Lots of DMV-based Meta layoffs still looking for gigs. And while it was a much smaller-scale event, I know multiple C1 Agile folks in the same boat.

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.

Defense startup tech is getting fucking dollar bills right now. NSA gobbling it all up.

>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.

Ask Alex Karp to share some.

I like how the government was like "hey look at all this talent we can now get!" and everyone laid off looks at the salary goes "lol absolutely not"

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

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

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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Hot job market out there.

Something alot of these articles miss is that non-tech companies that are hiring laid off tech workers from big tech companies lack the technical infrastructure that made everyones’ lives easier at big tech companies. As an engineer at a non-tech company, you have to deal with a ton of bs by yourself and there’s no unified system, codebase, libraries, design language, etc. The salary, options, etc are all obviously worse but the day to day becomes a real headache when you leave big tech for these non-tech companies.

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

Absolutely not, no

Nooooooo

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)

Lol. You think some 27yr old programmer, that worked for meta, who made $345k a year is going to work for the Fed or one of the million consulting firms in and around the beltway for $110k?

Were the salaries you were seeing competitive to Capital One?

While not $345K but there is a good amount contractors around the same age making $180K range. Still small potatoes compared to what they were making.

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

> 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.

>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.

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.

Too bad many of those jobs are about to be replaced with automation.

Not in gov, but tech consulting companies are definitely not paying that little for a senior. 110 is a starting salary, seniors can be making upward of 200+ with a good wlb and remote. Besides some companies that are heavy on the RSUs probably did not realize that much money anyway.

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"About to" is a big stretch. ChatGPT and the like will be tools for human engineers but it will be decades before they will fully replace them imo.

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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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Rubbish. I was a cleared contractor working in data analytics for years and I didn’t make anywhere near $250k. The only people that made that comp were senior execs and even then a lot didn’t make that comp. My Managing Director in 2017 made $215k all in. And the highest paid Principals at BAH make about $265k all in. And there aren’t a lot of those running around and they’re definitely not 27.

There isn’t a good amount. Where are all of you getting these numbers? I worked in gov consulting for 15yrs as a cleared consultant in data analytics and running million dollar programs and very few people I knew made that. One of my best friends has a MS in Applied Math, a full scope poly, is an expert in ML and works for DARPA and makes about $160k all in. And he manages a team as well and has 17yr experience.

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