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

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.

Re:Why not work for the gov right now?

[2Flower]

I'd like to second this. I got VERY lucky... just coming out of college and looking for my first job, I NEEDED something in the area, stable, and with decent pay. I found a job as a webmonkey (with training opportunities for database programming and multimedia) for the FDA's Center For Devices and Radiological Health.

The practical upshot is that I got lots of great training via the Killing-- err, the Learning Tree, expanded my skills tremendously, started out with a fairly eeeh salary but am now living quite comfortably... and most importantly, I did all of right at the start of the .Com Crash.

If I had jumped in on the corporate entry level (not that there were many jobs for someone who previously thought Cold Fusion was a physics thing) I'd probably have bounced around a couple jobs, maybe had to move once or twice, and definitely not had the ability to save money and get nice and financially stable. While others were auctioning off their Aeron chairs to afford cold cans of beans, I was sittin' pretty on my cheapo Ikea office stool (with homemade padding).

There are drawbacks. One, you don't start out with the Hat Made Of Money. If you can live 'comfortably' and likely single without needing a ferrari, this is not a huge hurdle. Two, if you're young, a lot of government employees are not. I'm the youngest guy in my office by about ten years. Three, no, the work is not very sexy. I view work as a means to an end (end meaning "$$$" which I spend on things I WANT to do). If a sexier job with the same amount of stability pops up, I'll go for it, but until then make mine federal.

Fedworld / Culture Clash

[Tackhead]

How 'bout the really simple explanation:

Any geek worth his salt has read Neal Stephenson's description of "Fedland" in Snow Crash.

Any geek who's ever seen the work processes in place in the real government (either through knowing someone who works there, or by morbid curiosity and reading policy/procedure manuals that describe to government workers how to process forms filled out by the public, for instance) has realized that Neal Stephenson's imaginary "Fedland" wasn't an exaggeration.

Stephenson's Demented Imagination: Fedland

NEW TP POOL REGULATIONS I've been asked to distribute the new regulations regarding office pool displays. The enclosed memo is a new subchapter of the EBGOC Procedure Manual, replacing the old subchapter entitled PHYSICAL PLANT/CALIFORNIA/LOS ANGELES/BUILDINGS/OFFICE AREAS/PHYSICAL LAYOUT REGULATIONS/EMPLOYEE INPUT/GROUP ACTIVITIES. The old subchapter was a flat prohibition on the use of office space or time forr "pool" activities of any kindm whteher permanent (e.g., coffee pool) or one-time (e.g., birthday parties). This prohibition still applies, but a single, one-time exception has now been made for any office that wishes to pursue a joint bathroom-tissue strategy. [ ... ]

Random Excerpt From The Real Thing: Meat, Poultry, Egg Produce Labeling Review Process"

FSIS streamlined the system in a final rule issued on December 29, 1995, (60 FR 67444) that became effective July 1, 1996, by expanding the categories of products for which labeling can be approved generically by industry. For example, the rule allows Federal establishments to design and use labeling that conforms to the regulatory requirements for meat, poultry, and egg products that have standards of identity and composition defined in the regulations (9 CFR 319 and 381) or in the Food Standards and Labeling Policy Book.

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.

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.

Re:Why not to work for the government.

[C. Mattix]

Look at TRW Space and defence in Redondo beach CA, look at BAE Systems in San Diego. Those places are cutting edge. I don't understance the "2nd or 3rd rate" comment, definitly troll.
Remember that ARPANET was developed by government contractors.

Job for life mentality? What does that mean? Their company offers a pension instead of stock options that may well evaporate? They offer job security? Those things are more important as you grow older and get married and whatnot.

I interviewed with TRW. (Didn't take it because I decided I didn't like Cali). One of the people that I was interviewed by was actually a telemetry engineer for the Apollo 13 mission. That was cool.

The reason that a lot of places don't get much attention is that most of the really cool stuff to work on is rated DOD Top secret.

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.