Government Tech Salaries

You're wildly hallucinating, are you an LLM? Whatever you produce in Government/City IT is a service. Working for the Government is somewhat more stable, you don't have rank and file or any other needless churn and squeezing for profit. You do get fired from these positions if you don't perform but the workload is not as insane as on the private markets. You call that a handout? That's quite a strange notion but by all means go and compete as much as you want.

Government jobs don't work like the private sector. Furthermore, it's not at all clear from this sentence that it's incompetence or corruption in the first place. It could be that they e.g. felt they might get a worse deal if they tried to push for a better one.

Compensation in government jobs is almost always lower than what the same person could make in the private sector.18F's problem is that the appeal of government work is in benefits other than salary: solid health coverage, a pension, job security. But those are really only of interest if you're planning on staying there long term, and 18F's pitch has always been "take a year or two off from your real job and come work with us." It's the Peace Corps for techies, a

Not sure why this attracted the downvotes.This isn’t a bad thing. I’ve worked in (not fed) .gov for many years. Most government jobs are structured as career jobs, not gigs or places for mid/high level individual contributors to land.When you want more senior talent with specific skill sets, you need contractors or short term appointed people who work for the government, but don’t have all of the rights or need to climb the ladder that career employees do.

Aren't we talking about government salaries here? It's not like there aren't (more) lucrative options elsewhere for any and all qualified candidates. Money isn't always the primary motivator.

This is true. Though the perks and benefits that the govt provides for office workers are not going to be able to compete with top tech companies. Pension is delayed payment of decades while tenure at companies are dropping. I bet quantifying these forms of pay would make the comparison even worse.There are a few things that I’m comparing it to that makes me say they are cheap (since it is a relative term).1. How much money the govt has spent in other endeavors whether policy or contractor

In tech, you get absurd salaries that mean even if you get laid off, you would still take home a lot more than your average government employee.The number one attraction for working for the government is stability, and that's baked into the salary.If you want to attract skilled workers to work for the government, have the same experiences getting laid off, and get paid less, they're just going to turn to private industry.

Disclosure: I'm an engineer at USDS and these are my own opinions.That's right. The US Government is probably not going to win on compensation - salary limits, no stock options, no lunch. However, while it's not a money making enterprise, it's enough to do just fine. I recognize the sacrifices that many of my colleagues have made to be here, not to mention the sacrifices that federal employees and contractors have made (some who are very good and could be making more in th

The government doesn't pay the same in cash comp as other places people could go in the private sector.You'll get some people that are amazing and committed, but the rest are just kinda happy to be there. I wish govt comp was better and more competitive.

I tried to work for the government. It was a 60% pay cut and a demotion - I did quite well in my career so I didn't have the years of experience required to come in at my current level because that's how the government evaluates employees. Plus stunted salary growth. And this was for a government job that has a special salary exemption 'to be competitive with the market'.No matter how much money the government has from taxes, there is no way in hell they are going to pay e