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>> The pacts "represent non-essential spending on third party consultants" for services Pentagon employees can perform The irony is that they're cutting extern
by ethbr1 2y ago
>> The pacts "represent non-essential spending on third party consultants" for services Pentagon employees can perform
The irony is that they're cutting external solution providers to do more in-house.
... which means more work in-house.
... done by the same teams they just cut the size of.
Without looking at government pay bands for specialty talent, I think the Pentagon is going to have a hard time doing this work itself well.
- nothercastle 2y agoYeah that’s going to be the problem. The pay bands are so low they would be lucky to get people with degrees at all. Definitely not talent
- _mlbt 2y agoPay isn’t everything. Government civilian GS employees have an extremely generous benefits package and usually excellent job security. Contractors frequently take pay cuts to work directly as a government employee for these reasons.
- hobs 2y agoAnd now they do not have job security.
- ceejayoz 2y agoThat ship has sailed now, though. The benefits and job security can no longer be counted on. Government is gonna have to compete more on salary, or accept worse candidates.
- lotsofpulp 2y agoA silver lining in all this upheaval is the reduction of price obfuscation (hopefully) by getting rid of deferred compensation schemes that make it difficult for labor sellers to evaluate the market.
- _mlbt 2y agoI said usually for job security because I am familiar with the current administration’s actions, and the benefits have not been touched and would take an act of Congress to change. Trust me, there are still lots of talented individuals who are eager to join the government workforce, even now.
- ceejayoz 2y ago> benefits have not been touched… If you don't count mass firings, sure.
- Vegenoid 2y agoI don’t really trust you on that. Why is the government workforce not more capable if there are lots of skilled people who want to work for them?
- nothercastle 2y agoFor poverty wages? In my city government workers with families almost universally qualify for subsidized housing. People in my experience get half my salary, and then half of that goes to housing. Maybe some C tier talent goes to government but not without wfh, pension or other benefits.
- _mlbt 2y agoFederal IT workers are hardly working for poverty wages. In addition to their base salaries, they receive additional locality pay, generous benefits like paid time off, retirement benefits, inexpensive health insurance and life insurance, training and advancement opportunities, and the opportunity to receive monetary and time off awards. It’s not FAANG salaries, but they are very well compensated and the working conditions are usually great.
- ethbr1 2y ago> very well compensated You'd have to be a GS-14 [0] to be north of $150k base salary. That's tech team manager / senior manager, with a post-graduate degree, and 7+ years of experience in the field. [0] https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/2025/general-schedule/ https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries... > and the working conditions are usually great Really? Because private sector seems a lot more stable these days.
- BeetleB 2y ago> Government civilian GS employees have an extremely generous benefits package and usually excellent job security. Had. Not have.
- nothercastle 2y agoYep this was true a decade or 2 ago not true anymore. Generous compared to Walmart, sure but not compared to Industry for any type of Technical work.
- BeetleB 2y agoYeah, I was referring to the job security aspect, given all the layoffs. But yes, the federal package is good, but not fantastic. It's on par with what a typical company provides. Salary is decent, too. Not FAANG, but not below industry average. More or less, just like a typical industry job. State/city jobs tend to have much better benefit packages, but lower pay (often a lot lower). They also tend to be relatively chill workwise.
- ethbr1 2y ago> tend to be relatively chill workwise This feels like something that needed past tense. Some rich asshole I don't know blasting out weekly check-in demands to the org-wide list doesn't sound very chill.
- BeetleB 2y ago> Some rich asshole I don't know blasting out weekly check-in demands to the org-wide list doesn't sound very chill. Context? The comment was about city/state jobs, not federal.
- ethbr1 2y agoA Florida man didn't want to feel left out. https://www.flgov.com/eog/news/press/2025/governor-ron-desantis-announces-florida-doge-efforts https://www.flgov.com/eog/news/press/2025/governor-ron-desan...
- fakedang 2y agoLast I checked, there was a surplus of tech talent in the US who have been subject to layoffs. Govt gives benefits and job security, at least till the next opportunity rises.
- nothercastle 2y agoDoubt it, many mid/low tier industries still struggle to hire because they pay engineering salaries not tech money. Government salaries are easily 30-50% lower
- ForHackernews 2y agoHave you worked with body-shop consultants? I think I'd take my chances with an idealistic E-3.
- icedchai 2y agoI was on a 6-month project with some body shop consultants. We were a small, boutique consultancy that outsourced work to a much larger body shop. They barely did any work, and what little work they did was some of the worst quality stuff I've seen in my life. They told us they had completed "phase 1" of a project. It didn't work at all. And we still paid them.
- nyarlathotep_ 2y agoI do wonder how the proliferation of LLM-aided programming will impact this. I'd much rather have a "vibe" generated codebase as a deliverable over what these body shops churn out. Speaking from experience with both.
- kurthr 2y agoOh, it's fine. They can hire help from Russia to secure our infrastructure for a very low price. With the tariffs it doesn't really make sense for China to bid, or they'd be paying US! Eventual costs, well that's not really a concern and neither is national defense.