6 ms·

I've been thinking about making a switch over to working for a defense contractor over start-up. The pay seems to be better in lower cost of living area's (Was

I've been thinking about making a switch over to working for a defense contractor over start-up. The pay seems to be better in lower cost of living area's (Washington DC metro vs. SF); job security better in BigCo like Mitre, SAIC and Booze and less competition from H1B visa holders that cannot obtain security clearance easily. Get to work on cool technology with big scaling and parallel processing over web CRUD frameworks. Anyone has experience making the switch?

falk 13y ago
Why would you want to work for a defense contractor after seeing all the awful things they do on behalf of the U.S. government? Is a little extra cash in your pocket and a little more job security worth your selling your soul to the devil?
- darien 13y ago
  maybe he wants to leak. Don't judge.
  - northwest 13y ago
    Exactly. Everybody needs to take a leak, sometimes.
- ToothlessJake 13y ago
  The changing of national defense to a for-profit venture that also included protecting corporations within said nation has resulted in a magnificent shift in the quality of staffing. No longer do you have idealists willing to drive their vision of a great United States by taking a job with marginal income but great reward. You have folks like those above, who see headlines of rights abuses and think "I would like to profit off that." Sure the quality of life is better in the locality the work is in, but only because it is built upon the lessening of quality of life for others at the expensive of said others. Others who do not want their tax monies being driven to immunity shielded corporations who work to kill others via drones under the guise of freedom and liberty. Yes, that is SAIC[1]. [1] http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/06/14/news-saic-wins-95-million-drone-management-contrac/ http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/06/14/news-saic-wins-95-mil...
  - noname123 13y ago
    Hi, ToothlessJake; thank you for your comment. I understand why you might consider people like me as opportunists. However, as I get older, I care less about the abstract goals of "justice/altruism" and more concrete goals of helping out friends and family. Perhaps you and I have a different perspective on quality of staffing. Too often, I find a lot of people in academia/life sciences research/NGO's have a propensity to feel or appear to others that they are altruistic or making a difference. But when push comes to shove, the same "altruistic" person will resort to the same old Machiavellian tactics for personal gains that's commonly seen everywhere. Best way IMO to establish a fair society and company is to make everyone as informed as possible how you will be exploited and lied to; and I find that honest attitude to be more prevalent in BigCo vs. startup's where management appeals more to the "startup" culture to manipulate people to do more work and take less pay.
    - ToothlessJake 13y ago
      If you wanted to help your friends and family you would not work for murderers or their support staff. Helping friends and family means more than monetary income with walled gardens that consume the rest of society outside of it. It means furthering society, the health of it. Go find a flower company or something, you can easily avoid work at SAIC or Boeing.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - MrMan 13y ago
      we have a very corrupt system that has many layers of deniability in-built. the next decade will see either an unraveling of the fascist machine we have built, or more genocides perpetrated by US. you know in advance that it is unlikely that our defense infrastructure will be used for completely defensive purposes. how do you avoid not just culpability but reprisal if we are targeted by agents of a foreign foe?
    - smokeyj 13y ago
      > as I get older, I care less about the abstract goals of "justice/altruism" Is this that abstract? These are the tools that will be used to usurp Americans of their privacy. If you just don't care, I can understand that. But if you do care, why sacrifice your values for salary money. I'm just saying, my personal price for driving society back into the dark ages is much higher.
- eshvk 13y ago
  What is the alternative again? Working for Facebook, Google and twitter ?
  - falk 13y ago
    Or one of the thousands of start-ups or charities in this country that are all working on interesting problems.
  - noarchy 13y ago
    The nice thing about Facebook, Google, and Twitter is that I don't have to use them. If there is a way to opt-out of what the NSA is doing, or what the government of my own country (Canada) is likely doing, I'd love to know about it.
- bennyg 13y ago
  God damn. Not all defense contractors work on the NSA spying technologies. Personally, I think it'd be cool to work on anti-missile guidance systems or fighter jet avionics.
  - falk 13y ago
    He specifically pointed out Booze Allen which is known for their NSA spying. It's not like you can walk into the organization and say, "Hey, I'd like a job. You guys don't spy on Americans, right?".
    - bennyg 13y ago
      Not the comment I replied to. He just lumped all defense contractors into soulless assholes basically. And that's just intellectually dishonest.
  - bane 13y ago
    Correct. These guys [1] actually are prohibited by corporate charter from working on offensive technologies. 1 - http://www.battelle.org/ http://www.battelle.org/
- dekz 13y ago
  Well if the devil is the government, doing crypto for the government is surely a lot less heinous then implementing NSA bridged backdoors into Facebook backends. At least the former is more morally and legally correct.
dictum 13y ago
>Get to work on cool technology with big scaling and parallel processing over web CRUD frameworks It's your right to work on whatever you want, but even though I work with technology, I prefer to focus on what I'm building and its implications instead of what cool implementation details go into it. Working on mass surveilance systems because the tools are technically exciting is akin to using molecular gastronomy to produce a portion of human feces.
- dllthomas 13y ago
  http://www.angryflower.com/jirodr.html http://www.angryflower.com/jirodr.html
- eclipxe 13y ago
  Hey, Soylent is solving a real problem, it isn't feces...
  - northwest 13y ago
    Exactly, it's diarrhea.
bane 13y ago
Yes. I've bounced back and forth between startups in and out of the Fed space and for Fed contractor mega corps in the lean times. Short answer: if I had the opportunity to pick up my family and move to NYC or the Bay Area and have a similar standard of living I'd probably do it tomorrow. Long answer: job security in Fed contractor mega corps generally sucks. You can expect to have a job with the mega corp for up-to-a-year, 2 if you're lucky. Resumes in the DC area frequently go to 3 or 4 pages just listing past jobs and a couple of bullet points each let alone education or any of the other interesting things. When the contract ends or goes elsewhere, you either get let go or are given a couple of weeks to hunt around internally for another job then are let go. Longevity in any of those companies relies heavily on cronyism and brown nosing so you might stay on the good side of management and get "offered" your next contract job in the same company. With the end of the Iraq and Afghan wars funding is getting massively cut and the sequester has had a very large impact. The same people, working in the same position, but on a new contract, from last year to this year can expect a 30-40% pay cut. I know of dozens of personal contacts who've gotten pink-slipped from the Mitres, Lockheeds, SAICs and Boozes in the last few months. There's also hundreds of smaller 10-300 person companies that sub-contract to those mega corps that might treat you a bit better. Also, the defense contractor career progression is a mirror of military service. If you left the military as an enlisted, you probably won't ever make a senior management position. If you left in the officer ranks, you can expect to find yourself similarly positioned in senior management beneath and above people who left as officers in almost the same respective positions - it's almost farcical how bad this is. Most contractors I know are desperate to take a pay cut and get a very stable government job at this point. Competitive is a generous description for the work market in the DC area. It's more Machiavellian combined with Italian mobster backstabbery and unbelievably political. The technology is also a bit behind the times (to be generous). Imagine making the kind of tech that's in the leaks, but with the state of software and hardware 5-10 years ago. It's an interesting challenge, but really takes you out of the reverse market, moving from the Fed space to the West Coast startup world is very hard. A good compromise might be to work for a West Coast defense contractor like Palantir or Thetus...the technology is much cooler to work on in general and you get the benefits of recognition in two major employer markets. Here's a nice list of similar companies http://www.iqt.org/portfolio/ict.html http://www.iqt.org/portfolio/ict.html
ZanyProgrammer 13y ago
I had an MI MOS in the Army, and I don't miss the invasive ness of background checks one bit. Do you want to have your past pried open to get a TS clearance? Are you ok with lie detectors and random urine tests? Do you do any illicit drugs? Are you trans? For the right kind of person, sure, but some people can't/won't subject themselves to that.
danenania 13y ago
Question to you and other people working or considering working for defense contractors involved in morally controversial stuff: where's the line for you? Would you help design logistics systems for a concentration camp? Is there anything you wouldn't do for a nice salary and interesting technical challenges?

falk 13y ago

Why would you want to work for a defense contractor after seeing all the awful things they do on behalf of the U.S. government? Is a little extra cash in your pocket and a little more job security worth your selling your soul to the devil?

darien 13y ago
maybe he wants to leak. Don't judge.
- northwest 13y ago
  Exactly. Everybody needs to take a leak, sometimes.
ToothlessJake 13y ago
The changing of national defense to a for-profit venture that also included protecting corporations within said nation has resulted in a magnificent shift in the quality of staffing. No longer do you have idealists willing to drive their vision of a great United States by taking a job with marginal income but great reward. You have folks like those above, who see headlines of rights abuses and think "I would like to profit off that." Sure the quality of life is better in the locality the work is in, but only because it is built upon the lessening of quality of life for others at the expensive of said others. Others who do not want their tax monies being driven to immunity shielded corporations who work to kill others via drones under the guise of freedom and liberty. Yes, that is SAIC[1]. [1] http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/06/14/news-saic-wins-95-million-drone-management-contrac/ http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/06/14/news-saic-wins-95-mil...
- noname123 13y ago
  Hi, ToothlessJake; thank you for your comment. I understand why you might consider people like me as opportunists. However, as I get older, I care less about the abstract goals of "justice/altruism" and more concrete goals of helping out friends and family. Perhaps you and I have a different perspective on quality of staffing. Too often, I find a lot of people in academia/life sciences research/NGO's have a propensity to feel or appear to others that they are altruistic or making a difference. But when push comes to shove, the same "altruistic" person will resort to the same old Machiavellian tactics for personal gains that's commonly seen everywhere. Best way IMO to establish a fair society and company is to make everyone as informed as possible how you will be exploited and lied to; and I find that honest attitude to be more prevalent in BigCo vs. startup's where management appeals more to the "startup" culture to manipulate people to do more work and take less pay.
  - ToothlessJake 13y ago
    If you wanted to help your friends and family you would not work for murderers or their support staff. Helping friends and family means more than monetary income with walled gardens that consume the rest of society outside of it. It means furthering society, the health of it. Go find a flower company or something, you can easily avoid work at SAIC or Boeing.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - MrMan 13y ago
    we have a very corrupt system that has many layers of deniability in-built. the next decade will see either an unraveling of the fascist machine we have built, or more genocides perpetrated by US. you know in advance that it is unlikely that our defense infrastructure will be used for completely defensive purposes. how do you avoid not just culpability but reprisal if we are targeted by agents of a foreign foe?
  - smokeyj 13y ago
    > as I get older, I care less about the abstract goals of "justice/altruism" Is this that abstract? These are the tools that will be used to usurp Americans of their privacy. If you just don't care, I can understand that. But if you do care, why sacrifice your values for salary money. I'm just saying, my personal price for driving society back into the dark ages is much higher.
eshvk 13y ago
What is the alternative again? Working for Facebook, Google and twitter ?
- falk 13y ago
  Or one of the thousands of start-ups or charities in this country that are all working on interesting problems.
- noarchy 13y ago
  The nice thing about Facebook, Google, and Twitter is that I don't have to use them. If there is a way to opt-out of what the NSA is doing, or what the government of my own country (Canada) is likely doing, I'd love to know about it.
bennyg 13y ago
God damn. Not all defense contractors work on the NSA spying technologies. Personally, I think it'd be cool to work on anti-missile guidance systems or fighter jet avionics.
- falk 13y ago
  He specifically pointed out Booze Allen which is known for their NSA spying. It's not like you can walk into the organization and say, "Hey, I'd like a job. You guys don't spy on Americans, right?".
  - bennyg 13y ago
    Not the comment I replied to. He just lumped all defense contractors into soulless assholes basically. And that's just intellectually dishonest.
- bane 13y ago
  Correct. These guys [1] actually are prohibited by corporate charter from working on offensive technologies. 1 - http://www.battelle.org/ http://www.battelle.org/
dekz 13y ago
Well if the devil is the government, doing crypto for the government is surely a lot less heinous then implementing NSA bridged backdoors into Facebook backends. At least the former is more morally and legally correct.

dictum 13y ago

>Get to work on cool technology with big scaling and parallel processing over web CRUD frameworks It's your right to work on whatever you want, but even though I work with technology, I prefer to focus on what I'm building and its implications instead of what cool implementation details go into it. Working on mass surveilance systems because the tools are technically exciting is akin to using molecular gastronomy to produce a portion of human feces.

dllthomas 13y ago
http://www.angryflower.com/jirodr.html http://www.angryflower.com/jirodr.html
eclipxe 13y ago
Hey, Soylent is solving a real problem, it isn't feces...
- northwest 13y ago
  Exactly, it's diarrhea.

bane 13y ago

Yes. I've bounced back and forth between startups in and out of the Fed space and for Fed contractor mega corps in the lean times. Short answer: if I had the opportunity to pick up my family and move to NYC or the Bay Area and have a similar standard of living I'd probably do it tomorrow. Long answer: job security in Fed contractor mega corps generally sucks. You can expect to have a job with the mega corp for up-to-a-year, 2 if you're lucky. Resumes in the DC area frequently go to 3 or 4 pages just listing past jobs and a couple of bullet points each let alone education or any of the other interesting things. When the contract ends or goes elsewhere, you either get let go or are given a couple of weeks to hunt around internally for another job then are let go. Longevity in any of those companies relies heavily on cronyism and brown nosing so you might stay on the good side of management and get "offered" your next contract job in the same company. With the end of the Iraq and Afghan wars funding is getting massively cut and the sequester has had a very large impact. The same people, working in the same position, but on a new contract, from last year to this year can expect a 30-40% pay cut. I know of dozens of personal contacts who've gotten pink-slipped from the Mitres, Lockheeds, SAICs and Boozes in the last few months. There's also hundreds of smaller 10-300 person companies that sub-contract to those mega corps that might treat you a bit better. Also, the defense contractor career progression is a mirror of military service. If you left the military as an enlisted, you probably won't ever make a senior management position. If you left in the officer ranks, you can expect to find yourself similarly positioned in senior management beneath and above people who left as officers in almost the same respective positions - it's almost farcical how bad this is. Most contractors I know are desperate to take a pay cut and get a very stable government job at this point. Competitive is a generous description for the work market in the DC area. It's more Machiavellian combined with Italian mobster backstabbery and unbelievably political. The technology is also a bit behind the times (to be generous). Imagine making the kind of tech that's in the leaks, but with the state of software and hardware 5-10 years ago. It's an interesting challenge, but really takes you out of the reverse market, moving from the Fed space to the West Coast startup world is very hard. A good compromise might be to work for a West Coast defense contractor like Palantir or Thetus...the technology is much cooler to work on in general and you get the benefits of recognition in two major employer markets. Here's a nice list of similar companies http://www.iqt.org/portfolio/ict.html http://www.iqt.org/portfolio/ict.html

ZanyProgrammer 13y ago

I had an MI MOS in the Army, and I don't miss the invasive ness of background checks one bit. Do you want to have your past pried open to get a TS clearance? Are you ok with lie detectors and random urine tests? Do you do any illicit drugs? Are you trans? For the right kind of person, sure, but some people can't/won't subject themselves to that.

danenania 13y ago

Question to you and other people working or considering working for defense contractors involved in morally controversial stuff: where's the line for you? Would you help design logistics systems for a concentration camp? Is there anything you wouldn't do for a nice salary and interesting technical challenges?