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Higher Pay For U.S. Federal Computer Jobs
nemo writes: "The United States government is giving a raise of up to 33% to all workers employed by them in the tech industry. The are apparently doing this to lure younger people into these positions and to compete with private tech companies. Read more here." Still sounds like a substantial salary gap, but the benefits of a Federal job can be pretty sweet incentive. Anyone out there on a Federal paycheck care to comment?
I don't know (m)any Government workers who put in the 'standard' 60-100 hour work week that seems to be the norm in Silicon Valley. I do know people with Gov't jobs who work 40 hours a week and less than 5 days a week, tho.
Come to think of it, maybe a 33% pay cut for a 40% hours cut isn't so bad.
Actually it's all our own faults that companies have come to assume that workers will put in 60-100 hours a week. We did it once, so now companies think we can continue to do it eternally.
But there are a few problems:
- the dot.com gold rush is over, and reality is setting it about get-rich-quick schemes. People's motivation for working long hours is decreasing
- IT workers are maturing. Someone straight out of college with no significant other may *like* working 80 hours a week, but take someone with a family and they probably would rather spend their time at home with their children
- there is no labor pool. Vacant positions go unfilled for months, and companies have stressed their staff out to the limits for too long. Now the *ENTIRE* industry is getting collective burnout all at the same time
One of the major reasons for this action is the aging of the federal workforce. Currently, the federal government has had such a hard time attracting tech employees that the average federal employee is approaching retirement age and there just aren't any younger workers in the pipeline to replace them.
This isn't the first action taken to correct this issue. Up until last year, retiring military officers (young when compared to the federal workforce, around 42-45) lost about half their military pension when they went back to work as federal employees. This was overturned last year to encourage more retirees to take mid grade federal jobs.
The situation is actually pretty bleak for attracting federal tech workers. Programs like internships to attract college graduates are few and far between. Add to that the cumbersome federal hiring system and lower wages and the inflow of new workers becomes a big issue. On top of that, the good workers who do hire on are often forced to worked with some senior employees that have long since reached obsolesence before retiring because its hard to fire a federal employee regardless of performance and letting even a substandard employee go only exaccerbates the problem.
This will help but probably won't solve the problem.
There have been several columns on this in the Washington Post over the last few weeks.
Federal Personnel Offices have several drawbacks. . .like not getting back to a candidate at all, or waiting 6-8 months to tell him/her that they have got the job. . . Even with up to 33% more pay (and this is targeted mostly at the entry-level IT types. . . Hell desk and such. . . )
Now, I work as a contractor to several Federal agencies (we have a number of contracts), and I don't see this measure doing much at all: 95% + of all the IT is already being done by Contractors: most of the Feds, in my experience, are in Sr. I.T. Management.
IMNSHO, another proposal full of sound and fury, but in the end, signifying nothing much. . .
This country needs a non-profit to produce the software to run this country... Mostly for municipals and states.
Think about it like this:
We have greedy contractors producing software for one state, keeping the copyrights, and selling the same technology over and over to other states. A non profit, can pay techies $100+ an hour, and produce free software for all the states/cities to use. End the duplication... and the waste of money.
Anyone game?
Salaries for computer people here are a joke. My wife and I (both programmers, mid-to-late thirties; both "retired" from the Bay Area since '94) routinely get calls from headhunters offering 2-3 times what we make now. Not including stock, of course.
Then there's the bureaucracy. We struggle to get work done despite the cretins who try their utmost to grind you down.
No money. Almost daily hassles from the Work Preventers. Why do we stay? The area, for one. Los Alamos is our ideal retirement community. But a close second, surprisingly, is the work. Many people here are brilliant, highly competent, and fun to work with. My job -- analyzing data from various & sundry Earth satellites and Deep Space exploration missions -- is exciting and challenging. Finally, I don't have to work 60-80 hours just to keep pace. A regular work week lets me excel (I'm not the type who's satisfied with mediocrity) and still have a life.
I'll get fired one of these days, most likely. The rules I have to break in order to get work done are often firing-level offenses (stuff like neglecting to fill out paperwork or ask for permission before doing some things). Or maybe I'll just get fed up. I'm pretty close right now anyway, after a 4% raise. After LANL, you can be sure it's back to the Real World (industry) for me.
Oh, and those "33%" raises? Hah. My wife is in a Computer group, so she'll get one -- but the word from up high is for noone to expect more than 10%. I'm one of two lone programmers in a Space Physics group, and we both expect to fall through the cracks.
I spent about a year working as a contractor at a government institution. After my first month on the job I had finished two of the seven projects that I was hired to help with and several of the fulltime fed employees came to me and asked me to not try so hard. The entire time I was there I fought constantly with the fulltime federal employees, because they were more concerned with not rocking the boat and eventually collecting their pensions then with getting projects finished on time and under budget.
When my contract was over my supervisor offered me a full time position, which even at the much lower salary then my contracting rates was very tempting because of the incredible benefits
I turned them down out of fear of becoming one of the suspender wearing status quo'ites that already filled the offices.
Point being, even if you factor in the incredible benefits and the new higher salaries, it still would not be enough to make working on a government job worth it. Not unless along with the new salary policies they fired the vast majority of the current federal employees to make room for some people who actually cared about the work they were doing.
No, I am not bitter; I just taste like it.
;)