> The US needs to stop using public facilities (schools, the military, etc) as white-collar welfare and hire more people that actually care.
In my experience, most IT/CS people who seek to work for state/federal government do care.
Unfortunately the combination of extreme red tape, low pay, inability to fire lazy employees, and occasionally being punching bags for politicians trying to score cheap points with their constituents, take their toll over time.
So much this. Pay and working conditions are such a joke for so many government jobs compared to the private sector. Government workers make nothing compared to the private sector, we expect them to be miracle workers, we refuse to acknowledge them when they do work miracles, and then we get mad and want to slash the budget when they can't.
It really sucks because I'd happily work for slightly under market rate to do work for a government office, but I just can't work for 1/3-1/2 of the pay I make working in the private sector, not with housing prices the way they are.
Federal govt IT is basically competitive on salary but the hiring process is rigged. The job descriptions are tightly bound to specific experience that only other govt workers or contractors could know and understand.
Last I checked $140k is about the going rate for government contractor software engineering work in the DC/Northern Virginia area. Add $10-20k for a Secret clearance or Public Trust and $30-50k for a Top Secret clearance (though you'll probably have to deal with working in a SCIF at least some of the time with a clearance). I'm pretty sure you can push that latter number even higher if you get a TS/SCI and start doing spooky stuff.
In my experience, most IT/CS people who seek to work for state/federal government do care.
Unfortunately the combination of extreme red tape, low pay, inability to fire lazy employees, and occasionally being punching bags for politicians trying to score cheap points with their constituents, take their toll over time.