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I always thought the big elephant in the room for public vs private sector, especially the case for IT sector was the compensation leading to not being able to

I always thought the big elephant in the room for public vs private sector, especially the case for IT sector was the compensation leading to not being able to attract the best talent. That is - regardless of people who already have 4 year degrees or not, in the private sector both categories of people who are already established and accomplished would have much more earning power. Has this changed recently? If not I still think most of the best talent would be going to private sector. Sure with the recent amount of layoffs and what I've heard people saying is a general reduction in earnings for software devs and IT positions some people are looking for basically anything. While those are great people, the people doing the most impactful work likely weren't laid off in the first place in the majority of companies.

TZubiri 2y ago
Government can still hire contractors or products from the private sector no?
- datavirtue 2y ago
  Yes, but it is extremely budget constrained and there are a few companies who tune their business to this type of work. It's brutal. If you need clearanced engineers the price goes through the roof.
Retric 2y ago
Government pays IT fairly well compared to 95% of all IT jobs. It’s not paying FAANG wages, but more time off, less overtime, and pensions make direct salary comparisons misleading. Honestly if I was starting over as a fresh graduate I’d probably try and get a government job. Job security makes a huge difference in lifetime earnings and several of my early jobs sucked.
- culopatin 2y ago
  And pension! At least in my circle
- lr4444lr 2y ago
  I agree with your first paragraph, not your second. A major downside to govt. tech is their overly conservative approach to adopting new technology, and generally low standard to overall speed of execution and productivity. You'll probably be safe if you stay in the same agency or related cluster, but I have found that people trying to break into the private sector or jump to a different jurisdiction with a totally different tech stack were either woefully under developed in terms of their skill set outside of the 20 year old proprietary stuff they were used to using, or were 0.1x developers compared to their private sector colleagues. When you're young, you have the time and energy to toil hard for long hours and learn lots of new things. I would not waste that resource on a government job unless I were ready to make a career long commitment to it.
  - diggan 2y ago
    > tech is their overly conservative approach to adopting new technology, and generally low standard to overall speed of execution and productivity Or, another reading would be that they're avoiding the hype cycle the private sector constantly falls into, and you won't be overworked/eventually stressed out because of the constant pressure from shareholders/executives/founders who want you to put 150% of your energy with no work/life balance into their "vision of supercharged spreadsheets" or something similar. I personally wouldn't waste my youth on just slaving away at companies for money, but also spend time exploring the world and yourself while you're young enough to have the energy (and hopefully time) to do so.
  - Retric 2y ago
    My private sector jobs have largely used outdated or proprietary technologies. First job had me maintaining a ~30 year old Object Pascal project in the early 2000’s. They were still using AppleTalk instead of TCP/IP locally. IMO keeping up is more about what you do in your free time rather than trying to actually work with whatever the new hotness is. So having free time is critical not just whatever technology you’re using at work. However, work for NASA for 40 years and what the industry does is irrelevant.
- nunez 2y ago
  No it definitely does not. A GS-15, whose job duties would be equivalent to a CTO or principal engineer in private sector, makes _at least_ 3x less than the going rate. You are correct in that gov benefits are incredible.
  - tivert 2y ago
    >> Government pays IT fairly well compared to 95% of all IT jobs. It’s not paying FAANG wages, but more time off, less overtime, and pensions make direct salary comparisons misleading. > No it definitely does not. A GS-15, whose job duties would be equivalent to a CTO or principal engineer in private sector, makes _at least_ 3x less than the going rate. You are correct in that gov benefits are incredible. What's the government pay for a senior engineer, and what's your number for an equivalent private sector salary?
    - beretguy 2y ago
      I’m in gov making 55K. My friends in private make 130K+.
      - Retric 2y ago
        Are they doing similar jobs near you? The cost of living adjustment hits 45% and that’s arguably low for San Francisco.
      - alephnerd 2y ago
        That's very low for a GSA role. Are you state or local government? Base salary for most GSA SWE roles tend to be around $70-140k base (GS-7 to GS-15). I don't think I've ever met a sub-GS-7 SWE outside of those working on a military base directly or via a non-trad veteran hiring program.
  - Retric 2y ago
    It’s important to realize senior government roles are bumped up by years of service and local cost of living. CTO’s pay varies wildly but the average is only ~175k you can make more than that in government. Yes Google’s CTO makes vastly more, but there’s 1,000 local banks for every Google. https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Chief_Technology_Officer_(CTO)/Salary https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Chief_Technology_Of... In Arlington VA you’ll cap out at 33.26% over the GS-15 step 10 so 160k * 1.33 = 212k and someone with 40 years of service is looking at a 212 * 0.011 * 40 = 93k per year pension at 62 which then gets inflation adjustments. There’s people making 3x that but not that many of them.
diggan 2y ago
> I always thought the big elephant in the room for public vs private sector, especially the case for IT sector was the compensation leading to not being able to attract the best talent. Is the best talent only attracted by money in the US? Are none of these people OK with taking a X% paycut (just an example) in order to work on things that have higher impact? Do the government even want people who work there to be working there only because it pays more? Is it possible that because the government pays less than the private sector, it ends up employing people who are more aligned, compared to if they just chunked more money at people? As an example, if one superstar programmer went to NSA instead of the private sector because NSA paid the most out of the offers they got, doesn't that mean it'll be trivial to pull this person away from the NSA in the future, just by offering more cash? Wouldn't it kind of make sense for the NSA to want people to join them because of the mission/purpose/something else, so they can retain people based on those things rather than just money? Edit: Changed 10% to X% as apparently that's the only thing people could focus on, instead of the more meaningful questions in my comment.
- datavirtue 2y ago
  More like a 20-30% pay cut. You trade it for the only semblance of stability that exists for such jobs. We are used to getting chucked on the street every few years. Once you get into a gov job you are in until you leave.
  - orbisvicis 2y ago
    There's a difference between contractor and actual government, in terms of stability and pay.
  - vorpalhex 2y ago
    Anecdata but one coworker was making about 30% of what I do for similar work and they are similarly skilled. They are now within 10% of me having gone private. And you are right in that you will never be fired.. and that is equally true for your worst colleagues, horrible managers and so on.
- dghlsakjg 2y ago
bikingbismuth 2y ago
The skilled people I know who work for the US government usually are very mission driven and/or working towards a pension. For foreign governments, people tell me they like the stability.
AmericanChopper 2y ago
All of the world’s most successful unions (bar associations, the APA, UAPD..) achieved the greatly increased remuneration by increasing the costs and barriers to entry as much as possible. It makes sense that any employer would want to lower those barriers to entry as much as possible. The reason this trend across all employers has been emerging is simply because they started to realise they could get away with it, as in there were qualified candidates that didn’t have college degrees. All employers benefit from the increased labour pool from this, because increasing the supply of anything is going to put downward pressure on its price.

TZubiri 2y ago

Government can still hire contractors or products from the private sector no?

datavirtue 2y ago
Yes, but it is extremely budget constrained and there are a few companies who tune their business to this type of work. It's brutal. If you need clearanced engineers the price goes through the roof.

Retric 2y ago

Government pays IT fairly well compared to 95% of all IT jobs. It’s not paying FAANG wages, but more time off, less overtime, and pensions make direct salary comparisons misleading. Honestly if I was starting over as a fresh graduate I’d probably try and get a government job. Job security makes a huge difference in lifetime earnings and several of my early jobs sucked.

culopatin 2y ago
And pension! At least in my circle
lr4444lr 2y ago
I agree with your first paragraph, not your second. A major downside to govt. tech is their overly conservative approach to adopting new technology, and generally low standard to overall speed of execution and productivity. You'll probably be safe if you stay in the same agency or related cluster, but I have found that people trying to break into the private sector or jump to a different jurisdiction with a totally different tech stack were either woefully under developed in terms of their skill set outside of the 20 year old proprietary stuff they were used to using, or were 0.1x developers compared to their private sector colleagues. When you're young, you have the time and energy to toil hard for long hours and learn lots of new things. I would not waste that resource on a government job unless I were ready to make a career long commitment to it.
- diggan 2y ago
  > tech is their overly conservative approach to adopting new technology, and generally low standard to overall speed of execution and productivity Or, another reading would be that they're avoiding the hype cycle the private sector constantly falls into, and you won't be overworked/eventually stressed out because of the constant pressure from shareholders/executives/founders who want you to put 150% of your energy with no work/life balance into their "vision of supercharged spreadsheets" or something similar. I personally wouldn't waste my youth on just slaving away at companies for money, but also spend time exploring the world and yourself while you're young enough to have the energy (and hopefully time) to do so.
- Retric 2y ago
  My private sector jobs have largely used outdated or proprietary technologies. First job had me maintaining a ~30 year old Object Pascal project in the early 2000’s. They were still using AppleTalk instead of TCP/IP locally. IMO keeping up is more about what you do in your free time rather than trying to actually work with whatever the new hotness is. So having free time is critical not just whatever technology you’re using at work. However, work for NASA for 40 years and what the industry does is irrelevant.
nunez 2y ago
No it definitely does not. A GS-15, whose job duties would be equivalent to a CTO or principal engineer in private sector, makes _at least_ 3x less than the going rate. You are correct in that gov benefits are incredible.
- tivert 2y ago
  >> Government pays IT fairly well compared to 95% of all IT jobs. It’s not paying FAANG wages, but more time off, less overtime, and pensions make direct salary comparisons misleading. > No it definitely does not. A GS-15, whose job duties would be equivalent to a CTO or principal engineer in private sector, makes _at least_ 3x less than the going rate. You are correct in that gov benefits are incredible. What's the government pay for a senior engineer, and what's your number for an equivalent private sector salary?
  - beretguy 2y ago
    I’m in gov making 55K. My friends in private make 130K+.
    - Retric 2y ago
      Are they doing similar jobs near you? The cost of living adjustment hits 45% and that’s arguably low for San Francisco.
    - alephnerd 2y ago
      That's very low for a GSA role. Are you state or local government? Base salary for most GSA SWE roles tend to be around $70-140k base (GS-7 to GS-15). I don't think I've ever met a sub-GS-7 SWE outside of those working on a military base directly or via a non-trad veteran hiring program.
- Retric 2y ago
  It’s important to realize senior government roles are bumped up by years of service and local cost of living. CTO’s pay varies wildly but the average is only ~175k you can make more than that in government. Yes Google’s CTO makes vastly more, but there’s 1,000 local banks for every Google. https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Chief_Technology_Officer_(CTO)/Salary https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Chief_Technology_Of... In Arlington VA you’ll cap out at 33.26% over the GS-15 step 10 so 160k * 1.33 = 212k and someone with 40 years of service is looking at a 212 * 0.011 * 40 = 93k per year pension at 62 which then gets inflation adjustments. There’s people making 3x that but not that many of them.

diggan 2y ago

> I always thought the big elephant in the room for public vs private sector, especially the case for IT sector was the compensation leading to not being able to attract the best talent. Is the best talent only attracted by money in the US? Are none of these people OK with taking a X% paycut (just an example) in order to work on things that have higher impact? Do the government even want people who work there to be working there only because it pays more? Is it possible that because the government pays less than the private sector, it ends up employing people who are more aligned, compared to if they just chunked more money at people? As an example, if one superstar programmer went to NSA instead of the private sector because NSA paid the most out of the offers they got, doesn't that mean it'll be trivial to pull this person away from the NSA in the future, just by offering more cash? Wouldn't it kind of make sense for the NSA to want people to join them because of the mission/purpose/something else, so they can retain people based on those things rather than just money? Edit: Changed 10% to X% as apparently that's the only thing people could focus on, instead of the more meaningful questions in my comment.

datavirtue 2y ago
More like a 20-30% pay cut. You trade it for the only semblance of stability that exists for such jobs. We are used to getting chucked on the street every few years. Once you get into a gov job you are in until you leave.
- orbisvicis 2y ago
  There's a difference between contractor and actual government, in terms of stability and pay.
- vorpalhex 2y ago
  Anecdata but one coworker was making about 30% of what I do for similar work and they are similarly skilled. They are now within 10% of me having gone private. And you are right in that you will never be fired.. and that is equally true for your worst colleagues, horrible managers and so on.
dghlsakjg 2y ago

bikingbismuth 2y ago

The skilled people I know who work for the US government usually are very mission driven and/or working towards a pension. For foreign governments, people tell me they like the stability.

AmericanChopper 2y ago

All of the world’s most successful unions (bar associations, the APA, UAPD..) achieved the greatly increased remuneration by increasing the costs and barriers to entry as much as possible. It makes sense that any employer would want to lower those barriers to entry as much as possible. The reason this trend across all employers has been emerging is simply because they started to realise they could get away with it, as in there were qualified candidates that didn’t have college degrees. All employers benefit from the increased labour pool from this, because increasing the supply of anything is going to put downward pressure on its price.