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ClusterFugazi t1_j7lz0tj wrote

Reply to comment by jrjr_analyst in Silicon Valley Layoffs Mean Washington, D.C., Is a Hotter Tech Hiring Market - WSJ by Chraunik

That’s not surprising, over 2,000 of them were laid off and the feds barely understand Agile. Also, too many people get fixated on the big Silicon Valley companies, tech exists outside of the Valley and NYC.

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leonardoty t1_j7mn9a0 wrote

The feds understand agile just fine, what they don’t understand is how to pay people semi-competitive wages and allow them WFH

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kamon405 t1_j7n2g3b wrote

doesn't help that Mayor Bowser does not want contractors WFH.

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leonardoty t1_j7n7dyc wrote

Eh, maybe. Federal agencies don’t really have to listen to what she wants. But they want the same thing, some federal agencies are okay with WFH permanent but a lot aren’t, including mine. I love going into the office twice a week to be on teams calls.

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MarkinDC24 t1_j7opgqp wrote

Do you see the federal government getting more competitive in their pay scales soon?

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leonardoty t1_j7owquo wrote

Absolutely not, no

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MarkinDC24 t1_j7owt1t wrote

Nooooooo

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leonardoty t1_j7oxqiv wrote

If you’re interested in a fed job and are okay with Texas, check out Houston jobs. The pay there is higher than DC, even though the COL is 40% lower than DC. It makes zero sense (and people will try to justify it but their justification will also make zero sense)

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giscard78 t1_j7pej1s wrote

> The pay there is higher than DC, even though the COL is 40% lower than DC. It makes zero sense (and people will try to justify it but their justification will also make zero sense)

Federal pay is based on the cost of labor, not cost of living. Houston has a lot of engineers which drives up the cost of white collar labor in that market.

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leonardoty t1_j7pjgzm wrote

Hey remember when I said
> and people will try to justify it but their justification will also make zero sense

That justification you gave is the one that gets passed around and if you spend more than 5 minutes looking into it you realize it's all utter crap.
If it were true that it's because Houston "has a lot of engineers", then Huntsville should be at the very top of the pay scale, given it has more engineers per capita than any other city, but it's barely above the bottom.
You can look at this infographic that's about a decade old and yes, Houston has plenty of engineers - but what this graphic ignores is software engineers, as it only includes hardware engineers. Software engineers bring in much higher salaries than petroleum engineers at the highest levels. Part of this is skewed because software engineering isn't a "professional engineer" role, meaning most other engineering roles can be designated on whether you have a PE or are in training, whereas someone that dropped out of community college can functionally be a software engineer.
But beyond that - engineers aren't the only ones that command high paying roles, professional degrees do. This article does a phenomenal job at laying that out. Other than the energy sector, Houston is nowhere on this list. DC has the highest percentage of professional degrees, Houston isn't even top 10.
But let's look at the energy sector, which commands Houston. The DoE has one office in Houston and it employees approximately 1300 employees. On the other hand, GSFC, in Greenbelt (where I work), has over 10k employees. And that's one office. SWE is a huge growing field, and in DC alone, you have Amazon, Intel, Meta, Google, Apple just to name those off the top of my head. I have friends at Meta with similar experience to mine making 2-4x my pay, I doubt you see that in Houston.
The real answer you're looking for? Politicians. Politicians ultimately have some say in arguing for higher cost. Republicans have a tendency to threaten kneecapping programs if they don't get what they want, and Democrats have a tendency to spread their cheeks when threatened. THAT is why Houston has such a high pay area, because it was weaponized. Otherwise pay in small cities wouldn't be relatively good, whereas pay in big (blue) cities wouldn't be relatively ass.

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giscard78 t1_j7pea5o wrote

There’s an initiative to get special pay tables for the 2210 series (the most common IT position) but it’s not funded (or has some other hold up). I kinda doubt it’ll ever get implemented. It probably wouldn’t solve everything but might help.

Maybe it’s advancing, maybe it’s not

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jrjr_analyst t1_j7m0jhp wrote

>over 2,000

Shit, I didn't know the DMV number was so high. I was hearing ~1,100 split between the Richmond and the Mclean Tysons offices.

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[deleted] t1_j7nc2wh wrote

[deleted]

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jrjr_analyst t1_j7pfh57 wrote

>Richmond...where such a layoff is more of a body blow

One of my C1 friends moved his family down there post-pandemic and leveraged that Agile org salary to qualify for a mortgage in RVA's [still] red-hot real estate market. He's had at least one offer since the layoff, but the payscales just don't compare and he's headed for a short sale.

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[deleted] t1_j7q2vgd wrote

[deleted]

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jrjr_analyst t1_j7q4u7m wrote

I grew up there. Completely agree. I think employers like CoStar and Deloitte move back-office functions there because they face less competition for tech talent.

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