2) to justify the changes needed to __competitors who also likely placed bids on your contract and didn't win but who also have existing contracts managing the database, network, etc__ * Those competitors want you to fail so that the contract will get rebid so that they can try again, now armed with the information you presented them * Nobody in the government wants your project to succeed, and will actively try to get it to fail quietly * If it ever seems as though your project might achieve success, every stakeholder will want to jump on board your ship -- not in an effort to sink it, but so they can make their mark on the project and have their names associated with a potential success * It takes decision-by-committee to get even the smallest thing done, and a Wordpress blog is comprised of mostly small things. The smaller the thing, the bigger the committee. (I once had to bill the government 24 man hours at a median rate of $100 an hour because the CTO of the agency pulled 4 of us in a meeting for 6 hours to "discuss" which header background we preferred -- one was a winter shot that allowed visibility of the building, the other was a summer shot where trees obscured it... the winter shot felt dead and colorless, but the summer shot obscured their fancy new $130 million building)
- wslack 5y ago
  There are many situations where the government isn't managing work well but because that fiscally helps the contractor, the contractor works - hard - to keep the status quo in place. That is to the detriment of all of the other companies that could do it more efficiently. This is also why we need strong technologists in government to ensure the contracts are written correctly from the start.
NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
Right. There's literally no-one paid by the Federal government that makes the same as your average Google L6, according to what I can see; and to get to that kind of a level you need to be e.g. Joe Biden, Tony Fauci.
mrkstu 5y ago
My current position was put to bid as a contract from a school district. They tried to hire the position directly, but couldn’t fill the position w/a qualified candidate at their salary bands. So they sent it out as a ‘service’ and approved a contract for fulfillment that was more than triple the salary band, to pay for my salary and the overhead the private company is incurring to staff the position. If they’d been willing to break the ‘band’ and compete w/the private market directly they could of spent double instead of triple, but then they’d have to figure out how to deal w/the union and non-union staff since the salaries are public record…

lotsofpulp 5y ago

The current system also incentivize quid pro quo via revolving door for high level government employees. You accept under market pay with the government, but expect to be repaid for favors to the governed entities by taking a job with them afterwards. Or selling your services to them. Or getting a niece or nephew hired. Etc.

killjoywashere 5y ago

This is one of the great accomplishments of the "small government" efforts in politics: all the money leaves the system. Imagine a business that losses all it's money, every year, by design.

teaearlgraycold 5y ago
Not weighing in on small/big gov. But a government isn’t a business.
dylan604 5y ago
So, Uber? Or really any tech startup with aggressvie growth only surviving because of VC investment.

giaour 5y ago

There are a few ways to get an IC role that pays more than the GS salary cap, but they are fairly rare. Some jobs have an "ST" level that is classified above GS for senior individual contributors in scientific or technical roles, and some agencies (like the CFPB) have their own pay scales that go beyond what the GS schedule allows. I only worked with one computer scientist in an ST role during my two years at USDS. He was an ACM Fellow and had a PhD from MIT, so it's not something anyone should expect to get just because they had "senior" in their title at a FAANG. Contractors don't have the same statutory caps on how much an individual role can pay, but salaries are part of contract bids, and a bid can be rejected if an individual salary is too high.

paulmd 5y ago
Yup, to emphasize, this is "we want to hire linus torvalds for a specific project" level exception, not "we'll be handing these out to line programmers because comp is higher in that sector" level exception. You won't be getting one of those unless you're exceptionally well-known enough that an average practitioner in your field would perk up their ears when someone mentions your name as a potential hire. And really, for the tier of people that would be getting those exceptions, that's still not a great rate of pay and they'd still be taking huge paycuts to work for the government. Like ok, we can get $300k a year for Linus but... he can walk into fifty companies and drop off a resume, cold, asking for triple that and get offers before he's back to his desk.

bmelton 5y ago

> I just wish more firms were honest rather than milking the government. Generally speaking, they aren't. I remember commenting (years ago) on here on an article about the government paying a million dollars for what amounted to basically a Wordpress installation that anyone here could do in ~half an hour. Maybe a million dollars sounds like a lot, but to those who've actually _worked_ as a government contractor, it seems fairly reasonable. Consider: * You need to have past relevant qualifications for other government agencies, so the only people who can install blogs for the government are those who have installed blogs for the government. If nobody has ever installed a blog for the government, they'll leverage the closest relevant experience they can. * You need to have a contracts attorney on staff for the duration of the contract, and since you likely don't want to fire them every few weeks, that's a year's commitment at (conservatively) $200k * You need to have a physical address -- weirdly, the government isn't keen on home addresses and/or 100% distributed teams * You'll need to hire a software architect (maybe 2) to justify the changes needed to __competitors who also likely placed bids on your contract and didn't win but who also have existing contracts managing the database, network, etc__ * Those competitors want you to fail so that the contract will get rebid so that they can try again, now armed with the information you presented them * Nobody in the government wants your project to succeed, and will actively try to get it to fail quietly * If it ever seems as though your project might achieve success, every stakeholder will want to jump on board your ship -- not in an effort to sink it, but so they can make their mark on the project and have their names associated with a potential success * It takes decision-by-committee to get even the smallest thing done, and a Wordpress blog is comprised of mostly small things. The smaller the thing, the bigger the committee. (I once had to bill the government 24 man hours at a median rate of $100 an hour because the CTO of the agency pulled 4 of us in a meeting for 6 hours to "discuss" which header background we preferred -- one was a winter shot that allowed visibility of the building, the other was a summer shot where trees obscured it... the winter shot felt dead and colorless, but the summer shot obscured their fancy new $130 million building)

wslack 5y ago
There are many situations where the government isn't managing work well but because that fiscally helps the contractor, the contractor works - hard - to keep the status quo in place. That is to the detriment of all of the other companies that could do it more efficiently. This is also why we need strong technologists in government to ensure the contracts are written correctly from the start.

NovemberWhiskey 5y ago

Right. There's literally no-one paid by the Federal government that makes the same as your average Google L6, according to what I can see; and to get to that kind of a level you need to be e.g. Joe Biden, Tony Fauci.

mrkstu 5y ago

My current position was put to bid as a contract from a school district. They tried to hire the position directly, but couldn’t fill the position w/a qualified candidate at their salary bands. So they sent it out as a ‘service’ and approved a contract for fulfillment that was more than triple the salary band, to pay for my salary and the overhead the private company is incurring to staff the position. If they’d been willing to break the ‘band’ and compete w/the private market directly they could of spent double instead of triple, but then they’d have to figure out how to deal w/the union and non-union staff since the salaries are public record…