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Amazon Hiring More Than a 100 Who Can Get Top Secret Clearances
dcblogs writes "Amazon has more than 100 job openings for people who can get a top secret clearance, which includes a U.S. government administered polygraph examination. It needs software developers, operations managers and cloud support engineers, among others. Amazon's hiring effort includes an invitation-only recruiting event for systems support engineers at its Herndon, Va., facility on Sept. 24 and 25. Amazon is fighting to win a contract to build a private cloud for the CIA. The project is being rebid after IBM filed a protest. In a recent federal lawsuit challenging the rebid, Amazon took a shot at IBM, describing the company as 'a traditional fixed IT infrastructure provider and late entrant to the cloud computing market.' Among the things IBM says in response, is that the government didn't look at Amazon's outage record. An analyst firm, Ptak Noel & Associates, concluded, in a report about the dispute, that CIA officials 'too casually brush off Amazon's outages' in evaluating the proposals."
"Amazon has more than 100 job openings for people who can get a top secret clearance, which includes a U.S. government administered polygraph examination."
That's very decent of them, after having sold them all those 'How to beat the polygraph test' books.
Basic englishs, you has grasps of its?
Finally a project that will hire some Americans.
Yeah, it's pretty sad.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
have dignity compared to the people who work in this field.
Good: A hundred.
Good: One hundred.
Bad: A one hundred.
Bad: A 100.
Private buyers are voting with their feet. They grumble about AWS but you don't see them flocking to IBM. The features, the rate of advancement and general ambition to build everything that could be useful, and the smooth automation and general competence of the whole thing outweighs their screwups.
(Which almost all seem to result from a datacenter-wide SAN and a lot of people in us-east-1. Wonder if they're regretting either the reliance on EBS or the concentration in one Region.)
And, yes, they had highly publicized region outages, but if you really need a lot of nines, you put boxes in multiple regions anyway.
If Amazon wins the bid will there be a product page where CIA employees can rate the service like we do when we buy a toaster? "Five Stars. Amazon helped our CIA division keep our constitutional-violating secrets away from an unsuspecting American public. I even got to get back at that NSA guy who spied on my hot girlfriend's text messages. That take George!"
I have been through the full scope polygraph process, and it sucked. I had to do it twice. It has been 1 year and I am still waiting for adjudication even though I passed the poly in April. However, my friend was hired by Amazon for the CIA work and he is getting a fast-tracked Full Scope Polygraph clearance apparently in only a few months. Considering how Amazon is staffing up and pushing people through for clearances, it would be very detrimental if IBM ended up winning the contract.
I was also interviewed by Amazon for one of these positions. It was a phone call with a shared coding session. The guy was not friendly and he asked a lot of academic questions that do not directly apply to the job or anything I have done since college. I was turned off by the experience and didn't care that they did not want to proceed with a 2nd interview. However, my friend had a much more positive experience so it really depends on who you interview with I guess.
I have worked in defense contracting for 10 years. I am now working for a startup company now and getting a lot more satisfaction out of my job. My friend received an outstanding job offer from Amazon, but he will likely end up hating his job and have the "golden handcuffs" put on.
One interesting thing is that Amazon is hiring for both Seattle and D.C. area for these jobs. I don't like either city but it's interesting they are wanting to have people with clearances work in Seattle. At least there is an option for people that want one of these positions.
Sorry, that is Google's slogan. I believe Amazon's is "Don't pay taxes."
DC is my home town, and I have several friends who have had jobs that required clearances with polygraphs. They've all told me that the job isn't worth the abuse.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Of all of the things involved in securing top-secret clearance, I'm willing to be the polygraph is the least invasive. Interesting that it would be the only one called out by name.
It's not that. It depends on the type of investigation you initially undergo to get said clearance in the first place. The big one for anyone holding a TS is a Single Scope Background Investigation (SSBI). That goes through pretty much everything for (to start) the previous ten years. The next piece of the SSBI is the periodic review (PR), which should occur no later than five years after the previous investigation. Having been on the job market for almost 5 months, it was at least a relief to have the PR taken care of prior to my layoff.
Next step up is clearing for Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI). Having the TS-SSBI (and PR) makes you ELIGIBLE to gain compartmented access, but that all falls under the umbrella of need to know. From what I recall back when I first became eligible, I was asked a few questions by the OPM investigator assigned to my case (really heavy on foreign interactions, etc.). Based on that info, along with the info in the SSBI, is what gets you into SCI.
The poly only comes into play whenever a specific SCI program requires it, and even then, it's a little more involved. The big one that we're all familiar with is the Full Scope/Lifestyle, which is what most of the three letter agencies require for the really involved work. Some programs are only interested in counterintelligence (CI), while other programs don't need a poly at all. The main difference between a FS/LS and a CI poly is pretty simple: FS/LS look at anything you can possibly fess up to in your entire lifestyle (money habits, sexual inclinations, drug experiences, etc.), while CI looks at whether or not you'd be the type of guy (like Snowden) who'd sell US secrets to someone that wasn't an American.
Having personally gone through the CI poly process, it's more tedious than anything else.
Bezos owns the Washington Post.
And now Amazon wants to get in bed with the CIA ?
What a crock of shit.
that's nothing compared what is involved in getting a TS clearance if you don't know
people i've known said they investigate you at least 15 years back. find all your friends, find lost friends, interview them. people in their 20's said the government talked to all their teachers, neighbors, everyone they ever knew in their life
You are speculating incorrectly. I held a special clearance and they went back and talked to elementary school teachers, old friends, etc... If they come up with concerns, they dig further than they did with me.
The 4 million number includes people that have held a clearance for decades. Renewals do not take much investigation.
In other words, if it was 4million new investigations it would be cost prohibitive. It's not, so don't make up stories.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Posting as AC as I have active clearances and don't want to spew all that info along with my account name
A few corrections to this post:
- An SSBI is the baseline investigation for anything Top Secret or higher.
- A PR is not a prereq for any clearance. An PR is simply a 5 year update to your background. How recent your last investigation was is what matters. (Informally referred to as "having a good date")
- Just having an SSBI (or SSBI-PR) does NOT mean you are eligible for SCI. The adjudication for SCI is more stringent and can have additional restrictions placed on it than a normal SSBI. SCI (and other SAP/SAR activities) can institute additional security measures above Top Secret. For example there are certain programs I have worked where individuals who already have SCI access to other programs were denied access due to issues (such as foriegn contacts). Some programs are just more picky or more sensitive
- Which brings me to: There are only 3 levels of clearance, Top Secret being the highest. These are also referred to as "collateral" clearances. SCI and other compartmented data is given in "accesses", these are different from clearances and can have any number of additional investigative requirements.
- A polygraph is not automatically required for Top Secret or even some SCI activities. It depends on the customer and the program. I've worked SCI programs that dont require it and others that do.
As for the poly, its not as invasive as the SSBI... its just not a comfortable afternoon....
They always accuse you of using drugs. Always. They also try to beat you into a confession. Always.
I got up and walked out of my polygraph at the CIA when I interviewed. I didn't want to come close to finding out how an organization treated its employees when it treated its prospects like that.
My uncle worked for a major defense contractor in the '80s (he left that position right before one of the major mergers occurred in the '90s), and had to take a poly as part of his program's requirements. When asked about drugs, he said no, to which the examiner accused him of lying on the spot. The excuse the examiner gave was EVERYBODY my uncle's age had tried something, to which my uncle replied that he was probably the first person that HADN'T tried anything, willingly or otherwise.
At the end of the exam, the examiner said this to my uncle: "Well, you passed, but I question your integrity."
My uncle's internal response: he wanted to deck the SOB. I don't blame him for thinking that.