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The NSA has no problem paying for top talent, but they do it by going through consulting firms. It's true that most Americans would shit their pants at 6 figure

The NSA has no problem paying for top talent, but they do it by going through consulting firms. It's true that most Americans would shit their pants at 6 figure soldiers, but few military skills are so valued by the open market. As we're constantly told by the tech media, you should prefer five $200,000 people to ten $100,000 people, or—god forbid—50+ people writing PowerShell scripts for minimum wage.

phaus 12y ago
>It's true that most Americans would shit their pants at 6 figure soldiers, but few military skills are so valued by the open market. Infantrymen won't have marketable skills, but we are talking about military security analysts. These guys often do have skills equivalent to their civilian counterparts. You seem to be making the same assumption that many others in this thread have: that all Soldiers are infantrymen of less than average intelligence.
- zachrose 12y ago
  The link upthread of us shows that annual pay for federal cybersecurity professionals is about on par with industry [1], especially when considering geography/cost of living. My surprise had more to do with learning that cyberwarefare reservists exist, let alone enlisted soldiers. (I'm not familiar with the military.) [1]: http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR400/RR430/RAND_RR430.pdf http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/R... p.64
  - phaus 12y ago
    >My surprise had more to do with learning that cyberwarefare reservists exist.. I can see how you would be surprised. It seems counter-intuitive, but its actually normal for reservists in technical fields to be better at their jobs than the military. The best example I can think of is the field of aviation. Many reserve pilots are commercial pilots that get to fly 1000s of hours each year. Their full-time military counterparts don't get to fly their fancy fighter jets very often, because its really expensive.
rdl 12y ago
Doctors and pilots get paid reasonably well by the military (especially once training, liability, etc. is factored in). We could probably do something reasonable in infosec.
- phaus 12y ago
  >Doctors and pilots get paid reasonably well by the military. Doctors are officers. This means that they get paid much more than Soldiers, but its still a laughably low amount when you compare it to a civilian doctor's salary. Pilots are also officers. Their salaries are closer to the civilian world, but they are still probably a little low. I don't think the Army is about to convert tens of thousands of IT specialists and Intel analysts from enlisted Soldiers to commissioned officers. Even if they did, the majority of them would still be making well below market rate. Even the officer ranks that pay competitively require 10-20 years of service. At that point you are going to have a salary that's comparable to a civilian security analyst with a couple years' experience.
  - rdl 12y ago
    The people I interacted with most were Healthcare Information Systems Officers (70D), who were generally O-2 to O-4. Given that they tended to be fairly early career and living in low cost areas of the country, with college paid, it was a pretty good deal for them. I think flexibility is the real problem with military hiring, not absolute pay levels.
    - phaus 12y ago
      After allowances, they are making about 52-70k depending on which rank they hold. That's not bad for what they do, but if they were actual doctors it would be terrible. Its also not a technical job in the traditional sense, 70Ds typically spend 8 years as a 70B (Even though a lot of them will be slotted as 70Ds much earlier than this) which is essentially a management position at a medical facility. From the description of 70D, it could end up being a technical job depending on the particular assignment, but its more oriented towards healthcare management types. Its not a bad deal at all if you are looking for a way to pay off your student loans.

phaus 12y ago

>It's true that most Americans would shit their pants at 6 figure soldiers, but few military skills are so valued by the open market. Infantrymen won't have marketable skills, but we are talking about military security analysts. These guys often do have skills equivalent to their civilian counterparts. You seem to be making the same assumption that many others in this thread have: that all Soldiers are infantrymen of less than average intelligence.

zachrose 12y ago
The link upthread of us shows that annual pay for federal cybersecurity professionals is about on par with industry [1], especially when considering geography/cost of living. My surprise had more to do with learning that cyberwarefare reservists exist, let alone enlisted soldiers. (I'm not familiar with the military.) [1]: http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR400/RR430/RAND_RR430.pdf http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/R... p.64
- phaus 12y ago
  >My surprise had more to do with learning that cyberwarefare reservists exist.. I can see how you would be surprised. It seems counter-intuitive, but its actually normal for reservists in technical fields to be better at their jobs than the military. The best example I can think of is the field of aviation. Many reserve pilots are commercial pilots that get to fly 1000s of hours each year. Their full-time military counterparts don't get to fly their fancy fighter jets very often, because its really expensive.

rdl 12y ago

Doctors and pilots get paid reasonably well by the military (especially once training, liability, etc. is factored in). We could probably do something reasonable in infosec.

phaus 12y ago
>Doctors and pilots get paid reasonably well by the military. Doctors are officers. This means that they get paid much more than Soldiers, but its still a laughably low amount when you compare it to a civilian doctor's salary. Pilots are also officers. Their salaries are closer to the civilian world, but they are still probably a little low. I don't think the Army is about to convert tens of thousands of IT specialists and Intel analysts from enlisted Soldiers to commissioned officers. Even if they did, the majority of them would still be making well below market rate. Even the officer ranks that pay competitively require 10-20 years of service. At that point you are going to have a salary that's comparable to a civilian security analyst with a couple years' experience.
- rdl 12y ago
  The people I interacted with most were Healthcare Information Systems Officers (70D), who were generally O-2 to O-4. Given that they tended to be fairly early career and living in low cost areas of the country, with college paid, it was a pretty good deal for them. I think flexibility is the real problem with military hiring, not absolute pay levels.
  - phaus 12y ago
    After allowances, they are making about 52-70k depending on which rank they hold. That's not bad for what they do, but if they were actual doctors it would be terrible. Its also not a technical job in the traditional sense, 70Ds typically spend 8 years as a 70B (Even though a lot of them will be slotted as 70Ds much earlier than this) which is essentially a management position at a medical facility. From the description of 70D, it could end up being a technical job depending on the particular assignment, but its more oriented towards healthcare management types. Its not a bad deal at all if you are looking for a way to pay off your student loans.