Why Are the Best and Brightest Not Flooding DARPA?

David W. White writes "Wired mag's Danger Room carried an article today that highlighted how desperate the US Military's DARPA has become in its attempts to bring in additional brain power. The tactics include filmed testimonials, folders and even playing cards all screaming join DARPA! Where are all the Einsteins who want to be on the cutting edge for the Government?"

Comments

I'll tell you why

[giminy]

I spent two years of my life post-graduate school working at DoD research laboratories, and can say with some experience why Geeks should not join DARPA (or any government research lab). It can be summed up in one word: "research."

Government labs no longer do the stuff for the most part. There are still some pockets left, but they are few and far between, and shrinking. I graduated with a MS in computer science, with a two-year focus on computer security. I was offered a job in a research team with with a DoD lab and eagerly took it. But it wasn't research. It was contract management. Essentially, I got to read research proposals from companies, and decide whether or not those companies would be funded for their ideas. My ability to influence the actual research of the companies was quite limited. I was able to come up with 'calls for proposals,' that is, statements of new topics that we'd like proposals on from companies. By the time these ideas were raped^Wvetted by the various program and contract managers, the descriptions were so incredibly vague that the proposals received in response to the call were completely off-topic. I got frustrated very early on and left.

In my exit interview, I asked my supervisor to define research. His definition was adequate. I then asked him if that's what we did. He stammered a bit, and ultimately conceded that we, "facilitated research." We had a very interesting discussion. Due to research project overruns throughout the 80s, particularly with software projects, as well as the end of the Cold War, the Congress changed the focus of DoD research programs. New funding rules dictate that research projects are placed under contract. In this way, if a company is paid to do research and development on a project, and it fails to deliver, the government has some recourse. If actual government employees received funding and failed, there would not be much that congress could do to them (Congress could slash the non-salary portions of the failed project's budget, but that's not very intimidating to the employees when you think about it).

The place where the 'cool' stuff happens these days is by the contractors. If you want to work on ARPA and DARPA quality work, start a small business and start winning on SBIR awards. I wouldn't recommend actually working for DARPA or a government research lab, though, unless you really want to be a contract manager and not be very hands-on with technology and ideas.

Re:I'll tell you why

[giminy]

I thought my original message was perhaps too harsh and didn't offer any ideas on solution. So I decided to write a reply to myself.

I'd like to emphasize that there are some great people that work in DARPA and the various other research labs. I was definitely fortunate to work with or at least meet with the people that I did during my time in DoD. Quite a few people are technical and smart, and can see some big problems that we're facing. That is an incredibly good thing. I think that, from a human resources angle, the research labs are facing a legitimate problem though: they need people with technical expertise and passion to do a job that does not utilize that technical expertise and passion in a very glamorous way. It is downright demeaning to a lot of people with advanced degrees in a subject to do a job that doesn't involve actually doing the stuff that they studied, but instead watching other people do that stuff (and often doing it wrong!).

It is incredibly hard for DARPA and other agencies to spin the job in the right way to smart people. My point is that they're going about this whole 'selling the job' thing wrong -- they should try to change the job a bit to make it more technical in order to get people interested. Maybe they (the Congress) could require government contractors to accept the government-employed contract manager into their fold as a department head, paid for by the government. It could certainly be an interesting experiment that might yield a good outcome (which, I daresay, would be research worth funding).

Re:Perhaps they have a conscience?

[samkass]

I think you just offended a lot of people. I certainly did a little soul searching when the startup I worked for got bought out by a large defense contractor, but in the end I can't directly affect whether we go to war or not, but I sure as heck can give our soldiers the tools they need to come home alive. Yes, I tend to vote Democrat and I think the Iraq war was one of the most boneheaded public policy decisions in my lifetime, but I still go to work every day supporting the troops in a very real way (unlike most of those who think supporting the troops means buying yellow magnets and bumper stickers).

Because DARPA is a government mess

[2.7182]

Who wants to work at a crazy bureurcracy like DARPA ? It is an old boys network that is a way to give pork to industry and professors. They've had some successes, but hey that's shotgun science for you. They mostly like to make up crazy ideas that won't work. I worked on a robot project for them for a few years. It was insane. There was no way to do what they wanted - but my university got lots of money!!!

Re:Because DARPA is a government mess

[Andrew-Unit]

Sheesh. DARPA is designed specifically to avoid being an "old boys network". DARPA staff are rotated out after 4-6 years -- no one is around long enough to form an "old boys network".

From Wikipedia: The staff is rotated to ensure fresh thinking and perspectives, and to have room to bring technical staff from new areas into DARPA. It also allows the program managers to be bold and not fear failure.

Re:The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Anyone

[ThousandStars]

In the past, plenty of highly intelligent people have contributed to warfare and advanced weaponry.

This is a wise observation: for a particularly detailed account of one such person, read Richard Rhodes' Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb . It prominently features Edward Teller, who was the driving force behind the hydrogen bomb even when many of the other Manhattan project scientists, and most notably Oppenheimer, had lost their zeal for weaponry and their certainty that we are the good guys, as the GP argues.

Note too that I pitched a theory as to why this is a problem in another comment.

Re:Umm, because ....

[cluckshot]

I am a programmer who on the job had the task of looking at DARPA's wish list for new projects with the consideration of bidding. I and several others in the company declined to bid because the requested projects were targeted at removing the freedom, privacy and civil rights of our fellow citizens. These projects included looking into how to intercept 100% of all E communications and all Phone and other similar communications. These projects included developing methodologies to evaluate human brains for what they were thinking. I am not against DARPA but so long as major goals are like these, no engineer with morals will want anywhere near the agency.