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Anyone in a DAWIA career path? How do people do 20+ years in this field?
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Aug 20, 2020 13:50
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Howard Phillips posted:Anyone in a DAWIA career path? How do people do 20+ years in this field? Not sure what you mean. Are you asking how people can stand spending 20+ years in defense acquisition? There’s a lot of variety in DAWIA career fields. I’m not sure I could have found another job where I’d be paid to fire big guns without putting on a uniform. Some people feel like they’re having an impact on what’s delivered to the warfighter. Others find a comfy spot to retire from. Like all fed jobs it’s a mixed bag.
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Aug 20, 2020 16:28
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Kolodny posted:Not sure what you mean. Are you asking how people can stand spending 20+ years in defense acquisition? Sure there are some interesting problems and generally dedicated people supporting a worthy mission in terms of helping the service members but the day to day minutiae of the work seems mind numbing. My biggest problem is that I see a lot of people who really hate tackling new problems. They get upset when things pop up and try everything they can to deflect it away from themselves. Dunno, just seems laggard. Also the use of support contractors is very hit and miss. Why can't the government hire more of its own people to develop from the ground up?
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Aug 20, 2020 16:45
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Howard Phillips posted:Also the use of support contractors is very hit and miss. Why can't the government hire more of its own people to develop from the ground up? I suspect a mix of time to hire, getting people with the right skill sets, being able to pay for those skill sets, and being able to retain them when private industry comes knocking. Time to hire in particular can be crippling, depending on the organization. Contracts can also take a while to get written and approved, but once they're in place it can be much, much faster to get a contractor approved and on site. edit: also if your needs change it's a whole loving lot easier to get rid of the contractor. Worst case you just kill the whole contract at the end of the FY.
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Aug 20, 2020 17:26
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Howard Phillips posted:Anyone in a DAWIA career path? How do people do 20+ years in this field? I am very glad that I'm DAWIA adjacent and dont have to do any of the DAU stuff unless I'm feeling froggy. Give me RDT&E anyday.
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Aug 20, 2020 17:40
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Howard Phillips posted:Anyone in a DAWIA career path? How do people do 20+ years in this field? I'm about 10 years in FWIW. I got burnt out as an entry level electronics engineer in the private sector and took the first government job I could get for the work-life balance. That landed me in contract management and after I recovered from my burnout, I got real bored and really wanted to get back into designing electronics and firmware myself. It took a couple of different moves and transfers, and help from some of the kind people in this very thread (if you search my post history, you can probably even find my posts here from like 2014-2015 where I was really struggling with this), but I eventually found a federal position I'm happy with that gives me the work-life balance I originally wanted combined with enough actual direct R&D work to do to keep my poor nerd brain suitably engaged. The directorate I worked for consciously chose to pursue an initiative 6 years ago to staff a design and sustainment team in house with all federal employees and not contractors; I'm don't think that's terribly common, but it's clearly not unheard of.
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Aug 20, 2020 17:44
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How does one go about joining the Postal Inspection Service because I can think of no higher calling right now.
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Aug 20, 2020 17:55
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Cyrano4747 posted:edit: also if your needs change it's a whole loving lot easier to get rid of the contractor. Worst case you just kill the whole contract at the end of the FY. Though it’s always trotted out as an excuse I’ve literally never seen this happen and it gets laughable when you have position continuously filled by the same contractor for 15+ years.
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Aug 20, 2020 18:26
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That's funny, because I see it happen all the time. I've seen individual contractors immediately lose their jobs for failing to properly implement software changes, and I've seen entire contracts get dropped, both for budgetary and performance reasons. But I can identify other contractor groups that are so imbedded that they will never be removed. There's definitely a lot of variance in how it's handled.
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Aug 20, 2020 19:30
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USCIS fired, what, like 5,000 contractors this year? Kind of not fair, since they are also now furloughing a majority of their employees too. Still, the contractors were gone right away when things started getting bad.
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Aug 20, 2020 20:11
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Yeah, I've been on the jobless side of FY contractor purges. I've also been part of the bulk rehiring a few months later when they scrounge in couch cushions because the GS's can't perform their duties due to not having all that contractor support. I get it. It's just kind of the way it is.
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Aug 20, 2020 20:22
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Ballz posted:How does one go about joining the Postal Inspection Service because I can think of no higher calling right now. Assuming you mean as an actual postal Inspector, they don't hire very often, they had a hiring announcement earlier this year. Go check out their website and if you meet the requirements, sign up for an email notification next time the window opens. I thought about trying to lateral over but I'm gonna give it a few more years.
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Aug 20, 2020 21:47
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I've gotten to move forward with my Department of State Foreign service application as a Security Engineer and now scheduling my oral examination. I have no idea what's gonna happen there or why they want me in person despite Covid.
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Aug 20, 2020 22:56
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Xelkelvos posted:I've gotten to move forward with my Department of State Foreign service application as a Security Engineer and now scheduling my oral examination. I have no idea what's gonna happen there or why they want me in person despite Covid. Good luck, I've gone through the orals three times with State (for different jobs) and got a job from one, been there for a while now. Not a SEO but I know some. I'd say just know yourself, know the job, be confident, and focus on being a team player. Embassies are little communities, we all have to work with lots of offices and agencies to get the job done. Maybe post in the foreign service thread.
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Aug 20, 2020 23:00
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Apparently Trump’s payroll deferral will start for federal employees starting this pay period, but only for people making under $104,000: https://www.govexec.com/pay-benefits/2020/08/federal-employees-will-have-payroll-taxes-deferred-next-paychecks-processor-says/168089/ They’re also thinking of forgiving the deferral which means if you make $104,401 you’re poo poo out of luck and “lose” 7.65% to payroll taxes. This is so hosed.
Josh Lyman fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Aug 31, 2020 |
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Aug 31, 2020 19:28
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I’d rather have Social Security in 30 years
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Aug 31, 2020 20:07
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Isn't the Social security account already not sustainable as it is with increasing boomers retiring and not enough workers paying into it? Combined with 4.4% Fers payments and more cuts to federal compensation on the horizon, may not be worth it to stay goviem
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Aug 31, 2020 21:09
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Howard Phillips posted:Isn't the Social security account already not sustainable as it is with increasing boomers retiring and not enough workers paying into it? It’s arguably past the point where new hires would find anything but the stability appealing though not yet so dire that lots of mid-career employees will find it a better decision to leave.
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Aug 31, 2020 21:20
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Help me out here I’ve lost the narrative Are feds the parasites of the deep state or valuable working class folk who deserve another government handout
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Aug 31, 2020 23:19
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Kolodny posted:Help me out here I’ve lost the narrative Yes.
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Aug 31, 2020 23:31
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Beerdeer posted:in 30 years Look at this optimist
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Sep 1, 2020 00:29
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Kolodny posted:Help me out here I’ve lost the narrative Ask Q
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Sep 1, 2020 01:32
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Social Security stops being assessed on income above $138k so it’s a regressive “tax”. FDR originally proposed it without a limit but Congress implemented one. Removing the cap would make it more equitable and sustainable. As is, it’s structurally flawed and screwing over younger generations like the 4.4% FERS deduction.
Josh Lyman fucked around with this message at 14:18 on Sep 1, 2020 |
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Sep 1, 2020 06:17
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I have my paystub for Friday generated and my deductions have gone through. I should probably reach out to HR for the USPS and see if they're going to continue withholding. e: Though I just remembered that paycheck is for the last two weeks of August. Next week's will have the change if there is one. Star Man fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Sep 1, 2020 |
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Sep 1, 2020 17:09
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Josh Lyman posted:Social Security stops being assessed on income above $138k so it’s a regressive “tax”. FDR originally proposed it without a limit but Congress implemented one. Removing the cap would make it more equitable and sustainable. As is, it’s structurally flawed and screwing over younger generations like the 4.4% FERS deduction. 4.4% FERS is the biggest bullshit there is.
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Sep 2, 2020 00:11
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As crappy as FERS-FRAE is, it's going to prevent our pension fund from being the debt bomb that municipal and state ones are going to be 20-30 years down the line. I say that as a FRAEer myself.
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Sep 2, 2020 14:09
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sparkmaster posted:As crappy as FERS-FRAE is, it's going to prevent our pension fund from being the debt bomb that municipal and state ones are going to be 20-30 years down the line. I say that as a FRAEer myself. The federal budget doesn’t work like your checking account. The only debt bomb at the Federal level is the risk of runaway inflation. Otherwise it’s entirely fearmongering. FERS and SS can’t easily be funneled to donors, so of course it’s under constant attack.
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Sep 2, 2020 16:00
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sparkmaster posted:As crappy as FERS-FRAE is, it's going to prevent our pension fund from being the debt bomb that municipal and state ones are going to be 20-30 years down the line. I say that as a FRAEer myself. To be fair, it's the "being funded" part that accomplishes that, not FRAE. FRAE just means more of the funding comes from the employees instead of the agency, and is complete horseshit and in fact a blatant pay cut.
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Sep 2, 2020 16:01
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Anyone have experience or know someone in government contracting offices, preferably at the Corps of Engineers? I've been working at SSA since I got out of undergrad, currently in a GS-11 spot and this is kinda where the logjam is in this agency. A GS-11/GS-12 contracting officer spot is open at Corps here in town; my wife who works in a different division gave me the lowdown on the ancillary stuff (training requriements, OT around end of FY), but I was curious how portable the job is across federal agencies. Is a contracting officer a contracting officer all the gubment round?
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Sep 3, 2020 04:53
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GD_American posted:Anyone have experience or know someone in government contracting offices, preferably at the Corps of Engineers? I want to say from my time at the Corps that the skills are definitely transferable, but I was never directly involved in contracting.
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Sep 3, 2020 05:47
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Every time someone says "GS-11" I get the far-away look in my eyes and try once again to find data on the number of total jobs broken down by GS, but I have yet to stumble upon this data if it is indeed out there. All to "prove" my pet theory, one that is almost certainly untrue, that there are fewer positions at 11 available than there are at 12. I am not sure whether the data would actually look more like a bell curve or some bimodal 5/12-heavy nightmare but dammit I wish I could find this anyway I do think, though this seems much more likely to be true based on the days when I literally searched every federal job below 12 in the entire world, that GS-1/2 barely exist. I did see an exciting opportunity to be a lifeguard at a military base in Italy for part-time GS-1 money once, though
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Sep 3, 2020 06:05
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I don't know that there's a single GS-10 in our agency (jobs like mine skip 9 to 11), if that counts.
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Sep 3, 2020 06:22
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Of course, there are also agencies like mine that don't even use GS.
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Sep 3, 2020 06:25
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GD_American posted:I don't know that there's a single GS-10 in our agency (jobs like mine skip 9 to 11), if that counts. Sir John Falstaff posted:Of course, there are also agencies like mine that don't even use GS.
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Sep 3, 2020 06:44
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GD_American posted:I was curious how portable the job is across federal agencies. Is a contracting officer a contracting officer all the gubment round? I've worked with a lot of Contracting Officers and Specialists over the years and there always seems to be a lot of turnover as they leave for different agencies and we get new ones from other agencies. I've always viewed the business admin functions like Contracting, HR, IT, Finance etc as being job series that are super easy to switch between agencies since the work is generally the same especially at lower grade levels. With that said, I would recommend getting as broad experience as possible if you take a contracting role. If you only work on fixed-price construction projects then you might be stuck in the few agencies that do construction work. Try to get rotations on to different construction and service contract delivery types to pad your resume and you'll have the golden ticket to a job at any Federal agency. The working conditions aren't great from what I've seen at my agency but that can work in your favor by letting you climb the ranks quickly due to turnover. So its a good way to support yourself or your family if you just want to climb the GS scale quickly and are willing to put up with the BS and ladder hop by switching agencies every few years.
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Sep 3, 2020 12:29
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Dr. Quarex posted:Sometimes I forget that 8 and 10 actually even exist, so clearly they would be incredibly uncommon too (I saw a GS-8 locksmith once!) Our service reps are a 5-8 position. Start at 5, hop a grade every year. laxbro posted:The working conditions aren't great from what I've seen at my agency but that can work in your favor by letting you climb the ranks quickly due to turnover. So its a good way to support yourself or your family if you just want to climb the GS scale quickly and are willing to put up with the BS and ladder hop by switching agencies every few years. That's good to know, thanks. I'm kind of in profit maximization mode, since I graduated college about 20 years behind normal people. If I just wanted a super-chill job, I'd stay at SSA.
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Sep 3, 2020 14:25
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KO's need to be mostly concerned with the mechanics of the contract and don't require (but it's nice if they do) domain specific knowledge, so it's extremely transferable.
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Sep 3, 2020 15:40
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GD_American posted:Anyone have experience or know someone in government contracting offices, preferably at the Corps of Engineers? Not Corps of Engineers but I work very closely with contract specialists in my acquisition job. I think it's a great field regardless of what agency because the skills are portable. Once you get qualified as a COR or a PCO, or even the Contracting Officer at the senior level, you have massive impact and can also lateral to industry really well. Edit: beyond defense contractors, lots of universities and labs that work with the DoD and government also hire DAWIA contracting certified people to run their contracts with the gov. It's a really good career field in my opinion. Getting a gov pension then moving to a nice university town to finish out the rest of your career as the contract specialist or manager is pretty cushy imo. Howard Phillips fucked around with this message at 16:30 on Sep 3, 2020 |
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Sep 3, 2020 16:28
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Dr. Quarex posted:LIES yeah fair enough. Most, but not all, agencies mention equivalencies in their postings, but then that is again just for USAJobs, and I have no real idea what the non-USAJobs agencies do for wage scaling. Yeah, I'm not sure what my agency does on USAJobs--we do use it for recruiting, though. We have pay bands that aren't themselves tied to the GS scale, although the cap is the same as the GS-15 cap, and location differences are tied to the GS pay differentials for different regions.
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Sep 3, 2020 20:19
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The GS15/10 cap is statutory so regardless of what kind of pay system you have that’s the biggest number you can get from the government without being a Senior (X) Service employee.
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Sep 3, 2020 20:45
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