3 ms·

20 years in + take retirement + also work for a government contractor at 3x+ your former pay rate (while collecting retirement!), can equal a lot of money in a

20 years in + take retirement + also work for a government contractor at 3x+ your former pay rate (while collecting retirement!), can equal a lot of money in a hurry at a relatively young age (say, money to fund a real estate investment venture without risking being penniless in old age).

FireBeyond 3y ago
> government contractor at 3x+ your former pay rate And then some. Friend of mine rode backseat in F-15s. After retirement, he spent two-three years as a contractor for Boeing training allied military in the Middle East and paid off his mortgage, and much much more (I want to say at least 1, maybe 2 investment properties owned effectively outright).
- wharvle 3y ago
  Yeah, the "+" is doing some heavy lifting there :-) 3x is what you can basically just fall into after military retirement without trying very hard, with a bad network, and with poor luck. Another factor is that your expenses can be quite low while you're in, even with a family. Put an officer's salary on top of that—which isn't amazing, but isn't terrible either—and you can save a fair bit of cash even before you even start the contractor + retirement double-dipping. Though there are real costs—the schools are generally very good, but you may have to move every couple years. The bureaucracy is hellish (though, for all their dysfunction, they've got a lot of shit figured out way better than your average bigco). You'll probably serve under and with some real assholes at some point. And there's ever the temptation to get out early and start taking those sweet contractor dollars before you secure the government retirement check. Plus, you know, you may have to go kill people or get killed or what have you. [EDIT] Oh, another downside: it can be really hard for your spouse to have a career, due to all the moving and often living in places without much economic opportunity.
  - actionfromafar 3y ago
    Thanks for adding that last one - it's really important to remember. (It's even a movie trope.)
  - mschuster91 3y ago
    > [EDIT] Oh, another downside: it can be really hard for your spouse to have a career, due to all the moving and often living in places without much economic opportunity. And it may be really hard to get an actual spouse instead of gold diggers of either gender.
  - warner25 3y ago
    As an active duty officer approaching 20 years of service myself, I think this is a good comment except for your first couple of statements. I'm very skeptical. I think that an enlisted service member who's good enough, and lucky enough, to learn and do some technical things can easily 3x their pay by working as a contractor after their initial enlistment. But their starting point is low as an E-3, E-4. They can go from making $40k to $120k, sure, especially if they're willing to work in a combat zone. I don't know a single O-4, O-5, O-6 (and I'm talking aviators and IT/cyber officers) who has "fallen into" making 3x as a civilian. Their pay in uniform is $160-240k. Many of them seem to opt for civil service jobs as a GS-14, GS-15, which will match their previous pay at best (but be in addition to the $50-90k pension). I hope you're right, but I'm certainly not counting on a $600k job offer when my time comes.
    - wharvle 3y ago
      I could have this figured as more of an exponential curve when it’s really as S-curve with your E-8s and your mid-scale officers on roughly the same flattish (but fairly high!) part. Could be I’ve got that bit wrong. I do think the really high paid ones usually require living in one of a few areas (NOVA, say) and some travel, which isn’t in a lot of folks’ life plan for their 40s and 50s. But yeah, I may just have the “graph” wrong. [edit] my more narrow point was just that an ex-officer with enough money to safely invest in a real estate business that might plausibly grow to $11m value under even moderate success, isn’t that weird a notion.
      - warner25 3y ago
        To your last point, I agree. I think that most people (including most people in uniform) don't realize how well it actually pays to be an officer. The corollary is that it's not easy to make much more by transitioning to the civilian world. But yes, one can leave active duty in their early 40s in a really good position - a couple million in savings, the pension, the retiree healthcare, the GI Bill for the kids - and keep making similar money in a new job or launch a new venture (having plenty to fall back on if it fails). Ending up with $11M later in life is not out of the question. I'm still thinking about the exponential curve vs. S-curve. I do think there are a lot of jobs, regardless of someone's final military rank like you said, that will pay low six-figures just for the security clearance and knowledge of certain systems. The few jobs that pay much more - getting into the world of corporate executives, board members, consultants, lobbyists, media personalities, guest speaking - might be accessible to some retired flag officers, but there aren't a lot of retired flag officers to begin with.
- jjackson5324 3y ago
  Could you give a range if possible? I've always been curious as to what those salaries are like. Are we talking 300-600k / yr? More? Thank you
  - FireBeyond 3y ago
    My rough guess would be around $400,000. He mentioned "A thousand dollars a day, including weekends". Atop this, effectively zero living expenses (family still at home, to be sure), plus a whole host of stipends and per diems.
  - tzs 3y ago
    Here's a page that gives the range for each rank [1] to give an idea what they can make before they leave and start contracting. Click on a particular rank and you'll get a page with a slider for years to see how pay progresses within that range over time. A general makes the most, $221 900 per year. That site also has pay for non-military jobs. Lots of interesting stuff there. For example here's their page for computer science [2]. Average government computer scientists makes $142k. There's a graph showing the distribution and it is very uneven--looks like you can make pretty good pay or pretty terrible pay. 5 times as many computer scientists at the FAA (250) than at the IRS (53). 180 at the FBI. Nearly 1500 computer scientists total. Some surprised me. The government has a little over 1000 archeologists [3]. I guess that explains where all those other thing came from in the warehouse they stored the Ark in! [1] https://www.federalpay.org/military/air-force/ranks https://www.federalpay.org/military/air-force/ranks [2] https://www.federalpay.org/employees/occupations/computer-science https://www.federalpay.org/employees/occupations/computer-sc... [3] https://www.federalpay.org/employees/occupations/archeology https://www.federalpay.org/employees/occupations/archeology
    - jjackson5324 3y ago
      Very useful, thank you very much for sharing.
    - warner25 3y ago
      That chart for pay levels at different military ranks is not a good reference. It's only showing "basic pay." I recommend instead playing with this: https://militarypay.defense.gov/calculators/rmc-calculator/ https://militarypay.defense.gov/calculators/rmc-calculator/ You also have to understand how career progression works. Like it's nonsense to look at the basic pay for an O-5 with less than two years of service, even though there's a number on the chart for that. Outside of exceptionally rare circumstances, an O-5 will have at least 15 years of service.

FireBeyond 3y ago

> government contractor at 3x+ your former pay rate And then some. Friend of mine rode backseat in F-15s. After retirement, he spent two-three years as a contractor for Boeing training allied military in the Middle East and paid off his mortgage, and much much more (I want to say at least 1, maybe 2 investment properties owned effectively outright).

wharvle 3y ago
Yeah, the "+" is doing some heavy lifting there :-) 3x is what you can basically just fall into after military retirement without trying very hard, with a bad network, and with poor luck. Another factor is that your expenses can be quite low while you're in, even with a family. Put an officer's salary on top of that—which isn't amazing, but isn't terrible either—and you can save a fair bit of cash even before you even start the contractor + retirement double-dipping. Though there are real costs—the schools are generally very good, but you may have to move every couple years. The bureaucracy is hellish (though, for all their dysfunction, they've got a lot of shit figured out way better than your average bigco). You'll probably serve under and with some real assholes at some point. And there's ever the temptation to get out early and start taking those sweet contractor dollars before you secure the government retirement check. Plus, you know, you may have to go kill people or get killed or what have you. [EDIT] Oh, another downside: it can be really hard for your spouse to have a career, due to all the moving and often living in places without much economic opportunity.
- actionfromafar 3y ago
  Thanks for adding that last one - it's really important to remember. (It's even a movie trope.)
- mschuster91 3y ago
  > [EDIT] Oh, another downside: it can be really hard for your spouse to have a career, due to all the moving and often living in places without much economic opportunity. And it may be really hard to get an actual spouse instead of gold diggers of either gender.
- warner25 3y ago
  As an active duty officer approaching 20 years of service myself, I think this is a good comment except for your first couple of statements. I'm very skeptical. I think that an enlisted service member who's good enough, and lucky enough, to learn and do some technical things can easily 3x their pay by working as a contractor after their initial enlistment. But their starting point is low as an E-3, E-4. They can go from making $40k to $120k, sure, especially if they're willing to work in a combat zone. I don't know a single O-4, O-5, O-6 (and I'm talking aviators and IT/cyber officers) who has "fallen into" making 3x as a civilian. Their pay in uniform is $160-240k. Many of them seem to opt for civil service jobs as a GS-14, GS-15, which will match their previous pay at best (but be in addition to the $50-90k pension). I hope you're right, but I'm certainly not counting on a $600k job offer when my time comes.
  - wharvle 3y ago
    I could have this figured as more of an exponential curve when it’s really as S-curve with your E-8s and your mid-scale officers on roughly the same flattish (but fairly high!) part. Could be I’ve got that bit wrong. I do think the really high paid ones usually require living in one of a few areas (NOVA, say) and some travel, which isn’t in a lot of folks’ life plan for their 40s and 50s. But yeah, I may just have the “graph” wrong. [edit] my more narrow point was just that an ex-officer with enough money to safely invest in a real estate business that might plausibly grow to $11m value under even moderate success, isn’t that weird a notion.
    - warner25 3y ago
      To your last point, I agree. I think that most people (including most people in uniform) don't realize how well it actually pays to be an officer. The corollary is that it's not easy to make much more by transitioning to the civilian world. But yes, one can leave active duty in their early 40s in a really good position - a couple million in savings, the pension, the retiree healthcare, the GI Bill for the kids - and keep making similar money in a new job or launch a new venture (having plenty to fall back on if it fails). Ending up with $11M later in life is not out of the question. I'm still thinking about the exponential curve vs. S-curve. I do think there are a lot of jobs, regardless of someone's final military rank like you said, that will pay low six-figures just for the security clearance and knowledge of certain systems. The few jobs that pay much more - getting into the world of corporate executives, board members, consultants, lobbyists, media personalities, guest speaking - might be accessible to some retired flag officers, but there aren't a lot of retired flag officers to begin with.
jjackson5324 3y ago
Could you give a range if possible? I've always been curious as to what those salaries are like. Are we talking 300-600k / yr? More? Thank you
- FireBeyond 3y ago
  My rough guess would be around $400,000. He mentioned "A thousand dollars a day, including weekends". Atop this, effectively zero living expenses (family still at home, to be sure), plus a whole host of stipends and per diems.
- tzs 3y ago
  Here's a page that gives the range for each rank [1] to give an idea what they can make before they leave and start contracting. Click on a particular rank and you'll get a page with a slider for years to see how pay progresses within that range over time. A general makes the most, $221 900 per year. That site also has pay for non-military jobs. Lots of interesting stuff there. For example here's their page for computer science [2]. Average government computer scientists makes $142k. There's a graph showing the distribution and it is very uneven--looks like you can make pretty good pay or pretty terrible pay. 5 times as many computer scientists at the FAA (250) than at the IRS (53). 180 at the FBI. Nearly 1500 computer scientists total. Some surprised me. The government has a little over 1000 archeologists [3]. I guess that explains where all those other thing came from in the warehouse they stored the Ark in! [1] https://www.federalpay.org/military/air-force/ranks https://www.federalpay.org/military/air-force/ranks [2] https://www.federalpay.org/employees/occupations/computer-science https://www.federalpay.org/employees/occupations/computer-sc... [3] https://www.federalpay.org/employees/occupations/archeology https://www.federalpay.org/employees/occupations/archeology
  - jjackson5324 3y ago
    Very useful, thank you very much for sharing.
  - warner25 3y ago
    That chart for pay levels at different military ranks is not a good reference. It's only showing "basic pay." I recommend instead playing with this: https://militarypay.defense.gov/calculators/rmc-calculator/ https://militarypay.defense.gov/calculators/rmc-calculator/ You also have to understand how career progression works. Like it's nonsense to look at the basic pay for an O-5 with less than two years of service, even though there's a number on the chart for that. Outside of exceptionally rare circumstances, an O-5 will have at least 15 years of service.