Have worked at Sandia for 12 years. Will probably retire in another 20. Pay is good. I make $145,000. That is low for Sandians with 12 years experience I think

Have worked at Sandia for 12 years. Will probably retire in another 20. Pay is good. I make $145,000. That is low for Sandians with 12 years experience I think, but have had some atypically low points in my Sandia career. You can make more in 'private industry' (other defense contractors) even in Albuquerque but you will lose work-life-balance Benefits are very good. 3 weeks paid vacation. 2 weeks unpaid. Flexible work schedule: normal hours, or 9/80, or 4/10. Generous 401k match, plan supports roth mega backdoor, HDHP+HSA available. Good WFH was slow to arrive, but corona fixed that. Nobody has ever disturbed me on vacation or implied I should not take one. Location is ok. Abq is high crime and NM is a poor state with poor outcomes but it is very rugged beautiful. Don't knock LCOL, it provides wonderful peace of mind, and the bad parts can be easily avoided, but maybe you won't like it. Relative to NM, Los Alamos is outlier with very good outcomes (crime nil, public schools among best in nation), because it is a place that only exists due to LANL. Sandia CA is option but while Sandia Abq pays well for Abq, Sandia CA pays very bad for CA. Californians often poached by FAANG. Clearance means govt will look up your ass, and often. You must report all 'meaningful' foreign interactions, including friends/family. Investigations occur every five years. Random drug tests: get a phone call that tells you to go to the medical facility and piss today, or you're fired. 'Forgetting' to pick up your phone only holds them off for so long. Some (rare) clearances have worse requirements: must report all dual citizens not just foreigners; random polygraphs; must ask permission to leave the country; but again, these are rare. Easy to opt out of such a clearance and it will hardly limit your opportunities at all. Project work varies. Nuclear is the mission but Sandia has expanded to wider govt contracts. Nuclear weapons, non-nuclear weapons/military, CIA/FBI/NSA partnerships, all are possible. If this is against your morals, there are other options, but probably better to work elsewhere. Would be like working for Google while hating ads. Myself, I am okay with thise things. I have not encountered govt abuses, nor any projects I consider inherently immoral, but perhaps I am naive. I have had good projects and bad projects. Sandia is broadly 10+ years behind the curve at software engineering. There are pockets that are better, but eg version control is spotty in some places, lots of crufty old codebases. I think a symptom of being primarily an elec/mech/chem eng shop since the 50s. But there are 12000 people and if you find the right department, combined with the job benefits it is heaven. I have, and will stay till I retire. It's the perfect job for me.