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I can’t speak for Israeli tech, but the pentagon has an image problem in the valley, I don’t believe they are getting the best recruits even for contracting com

I can’t speak for Israeli tech, but the pentagon has an image problem in the valley, I don’t believe they are getting the best recruits even for contracting companies like Palintir. Our generation is closer to Iraq and Vietnam than WW2, and many of the bright minds are first generation immigrants. Despite the more recent image problems ad tech has (now that people are seeing more of how the sausage is made), it’s still sexier to work on big consumer companies than defense. You’d have to pay my colleagues more to work for the US government, even indirectly, instead it’s often less (and often with less freedoms of what they do off the clock). And now, what I’m reading is that if you do go contract for the military in AI, your function is partially some kind of scapegoat insurance. Blame those eggheads with their computers who can be fooled, not the fools who hired them and acted on that signal above others I guess? The idea that a chatGPT model would have been a deciding factor in preventing 10/7 is laughable on its face to anyone who works in the industry, except maybe a consultant selling LLMs to the IDF.

jajko 3y ago
I am still not 100% convinced they didnt just let it happen on purpose (and then were surprised just by the scale), having an excuse to raze the place down for good, which is exactly what they are doing. The signs were there, everywhere, and mosad aint bunch of clueless paper pushers. The guy in charge is former spec ops, murder of anybody without battling an eye is part of the deal so dont expect some humanism from that direction. If I didnt read similar stories from other times and places, where it played almost exactly like this... AI is not going to solve political issues, just make them more complex than they already are
kjellsbells 3y ago
There's another issue here as well, which is that many of the tech folks who would be ok working for the government, even at reduced rates, cant get through the hiring morass that uncle sam puts up. The fed gov simply isnt set up to quickly acquired talent from industry. They also remain remarkably hidebound by old rules like requiring advanced degrees for senior positions.
- CoastalCoder 3y ago
  That hasn't been my experience. For example, Naval Undersea Warfare Centers, Division Newport, had a job fair a few weeks ago. IIUC a number of attendees were given offers very soon after. But NUWC is a DoD DEMO organization, so maybe it's easier for them than some other parts of the DoD. And salary definitely is an issue. Even with the Boston pay scale, I think they have a hard salary cap for most software positions at about $150k + very small annual bonuses.
  - red-iron-pine 3y ago
    how many of those hires already had clearances and/or military experience? you've got an active TS/SCI and we'll get you onboarded next week. and if you don't... it'll be at least 6 months. and that's assuming people aren't too upset about ties to China, a polyamorous lifestyle, or how much weed you smoked. FAANGs did a lot of stupid interview BS, whiteboarding and leet-code nonsense, but I got an offer letter a couple weeks after, or a rejection, and a start date a month later.
    - CoastalCoder 3y ago
      > how many of those hires already had clearances and/or military experience? > > you've got an active TS/SCI and we'll get you onboarded next week. Defense contractors often want candidates to have an active clearance, but AFAIK that's not at all a requirement for DoD labs. I'm guessing the contractors want to avoid the financial cost and scheduling uncertainty of applying for the clearance. Especially because the clearance follows a person when they change employers. > and if you don't... it'll be at least 6 months. I'm not sure where you got that information, but it doesn't match my experience. You get an interim (non-TS) clearance very quickly, and a permanent clearance eventually. > and that's assuming people aren't too upset about ties to China, a polyamorous lifestyle, or how much weed you smoked. I have no idea what exact criteria OPM uses for denying a clearance application. But last I knew, DoD does do random drug testing. I'm not sure what the consequences are for failing a marijuana test, but it wouldn't shock me if it causes loss of clearance.
alephnerd 3y ago
> pentagon has an image problem in the valley That image problem goes away when you want to close a 7-8 figure TCV Fed deal to make your quarterly sales KPI. The bigger stumbling block is procurement. Software Procurement by Federal standards is relatively straightforward so a Series E+ startup can make it if they spend around $7-10M and 1-1.5 years on a dedicated roadmap for FedRamp and FIPS compliance. Once you step out of software, procurement becomes paperwork hell. Throw in the paperwork hell from R&D Grantmakers like the DoD and DoE, and you end up with a quasi-Soviet procurement system. Ironically, most of these compliance and regulatory checks were added for good intentions - primarily to minimize corruption and graft, yet it basically clogged up the entire system, and dissuades startups and innovators from working directly with the Defense community. Some projects like DIUx and and In-Q-Tel are trying to change that, but it's too little too late, and our defense base is entirely dependent on firms like Microsoft, Cisco, Crowdstrike, Zscaler, etc acquiring promising startups to evangelize their innovations internally.
- lazyasciiart 3y ago
  I think they're talking about hiring, not purchasing.
  - alephnerd 3y ago
    At the end of the day, most work done by technical teams within Defense Agencies is implementation, and the R&D related work is done by specific vendors or very autonomous labs (either National Labs or a specific PI at a University) This is how it works at the Fed just like any other corporation, as well as with any other peer country. While there are internal R&D projects, most agencies aren't having their engineers design and productionize bespoke environments from scratch - they're implementing existing tooling and buying it off the shelf. For example, if you want an internal cloud platform, you'll just use Azure GovCloud. If you want to spin up a K8s cluster, you'll spin up an AKS cluster. Want to protect your cluster? You'll just purchase an off the shelf CNAPP. For defense, R&D is important, but that isn't the DoD's forte and distracts from it's core mission, which is why they offload innovation to the private sector. Even the USSR did this to a certain extent by the 1970s by supporting defense corporations like Mikoyan and Sukhoi that basically operated as state owned corporations that competed with each other. The issue is the amount of suppliers in the US has shrunk dramatically since the 1990s due to the compliance overhead and requirements such as a single platform DoD wide (a major reason for F35 cost overruns). On top of that, any fundamental research requires a significant amount of paperwork to justify funding and sets limits on salaries for PIs and Postdocs that are significantly lower than market rate. Basically, American private industry has largely been divorced from the MIC, and aside from a handful of major enterprises, there isn't an incentive to enter the procurement space. We've accidentally remade the entire 70s-80s Soviet procurement system in the US today. There are some changes happening in Software and Satellite procurement, but not as much in other sectors like Avionics.
robotnikman 3y ago
It also seems like many defense companies do no offer remote work opportunities either last I checked
- nradov 3y ago
  Some offer hybrid work arrangements, but if you're doing classified work or dealing with hardware then there's no practical way to do that remotely.
- dmd149 3y ago
  hybrid is likely the best case scenario, and very unlikely if you’re in an individual contributor role with a higher level clearance. One way to “get around” this is work it as a 1099, charge a high bill rate, and then just work less overall. But, if you’re trying to move outside of a major contracting area like DC, youre probably better off just getting a remote private sector job.
- datavirtue 3y ago
  Often, no. This is serious work being carried out by adults that need to come together. There is no replacement for the water cooler yet. I made the decision to explicitly seek out in-office, on-location defense work. The seridiputous conversations and relationship building was not happening in remote work. I'm someone who has always worked from home and I still do every week but my career and life were going no where typing at people through Slack and building meaningless web apps--despite making enough money to be reticent to tell most people my earnings level. Now I'm building software, involved intimately with designing and interfacing with specialized hardware, and travelling to interesting places doing interesting things with interesting people-- occasionally toppling off of combat machines. I took a 30% pay cut to do it. No regrets whatsoever, living life.
  - joncrane 3y ago
    It has little to do with collaboration. Most Top Secret work occurs in a SKIF. Basically you enter, lock your phone, smartwatch, and whatever else in a locker, then enter the area where the work gets done. This area is regularly swept for bugs and whatnot. You can't work on "top secret" stuff on your own due to OpSec.
Der_Einzige 3y ago
A lot of the issue is that tech workers want to "smoke weed on the way to the interview", and in doing so, they become ineligible for a clearance.
- lazyasciiart 3y ago
  That sounds like an imaginary problem.
  - datavirtue 3y ago
    It's very real. Having smoked or taken other illicit drugs in the recent, or not so recent, past is a major source of stress for people applying for clearance. You have to be sponsored at a significant expense by a current employer and if you don't get clearance your career is going to be upended. It's up to the worker to judge if they pre-qualify based on opaque information and anecdotes you find on Reddit.
    - lazyasciiart 3y ago
      I'd venture to guess that more tech workers lack citizenship than lack the ability to pass a drug screen. More importantly, the problem you describe is problems with the opacity and risk of failure for a clearance: not "fuckin' druggies", which is what I responded to.
    - Yodel0914 3y ago
      > Having smoked or taken other illicit drugs in the recent, or not so recent, past is a major source of stress for people applying for clearance. If you have broken the law in the past, the clearance processes mostly seem to care that a) you acknowledge it and have stopped b) you are upfront about it, and it can't be used as leverage against you. If you're currently routinely breaking the law, yes, it's going to be hard to get clearance. That seems pretty reasonable to me.
  - red-iron-pine 3y ago
    serious problem. generally they don't take weed to seriously, but want to know you've been drug free for roughly a year. By comparison, several / most of the Cali tech firms I've worked for / with / around had devs hitting a THC vape at lunch. Might have had to pass a piss test to get the job, but that's just 30 days, and no one is knocking on your neighbor's doors to verify your drug and employment history.

jajko 3y ago

I am still not 100% convinced they didnt just let it happen on purpose (and then were surprised just by the scale), having an excuse to raze the place down for good, which is exactly what they are doing. The signs were there, everywhere, and mosad aint bunch of clueless paper pushers. The guy in charge is former spec ops, murder of anybody without battling an eye is part of the deal so dont expect some humanism from that direction. If I didnt read similar stories from other times and places, where it played almost exactly like this... AI is not going to solve political issues, just make them more complex than they already are

kjellsbells 3y ago

There's another issue here as well, which is that many of the tech folks who would be ok working for the government, even at reduced rates, cant get through the hiring morass that uncle sam puts up. The fed gov simply isnt set up to quickly acquired talent from industry. They also remain remarkably hidebound by old rules like requiring advanced degrees for senior positions.

CoastalCoder 3y ago
That hasn't been my experience. For example, Naval Undersea Warfare Centers, Division Newport, had a job fair a few weeks ago. IIUC a number of attendees were given offers very soon after. But NUWC is a DoD DEMO organization, so maybe it's easier for them than some other parts of the DoD. And salary definitely is an issue. Even with the Boston pay scale, I think they have a hard salary cap for most software positions at about $150k + very small annual bonuses.
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  how many of those hires already had clearances and/or military experience? you've got an active TS/SCI and we'll get you onboarded next week. and if you don't... it'll be at least 6 months. and that's assuming people aren't too upset about ties to China, a polyamorous lifestyle, or how much weed you smoked. FAANGs did a lot of stupid interview BS, whiteboarding and leet-code nonsense, but I got an offer letter a couple weeks after, or a rejection, and a start date a month later.
  - CoastalCoder 3y ago
    > how many of those hires already had clearances and/or military experience? > > you've got an active TS/SCI and we'll get you onboarded next week. Defense contractors often want candidates to have an active clearance, but AFAIK that's not at all a requirement for DoD labs. I'm guessing the contractors want to avoid the financial cost and scheduling uncertainty of applying for the clearance. Especially because the clearance follows a person when they change employers. > and if you don't... it'll be at least 6 months. I'm not sure where you got that information, but it doesn't match my experience. You get an interim (non-TS) clearance very quickly, and a permanent clearance eventually. > and that's assuming people aren't too upset about ties to China, a polyamorous lifestyle, or how much weed you smoked. I have no idea what exact criteria OPM uses for denying a clearance application. But last I knew, DoD does do random drug testing. I'm not sure what the consequences are for failing a marijuana test, but it wouldn't shock me if it causes loss of clearance.

alephnerd 3y ago

> pentagon has an image problem in the valley That image problem goes away when you want to close a 7-8 figure TCV Fed deal to make your quarterly sales KPI. The bigger stumbling block is procurement. Software Procurement by Federal standards is relatively straightforward so a Series E+ startup can make it if they spend around $7-10M and 1-1.5 years on a dedicated roadmap for FedRamp and FIPS compliance. Once you step out of software, procurement becomes paperwork hell. Throw in the paperwork hell from R&D Grantmakers like the DoD and DoE, and you end up with a quasi-Soviet procurement system. Ironically, most of these compliance and regulatory checks were added for good intentions - primarily to minimize corruption and graft, yet it basically clogged up the entire system, and dissuades startups and innovators from working directly with the Defense community. Some projects like DIUx and and In-Q-Tel are trying to change that, but it's too little too late, and our defense base is entirely dependent on firms like Microsoft, Cisco, Crowdstrike, Zscaler, etc acquiring promising startups to evangelize their innovations internally.

lazyasciiart 3y ago
I think they're talking about hiring, not purchasing.
- alephnerd 3y ago
  At the end of the day, most work done by technical teams within Defense Agencies is implementation, and the R&D related work is done by specific vendors or very autonomous labs (either National Labs or a specific PI at a University) This is how it works at the Fed just like any other corporation, as well as with any other peer country. While there are internal R&D projects, most agencies aren't having their engineers design and productionize bespoke environments from scratch - they're implementing existing tooling and buying it off the shelf. For example, if you want an internal cloud platform, you'll just use Azure GovCloud. If you want to spin up a K8s cluster, you'll spin up an AKS cluster. Want to protect your cluster? You'll just purchase an off the shelf CNAPP. For defense, R&D is important, but that isn't the DoD's forte and distracts from it's core mission, which is why they offload innovation to the private sector. Even the USSR did this to a certain extent by the 1970s by supporting defense corporations like Mikoyan and Sukhoi that basically operated as state owned corporations that competed with each other. The issue is the amount of suppliers in the US has shrunk dramatically since the 1990s due to the compliance overhead and requirements such as a single platform DoD wide (a major reason for F35 cost overruns). On top of that, any fundamental research requires a significant amount of paperwork to justify funding and sets limits on salaries for PIs and Postdocs that are significantly lower than market rate. Basically, American private industry has largely been divorced from the MIC, and aside from a handful of major enterprises, there isn't an incentive to enter the procurement space. We've accidentally remade the entire 70s-80s Soviet procurement system in the US today. There are some changes happening in Software and Satellite procurement, but not as much in other sectors like Avionics.

robotnikman 3y ago

It also seems like many defense companies do no offer remote work opportunities either last I checked

nradov 3y ago
Some offer hybrid work arrangements, but if you're doing classified work or dealing with hardware then there's no practical way to do that remotely.
dmd149 3y ago
hybrid is likely the best case scenario, and very unlikely if you’re in an individual contributor role with a higher level clearance. One way to “get around” this is work it as a 1099, charge a high bill rate, and then just work less overall. But, if you’re trying to move outside of a major contracting area like DC, youre probably better off just getting a remote private sector job.
datavirtue 3y ago
Often, no. This is serious work being carried out by adults that need to come together. There is no replacement for the water cooler yet. I made the decision to explicitly seek out in-office, on-location defense work. The seridiputous conversations and relationship building was not happening in remote work. I'm someone who has always worked from home and I still do every week but my career and life were going no where typing at people through Slack and building meaningless web apps--despite making enough money to be reticent to tell most people my earnings level. Now I'm building software, involved intimately with designing and interfacing with specialized hardware, and travelling to interesting places doing interesting things with interesting people-- occasionally toppling off of combat machines. I took a 30% pay cut to do it. No regrets whatsoever, living life.
- joncrane 3y ago
  It has little to do with collaboration. Most Top Secret work occurs in a SKIF. Basically you enter, lock your phone, smartwatch, and whatever else in a locker, then enter the area where the work gets done. This area is regularly swept for bugs and whatnot. You can't work on "top secret" stuff on your own due to OpSec.

Der_Einzige 3y ago

A lot of the issue is that tech workers want to "smoke weed on the way to the interview", and in doing so, they become ineligible for a clearance.

lazyasciiart 3y ago
That sounds like an imaginary problem.
- datavirtue 3y ago
  It's very real. Having smoked or taken other illicit drugs in the recent, or not so recent, past is a major source of stress for people applying for clearance. You have to be sponsored at a significant expense by a current employer and if you don't get clearance your career is going to be upended. It's up to the worker to judge if they pre-qualify based on opaque information and anecdotes you find on Reddit.
  - lazyasciiart 3y ago
    I'd venture to guess that more tech workers lack citizenship than lack the ability to pass a drug screen. More importantly, the problem you describe is problems with the opacity and risk of failure for a clearance: not "fuckin' druggies", which is what I responded to.
  - Yodel0914 3y ago
    > Having smoked or taken other illicit drugs in the recent, or not so recent, past is a major source of stress for people applying for clearance. If you have broken the law in the past, the clearance processes mostly seem to care that a) you acknowledge it and have stopped b) you are upfront about it, and it can't be used as leverage against you. If you're currently routinely breaking the law, yes, it's going to be hard to get clearance. That seems pretty reasonable to me.
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  serious problem. generally they don't take weed to seriously, but want to know you've been drug free for roughly a year. By comparison, several / most of the Cali tech firms I've worked for / with / around had devs hitting a THC vape at lunch. Might have had to pass a piss test to get the job, but that's just 30 days, and no one is knocking on your neighbor's doors to verify your drug and employment history.