Dot-Commers vs. Government Contractors

StrangeBeer writes: "When the dot-Com movement went bust, it sent thousands of former employees running for cover (or the unemployment line, whichever was closer). One place they didn't go was the way of the Government Contractor who, incidentally, is doing just fine right now with or without a recession. Various reasons are given for this and one I'd like to point out is that the government managers would rather hire an underqualified person with a security clearance and later train them in their tradecraft. The vast majority of these kinds of employees are coming from other kinds of federal work (military, civil service, etc.) and not defunct dot-Com companies."

Comments

Why not work for the gov right now?

[msolnik]

Truthfully its a pretty good idea. Yes you wont get paid as much as usual but you do get a lot of benifits working for the government. And very good job stability considering they are in desperate need of good IT people with knowledge and experience. Also you know they wont pull an Enron on you. Just a few of my thoughts...

Re:Why not work for the gov right now?

[2Flower]

Which, IMHO, is one of the reasons gov't isn't looking to hire outta work .com folks. The gov't will invest heavily in the long term growth of its employees, and does not want to see that expensive training walk out the door the first time something glittery comes along. They are looking for stable team players, not mercenaries.

A good point; I probably should have emphasized the 'IF' and the 'AND'. I don't see it being very likely that I'll find a sexy job that's as stable as my government job, so I'm probably not changing careers -- not unless the office seriously relocates or some other factor pushes me out.

There was a lot of concern when I was taking this job that I might want to move on rather quickly after getting the training, but I'm in it for at least the 'Medium Haul' if not the Long Haul. That's the kind of expectation you need to make going into a job like this; it looks bad on a resume to take a career-style job and then leave soon after, anyway.

not so fast

[Em Emalb]

As a former military person, I would like to debunk a myth a lot of techies seem to have. Not everyone who worked in the military is under qualified.

In fact, a ton of inovations have come from those supposed undertrained military folks. Getting a security clearance is easy.

I work for a DoD contractor

[wiredog]

As was pointed out in the article, many contractors will hire someone with a clearance and no experience because training them takes less time than clearing them does. A top secret clearance is a real meal ticket. The cultural differences are interesting. The government contractor expects to provide support for a product for years where the dot-com guy expects the product to be completely gone in less than a year. The government contractor wants coding standards and lots of documentation, so that if the programmer gets run over by a bus someone else can step in. The dot-com guy doesn't have the time, or inclination, to do documentaton, and often feels that coding standards are an infringement on his creativity. The contractor expects to stick with the same company, often the same project, for years. The dot-com guy expects to go from place to place following the money or the latest new exciting thing.

I work for a DoD contractor, and there's a war on. Woo! hoo! I'm gonna buy a house!

When life hands you a lemon, make lemonade.

I'm a former dotcommer, and now I'm a gov't con.

[the_rev_matt]

Most of the former dotcom techies I know that are employed are gov't contractors. Maybe upper management/sales/marketing dweebs don't fit into gov't contracting, but tech types adapt and survive rather well from what I've seen.

Sure, things like reasonable development cycles, following set procedures, working normal hours, and documentation seem odd at first, but once you learn to accept those oddities it's a fairly easy transition.

The market favors the employer right now.

[(H)elix1]

The market favors the employer right now.

I saw the DoD comment, we will not change for the dot.comers, they will change to our culture. This is not only government; this is most companies out there. A couple years ago companies had to handle their employees with care because you could get another job by lunch. Now, well, I'd put a pained smile on my face and say sure - I can do that in VB for you. Reminds me of the Dilbert cartoon - You mean Unix programmer. Oh, just say never mind when the nurse shows up. Today, you would not get the option...

Maybe not yet

[opkool]

Maybe former dot-commers are not in Government-contractor firms (not yet) because the following points:

-Government-related positions run through a long and tedious line of HR, supervisors, interviews, political screening, more supervisors, more screening, yet more interviews... and all cluttered by unending bureaucracy. And now more than ever, after 9-11. So it takes some time (up to 2 years, IIRC from ComputerWorld or InfoWorld or something similar) from sending a resume to get hired.

-Many Government-related positions want only American citizens. Let's face it. Many IT workers are from outside the USA. So H1-B holders do not qualify. Then, permanent residents, legal aliens ans do on, also do not qualify. And, maybe, recent American-passport holders will not qualify by "security reasons".

-What is the ratio of Women in Government-contractor firms? How many managers do you see in Government Contractor firms? They all look to me like dinosaurs from the 60s. Yes, women only allowed as clerks.

So all this disqualify and dis-encourage most of former dot-commers: brilliant people that just cannot wait 2 years to get a job, people that has a good chance of being born elsewhere outside the US, and about 40% chance of being a women!

Hope those 2 years come-by fast, so I can get hired by Uncle Sam.

Of course this is my opinion as I see it.

Plese, what do you think?

Re:Are YOU working for the government?

[Lemmy Caution]

All the atrocities in the recorded human history have been carried out by the agents of whatever government has been in power at the time.

Just off the top of my head, the tradition of lynching is an old-fashioned just-plain-folks type of atrocity. Organized crime is responsible for plenty, too. And, of course, just what government flew airplanes into 2 skyscrapers last year?

Indeed

[FatHogByTheAss]

I've found, as a general rule, that people with some military training and background are generaly better engineers than your typical CS grad, as they have a real understanding of what mission critical means.

A 21 year old kid who has legitimately been responsible for someone elses life is far more experienced than the valedectorian at your local code monkey U.

Making Changes

[slugfro]

A lot of these posts talk about how bad working for the gov't can be (Old technology, lack of innovation, rigid and structured environment, etc.). Maybe if enough people with a strong drive for success and innovation enter the government workforce we might actually be able to change the government for the better. Increase speed of technology adoption, increase technical knowledge, speed up the bearucratic proccesses (well maybe), etc... Maybe I'm being too much of an optimist but it's just and idea.

I know I turned down a gov't offer after graduating due the huge pay difference but I would much rather have an ok paying job than no job at all (Thankfully I still have my job).

Re:Are YOU working for the government?

[ericlj]

I assume that when you wrote this that your brain had to shut down so your fingers could work.

"All the atrocities in the recorded human history have been carried out by the agents of whatever government has been in power at the time. "

To just pick the most current example: what government sent its agents to knock down the World Trade Center? What government did the woman in Texas who killed her own children serve as an agent for? What government set the Omagh bomb in Ireland? What government dived the Egyptian 747 into Long Island Sound? What government opened up on all the other passengers in a car on the Long Island Railroad? (Or are all those examples of 'protected' speech?)

While I will not deny that governments have been responsible for atrocities, (In the whole of recorded history, we could probably find examples of cartoon characters being responsible for atrocities) you are seriously blinded by some form of political belief to blame everything on them. Remember, the reason people banded together to form governments was to protect themselves from the physically stronger.

Career prospects are very good

[wiredog]

For techies, anyway. The Federal Government has a severe shortage of techies and something like 50% of the workforce is going to retire in the next ten years. USGS has long been in the forefront of technology, in its field, NASA does pretty well. DoD understands the importance of technology, and pursues it avidly. Ever heard of Darpa? NSA tries to stay five years ahead of the civilian state of the art.

Of course, you have to avoid drugs, and the best jobs require a security clearance.

I'm a government consultant

[bryan1945]

I thought about jumping into the .com arena during the heyday, but I held back for some vague reasons. Sure, I only got my ok raises every year rather than huge bonuses and such, but I still have my job and have increased my income 50% in 4 years. I liked my job, I liked my coworkers, and I liked where I lived- why should I have jumped for the possible big gains? Turns out I was right, at least for my circumstances.

Some possible reasons why .comers won't go to government positions:
1) Less flexibility in hours and attitude.
2) Lots of military types in upper management.
3) Sensible business plans where everyone does NOT get $2000 chairs.
4) You actually have to work rather than just hype vapor.
5) You actually have to produce something, or provide a service, rather than just market yourself.
6) Generally need to have multiple skills in a variety of areas, rather than be _The Wizard_ in only one area.
7) MCSEs don't count as degrees in this line of work.

There's probably more, but this was just off the top of my head, and this is just my take from what I've seen of friends, coworkers, and acquaintances.

I really must agree

[argoff]

When I worked on a recent government contract, everyone I ran into just assumed that I would want to work there for the rest of my life. They also just assumed that I wanted a security clearence. I don't. I'd much rather be in an environment where I'm free to share what I know with whoever I want to share it with, and where every last anal probe of my private life is not imspected with a fine tooth comb to get some "elite" type of clearence that is likely to pigon-hole my career anyhow.

I saw my dad slave away for the government for 30 years+ of bullshit and politics, and seeing billions wasted without tangable real-world results. I cant stand the thought of it.

People there don't understand - this is not a normal market institution. You can be more efficient, effective, and competent - but that will get you nowhere in government because they are accountable to political forces and not market forces. The only one meere advantage that they have is that in some minute areas they are non-propriatory. Well dammit, with linux out on the business world now - and the comodity PC, that is not even a real advantage anymore.

They are wrong, it is not the government that drives the market, they are the followers, free enterprize is the leaders because they are accountable to real economics.

Geographical Context of the Column

[guttentag]

Shannon Henry is a good columnist, but her columns aren't directed at software engineers in Houston, New York, Seattle or Silicon Valley.

Her job is specifically to cover the DC area's technology industry, which is saturated with people who work for government contractors or the federal government itself. In that sense, it's quite different from other areas of the country.

Traditionally, the DC area experiences an economic boom when the country goes to war (thousands of jobs are created, houses are built, etc.), so there may be jobs created there that don't exist where you live. Just something to bear in mind.

A tale of two choices.

[jinx90277]

(A first comment before I get distracted: There is a difference between working for a government contractor, which is a civilian company whose major customer is the government, and working for the government, where you are directly employed by a government agency. Reading other posts, I'm not sure people have been carefully distinguishing between the two...)

My friend and I graduated from college at the same time and both hired into the same major defense contractor within a week of each other, though in totally different areas. (His area of expertise was photonics; I ended up in a systems/software engineering role.) I have had a positive experience so far -- I work with bright people who are very technically skilled, although the development environment (Solaris 2.X; source code written in C) is far from any of the "buzzwords" like Java, C++, Linux, etc. that people love to put on their resumes. The pace of the work has been brisk -- I work in surveillance and reconnaissance systems, and as you might expect, we have gotten even busier after recent events. If anything, we have more work to do than people to do it -- we could stand to hire several more staff.

On the other hand, my friend hated his time at the company and found it to be utterly stagnant. Compounding his dissatisfaction with the projects was his frustration with the security clearance process -- the project that he was hired for required an SCI, which would have taken well over a year to obtain, and no one had discussed security clearances when he was hired. He left to join a startup company which did well at the time (1999), but has been cutting back staff and struggling to survive recently. I asked him if he'd consider coming back here if things didn't work out, but his preferences are strongly for the small company environment with the flexible work arrangements and informal structure. One thing he never could get over was the idea that work was work here. In his college lab, his co-workers were also his social group, and I think he expected that he'd meet a bunch of young engineers and have an instant peer group. I've certainly met some wonderful friends here, but it's far from a collegiate atmosphere.

Government contractors, like any other big company, are really a bunch of small companies under the same banner. If you end up in a good group, it might feel very much like a "dot-com" with the pace and challenge of the work. On the other hand, if you end up in a program which has been around for ten years and is in a maintenance phase, it might very well resemble all of the stodgy nightmares you had about "government work." The requirements are quite different -- the technology you develop today won't see action for a few years, and will be expected to function for a decade or more, typically. And above all -- like every other business -- you must understand your customer. Utility, reliability, maintainability, and ease of use are critical considerations, and your end user (at least for defense products) will be 19-year-olds who can't call you for tech support.

It's important work, and we could use more technical expertise to help us accomplish our goals. But any "dot-commer" considering the switch should carefully consider how well they can adapt to an entirely different culture before sending that resume.

Stop bashing .com workers...

[curunir]

I'm so sick of everyone bashing .com workers. The media is so quick to label everything .com a failure. The reality that many of us .com'ers know is that the .com bubble burst because of terrible business plans and greedy venture capitalists. It was *rarely* because engineers weren't able to get the job done.

People have the mistaken idea that just because workers were given more freedom, that the quality of their work suffered. The idea that people working for .com's don't document their work is just wrong. Every .com I worked for (and there were 5) highly valued detailed functional and technical specs. We had coding standards which included fully commenting code. The difference was, we didn't have two years to complete the product. It was always ASAP. As a result, we did view our work less as striving toward a finished product and more toward meeting a deadline and then revisiting it again to add in the features that product planning decided were necessary.

It is truly a shame that so many great ideas are being discarded by labeling them part of the .com phenomenon. Ideas like respecting your workers and trying to create an environment where they can achieve as much as possible. From someone who saw them first hand, these ideas worked. Some amazing things were accomplished by tech workers at .coms...they just didn't have any business application.

So, if you have to slam the .coms, talk about the marketing people who spent millions on advertisements before the company saw revenues, let alone profits. Don't blame it on the engineering teams...we did our job.

Re:Stop bashing .com workers...

[lostboy2]

Hear hear! I've worked in 2 .coms and, for the most part, was very impressed by the professional pride and passion that the employees had for their work and for the companies, in both cases.

While I don't doubt that there are people who were in the .coms simply to cash in on the stock market frenzy, most of the people I've worked with were very dedicated, very competent and very committed to putting out high quality stuff.

And I loved the culture (which is why I sought to work for another .com after the first one failed). The sheer necessity of having to get a lot done in a short amount of time with little money has a way of forcing people to be innovative and efficient and to focus on the important things and cutting through the bulls**t.

-- D.

Re:You looked at the wrong agency

[Roblimo]

Yup. I did both the Army and DoD thing, many years ago (hardware and RF) and I am still seeing "new" civilian stuff that I remember from back then. I got to play with a lot of seriously fine electronic-type toys, and even got to drive a tank a few times and play with things that went BOOM! very loudly now and then.

Saying "the government" or "the military" doesn't mean much. Different government agencies and different military units can be as different as civilian companies are from one another, and sometimes you find technical challenges in the government where you wouldn't necessarily expect them. The Department of Agriculture has done some serious supercomputer research. Ditto the National Institutes of Health. The IRS was a sinkhole for puter people for years, full of incompetence, but I have a friend who's doing system design there now and having a great time replacing some of their ancient junk. He took the job because the pay was okay and he wanted stability, not because he thought it would be fun, but he's really gotten into it. No clearance required, either.

There are lots of idiots and bad places to work in the government, but there are also great people and great places. Even in the Army, I generally did interesting things and didn't suffer too much from bureacracy. And as a free benefit, I didn't have to worry about what I was going to wear every day. :)

- Robin