3 ms·

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.
wharvle 3y ago
I'd say $200k is about the floor, including enlisted, not just officers. Assuming they did 20 years in, they should be able to land at least that much for a boring office job in the US and if they didn't have something notable working for them (good network, what kinds of work they did, that sort of thing). That'll mean an NCO rank of some sort, for enlisted, and probably at least a bachelor's degree (it's strongly encouraged past a certain point) plus the all-important clearance. It goes up from there—way up, at the higher officer's ranks (O-6 and up, say), where whole new tiers of job open up, like high-level lobbying jobs, think tanks, C-suite positions, and even media. Details of your service, who you know, what you're willing to do (travel, say) can start adding fives and even sixes of figures to your comp in a hurry (each!), from there. [EDIT] This is for post-"retirement" former military folks in general, not that specific case. You're probably not getting one at all for under $200k/yr unless they just don't want to do one of the kinds of jobs that pay a premium for retired military. And that's, again, way on the low end. [EDIT EDIT] Also if you account for all benefits, the multiplier on military comp may not be as large. These places tend to offer good bennies, too, but not... you know, housing and such.
- warner25 3y ago
  This comment has a lot more qualifiers than your previous comment, but I still think you're wildly overestimating things. Maybe everybody I know "just [doesn't] want to do one of the kinds of jobs that pay a premium for retired military" but it seems like someone I know would at least try the $500k+ job for a while if that were an immediately available option for them. I don't think they're ending up in GS-14 or GS-15 supervisory positions in a big headquarters because the office politics, meetings, and emails are so much fun.

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.

wharvle 3y ago

I'd say $200k is about the floor, including enlisted, not just officers. Assuming they did 20 years in, they should be able to land at least that much for a boring office job in the US and if they didn't have something notable working for them (good network, what kinds of work they did, that sort of thing). That'll mean an NCO rank of some sort, for enlisted, and probably at least a bachelor's degree (it's strongly encouraged past a certain point) plus the all-important clearance. It goes up from there—way up, at the higher officer's ranks (O-6 and up, say), where whole new tiers of job open up, like high-level lobbying jobs, think tanks, C-suite positions, and even media. Details of your service, who you know, what you're willing to do (travel, say) can start adding fives and even sixes of figures to your comp in a hurry (each!), from there. [EDIT] This is for post-"retirement" former military folks in general, not that specific case. You're probably not getting one at all for under $200k/yr unless they just don't want to do one of the kinds of jobs that pay a premium for retired military. And that's, again, way on the low end. [EDIT EDIT] Also if you account for all benefits, the multiplier on military comp may not be as large. These places tend to offer good bennies, too, but not... you know, housing and such.

warner25 3y ago
This comment has a lot more qualifiers than your previous comment, but I still think you're wildly overestimating things. Maybe everybody I know "just [doesn't] want to do one of the kinds of jobs that pay a premium for retired military" but it seems like someone I know would at least try the $500k+ job for a while if that were an immediately available option for them. I don't think they're ending up in GS-14 or GS-15 supervisory positions in a big headquarters because the office politics, meetings, and emails are so much fun.