7 ms·

Jobs with security clearances don't pay like they used to. People with technical backgrounds have little incentive to go down that path.

formulathree 3y ago
Yeah, most people nowadays spend their time and energy on making serving html websites more and more complex. Complex missile systems? That's nothing compared to my vm running kube, running docker, running nextjs react emulating x86 and running kube again. Layers of more software surrounding software is the next big thing. Also microservices and LLMs.
- hotpotamus 3y ago
  You know, I always thought a lot of the abstractions we add were just pure resume-driven nonsense too, but I guess it is better than having engineering minded people think up better ways to liquify other humans.
  - bigbillheck 3y ago
    It's easy to complain about all those incredibly talented people selling ads, but it's also important to remember that it could be much worse.
  - formulathree 3y ago
    Ironically Liquification is just a deterrent. Yeah all that brain power is deployed to create technology that is barely used ever. It's just there to scare other people away. That's the current state of technology right now. On one hand in defense you have people cooking up technology that will never be used. On the other hand you have the entire IT industry cooking up technology to make simple things 1000000x more complex. It's like humanity has run out of shit to do and the money is being directed towards useless busy work.
  - CoastalCoder 3y ago
    Having worked in defense, I don't recall anyone who was gleeful about killing others. It was all about keeping our families and neighbors safe. If you're arguing against defense work in general, please consider the consequences of unilaterally disarming ourselves. I want world peace. Unfortunately others seem to prefer expansion / exploitation of other nations.
    - l3mure 3y ago
      Americans are truly the most brainwashed people on the planet.
      - formulathree 3y ago
        Hey. I'm fucking American and I worked defense and you're completely right. The US is deploying an entire chain of military forces around china. Literally. From Japan all the way through taiwan to the Philippines we are boxing china in with massive amounts of deadly firepower. Any equivalent action against the US would launch mass hysteria among the public. As much as I don't agree with certain things china does.. they are showing incredible restraint here. The US media is pulling off the most successful propaganda campaign I've ever seen... Literally characterizing this action as something that's self defense and necessary for world peace. Self defense is a complete joke. it's 100 percent military aggression by the US. All in the name of economic and military power.
      - CoastalCoder 3y ago
        > Americans are truly the most brainwashed people on the planet. I'd like to respond, but it's not clear if you're up for a serious discussion.
        l3mure 3y ago
        In the planning phase of the 2003 Iraq invasion: [1] > As a result, the executive steering group and its supporting working groups spent extensive time on building a humanitarian assistance package for Iraq, but comparatively little time on the functions of a post-regime government outside of the oil ministry. Surely with the focus on the oil ministry, post invasion operations were fully transparent and not at all suspicious! [2] > In October 2004, the audits conducted by IAMB and KPMG revealed the CPA's inadequate accounting system. IAMB failed its oversight process for several months because of procedural disputes and US manipulation. During this time illegal export of petroleum was conducted secretly from Iraq, and a large amount of funds for DFI were disbursed without accountability. According to the audits conducted by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), US $8.8 billion of the US$23 billion of Iraqi money disbursed for DFI has not been accounted [for]. > Iraq's oil infrastructure was damaged when the CPA took over. The CPA effected selected repairs. But the IAMB found that the CPA had chosen not to repair the meters on the pipelines. The IAMB told the CPA that they were concerned that the lack of metering made auditing Iraq's oil exports unreliable – making it impossible to detect fraud, deception or smuggling. The minutes of the IAMB meeting make clear that the CPA had assured the IAMB that they were in the process of repairing the meters – in bad faith. The CPA's authority came to an end with the meters unrepaired. Estimates of how much oil revenue was siphoned off during the year of the CPA's administration go as high as $4 billion – comparable to the amount Saddam Hussein is suspected of stealing during the entire duration of the oil-for-food program. Uhhhhh... Right, thanks for keeping us safe defense industry! [1] - pg. 64, The US Army in the Iraq War, 2003-2006 [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_Fund_for_Iraq https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_Fund_for_Iraq
- kortilla 3y ago
  Most people with clearance aren’t working missile systems. The breakdown of work is nearly identical. 99% drudge and 1% interesting technical challenges. So with clearance, you’re still stuck working on a web framework, but it will help display and track classified documents. How exciting.
- Icathian 3y ago
  This snark has nothing to do with the fact that clearances are a pain and the money isn't there to justify dealing with that nonsense. But sure, go off about JavaScript or whatever.
  - CoastalCoder 3y ago
    Working conditions are also a factor. Good luck finding a SCIF that's as pleasant as a home office. But yeah, salary is a big issue. Defense work (whether as a civil servant or a contractor) just doesn't pay as well as VC-backed software development. Although in the current job market, I have to say that the median pay gap seems to be smaller.
    - toomuchtodo 3y ago
      The question is, with the last decade of interest rate policy ending, will VC-backed SWE salaries ever come back? Similar to one not expecting to sub 3% mortgages to come back; it was a macro anomaly. For sure, "make hay when the sun is shining". But the days of clearing $200k-$400k to build crud apps or other low value high comp engineering work might not be coming back. Conversely, this is an opportunity for higher value work to evangelize its value prop to high value talent (assuming the comp is commensurate with the work).
      - Icathian 3y ago
        I don't have a crystal ball any more than anyone else, but people are still making those salaries. The layoffs barely got us back to 2019 employment levels.
  - formulathree 3y ago
    It's the opposite for javascript. Too much money is thrown at creating more and more nonsense. Pick your poison: too little money at dealing with nonsense, or too much money on simple shit such that you spend all your time creating more and more layers of nonsense.
SoftTalker 3y ago
Along with that the OPM had a huge data breach a few years ago that leaked all the private data about everyone who had gone through the security background investigation. I'm not about to endure that anal exam again, which also demanded time from my friends and neighbors and former employers, just so that the government can divulge it all. I'd consider doing classified work again but the cloak and dagger aspect of the hiring process has got to go. In this day and age all they need is my name and SSN to find out anything they need to know about me.

formulathree 3y ago

Yeah, most people nowadays spend their time and energy on making serving html websites more and more complex. Complex missile systems? That's nothing compared to my vm running kube, running docker, running nextjs react emulating x86 and running kube again. Layers of more software surrounding software is the next big thing. Also microservices and LLMs.

hotpotamus 3y ago
You know, I always thought a lot of the abstractions we add were just pure resume-driven nonsense too, but I guess it is better than having engineering minded people think up better ways to liquify other humans.
- bigbillheck 3y ago
  It's easy to complain about all those incredibly talented people selling ads, but it's also important to remember that it could be much worse.
- formulathree 3y ago
  Ironically Liquification is just a deterrent. Yeah all that brain power is deployed to create technology that is barely used ever. It's just there to scare other people away. That's the current state of technology right now. On one hand in defense you have people cooking up technology that will never be used. On the other hand you have the entire IT industry cooking up technology to make simple things 1000000x more complex. It's like humanity has run out of shit to do and the money is being directed towards useless busy work.
- CoastalCoder 3y ago
  Having worked in defense, I don't recall anyone who was gleeful about killing others. It was all about keeping our families and neighbors safe. If you're arguing against defense work in general, please consider the consequences of unilaterally disarming ourselves. I want world peace. Unfortunately others seem to prefer expansion / exploitation of other nations.
  - l3mure 3y ago
    Americans are truly the most brainwashed people on the planet.
    - formulathree 3y ago
      Hey. I'm fucking American and I worked defense and you're completely right. The US is deploying an entire chain of military forces around china. Literally. From Japan all the way through taiwan to the Philippines we are boxing china in with massive amounts of deadly firepower. Any equivalent action against the US would launch mass hysteria among the public. As much as I don't agree with certain things china does.. they are showing incredible restraint here. The US media is pulling off the most successful propaganda campaign I've ever seen... Literally characterizing this action as something that's self defense and necessary for world peace. Self defense is a complete joke. it's 100 percent military aggression by the US. All in the name of economic and military power.
    - CoastalCoder 3y ago
      > Americans are truly the most brainwashed people on the planet. I'd like to respond, but it's not clear if you're up for a serious discussion.
      - l3mure 3y ago
        In the planning phase of the 2003 Iraq invasion: [1] > As a result, the executive steering group and its supporting working groups spent extensive time on building a humanitarian assistance package for Iraq, but comparatively little time on the functions of a post-regime government outside of the oil ministry. Surely with the focus on the oil ministry, post invasion operations were fully transparent and not at all suspicious! [2] > In October 2004, the audits conducted by IAMB and KPMG revealed the CPA's inadequate accounting system. IAMB failed its oversight process for several months because of procedural disputes and US manipulation. During this time illegal export of petroleum was conducted secretly from Iraq, and a large amount of funds for DFI were disbursed without accountability. According to the audits conducted by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), US $8.8 billion of the US$23 billion of Iraqi money disbursed for DFI has not been accounted [for]. > Iraq's oil infrastructure was damaged when the CPA took over. The CPA effected selected repairs. But the IAMB found that the CPA had chosen not to repair the meters on the pipelines. The IAMB told the CPA that they were concerned that the lack of metering made auditing Iraq's oil exports unreliable – making it impossible to detect fraud, deception or smuggling. The minutes of the IAMB meeting make clear that the CPA had assured the IAMB that they were in the process of repairing the meters – in bad faith. The CPA's authority came to an end with the meters unrepaired. Estimates of how much oil revenue was siphoned off during the year of the CPA's administration go as high as $4 billion – comparable to the amount Saddam Hussein is suspected of stealing during the entire duration of the oil-for-food program. Uhhhhh... Right, thanks for keeping us safe defense industry! [1] - pg. 64, The US Army in the Iraq War, 2003-2006 [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_Fund_for_Iraq https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_Fund_for_Iraq
kortilla 3y ago
Most people with clearance aren’t working missile systems. The breakdown of work is nearly identical. 99% drudge and 1% interesting technical challenges. So with clearance, you’re still stuck working on a web framework, but it will help display and track classified documents. How exciting.
Icathian 3y ago
This snark has nothing to do with the fact that clearances are a pain and the money isn't there to justify dealing with that nonsense. But sure, go off about JavaScript or whatever.
- CoastalCoder 3y ago
  Working conditions are also a factor. Good luck finding a SCIF that's as pleasant as a home office. But yeah, salary is a big issue. Defense work (whether as a civil servant or a contractor) just doesn't pay as well as VC-backed software development. Although in the current job market, I have to say that the median pay gap seems to be smaller.
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    The question is, with the last decade of interest rate policy ending, will VC-backed SWE salaries ever come back? Similar to one not expecting to sub 3% mortgages to come back; it was a macro anomaly. For sure, "make hay when the sun is shining". But the days of clearing $200k-$400k to build crud apps or other low value high comp engineering work might not be coming back. Conversely, this is an opportunity for higher value work to evangelize its value prop to high value talent (assuming the comp is commensurate with the work).
    - Icathian 3y ago
      I don't have a crystal ball any more than anyone else, but people are still making those salaries. The layoffs barely got us back to 2019 employment levels.
- formulathree 3y ago
  It's the opposite for javascript. Too much money is thrown at creating more and more nonsense. Pick your poison: too little money at dealing with nonsense, or too much money on simple shit such that you spend all your time creating more and more layers of nonsense.

SoftTalker 3y ago

Along with that the OPM had a huge data breach a few years ago that leaked all the private data about everyone who had gone through the security background investigation. I'm not about to endure that anal exam again, which also demanded time from my friends and neighbors and former employers, just so that the government can divulge it all. I'd consider doing classified work again but the cloak and dagger aspect of the hiring process has got to go. In this day and age all they need is my name and SSN to find out anything they need to know about me.