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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 t

by 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
The pay differential is way more substantial than 10%. The Federal GS pay scale tops out at 159k in 2024. That’s a salary typically reserved for people who have spent years in government. There are ways to get that number higher, but at the end of the day our best developers can grab multiples of the highest government salary in Silicon Valley fresh out of college. There are people that go into government work for reasons of moral duty, but at the end of the day, it’s hard to compete with salary differentials measured in multiples.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- dghlsakjg 2y ago
  To respond to your edit about ignoring the pay differential, and the other substance of your comments. I did note that some people choose to work in government out of a sense of moral duty, but the fact of the matter is that you probably aren't going to be working on something that has any sort of impact, especially compared to what private enterprise offers. If you want to work on interesting aerospace projects, that's private sector. At the leading edge of computing, again private sector. Leading edge of hardware research, private sector. The only place where you are going to make a big difference with a CS degree in government is likely doing nefarious stuff with 3 letter agencies. Maybe with climate and environment as well. But again, you can have a big impact in cybersecurity or climate modelling in private sector as well. And we just can't discard the pay differential. There are cities where government workers have to get second jobs to make their bills. a 50% pay cut just can't be ignored.

by diggan 2y ago

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

The pay differential is way more substantial than 10%. The Federal GS pay scale tops out at 159k in 2024. That’s a salary typically reserved for people who have spent years in government. There are ways to get that number higher, but at the end of the day our best developers can grab multiples of the highest government salary in Silicon Valley fresh out of college. There are people that go into government work for reasons of moral duty, but at the end of the day, it’s hard to compete with salary differentials measured in multiples.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
dghlsakjg 2y ago
To respond to your edit about ignoring the pay differential, and the other substance of your comments. I did note that some people choose to work in government out of a sense of moral duty, but the fact of the matter is that you probably aren't going to be working on something that has any sort of impact, especially compared to what private enterprise offers. If you want to work on interesting aerospace projects, that's private sector. At the leading edge of computing, again private sector. Leading edge of hardware research, private sector. The only place where you are going to make a big difference with a CS degree in government is likely doing nefarious stuff with 3 letter agencies. Maybe with climate and environment as well. But again, you can have a big impact in cybersecurity or climate modelling in private sector as well. And we just can't discard the pay differential. There are cities where government workers have to get second jobs to make their bills. a 50% pay cut just can't be ignored.