Get the same job working for government. Work stability in government is unparalleled, and there is so much cruft and technical debt that you will literally spend up until your last breath fixing legacy code and trying to get people off ancient software systems.
You will stagnate, and nobody will give a shit. People will come and go next to you, but you will be stable through the ages, like a pillar in an ancient Roman temple... Seasons will leave behind memories, but the winds will not take you with them. You will prevail, no matter what. Maybe forgotten, maybe overlooked, but more certainly not underestimated.
Please don't engage in political flamewar on HN. As Orwell pointed out almost eight decades ago: "The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable’."[1] and is now obviously only a dog-whistle for fellow ideologues. This does not belong on HN.
I work in consulting. The best bet is not to work for the government. But to work for a consulting company that contracts with the government. You will get paid more. I use to work for a consulting department that focused on the public sector.
Even with that, work security in government is still unparalleled. In the private sector, if the chief executive wanted to lay off 90% of the workforce, they could.
Compare the downsizing of Twitter to the downsizing of the government.
Yep, I'm a federal contractor working in NIH as a data scientist, and completely agree with the above comment.
Before November, I would have said the same thing as the parent comment. After January 20th, everyone who is left is currently looking for backups in case they get laid off.
Gov and fed contractor positions used to be the most stable jobs you could get. Now, they are just as uncertain as industry jobs. It's extremely unfortunate.
I'd say that they are more uncertain than industry jobs at this point, unless you're talking about companies that have recently been taken over by private equity where the new owners intend to gut the place and sell off the parts.
> unless you're talking about companies that have recently been taken over by private equity where the new owners intend to gut the place and sell off the parts.
Off topic, but this is starting to feel like the rule rather than the exception. This practice should not be legal.
I worked for a compaby as the dev lead that was bought by private equity along with other smaller companies to eventually get big enough to go public.
I saw the writing on the wall. I knew it didn’t make sense to try to build a development department - what I was originally hired to do. I became more of an “enterprise architect” responsible for managing and coordinating third party consulting companies.
I left a year and half later and went to work for a startup. I left there abs when I was looking for a job three years later, the company that acquired the startup offered me a job as a staff architect responsible for integrating all of their acquisitions. As soon as I found out it was PE backed, I noped out.
I still inadvertently ended up at a PE backed company that also had a roll up strategy. It was shitty and I only lasted a year before moving on
I don't think it's that different from the private sector. I've been with my current employer for almost 7 years. The company has been sold twice with layoffs. My manager, who hired me years ago, is leaving.
yeah... There is always a niche in government. Plus, I haven't heard of many layoffs affecting software teams in government. Some people are so deeply rooted in their specific concerns that taking them out of a codebase is borderline like cutting the wrong cable on a bomb.
They also in danger now. Red states are trying to implement mini-DOGEs and all states have to rethink their budgets with the federal government cutting back.
This basically shows why DOGE is a thing. This sort of attitude is why governments are slow to achieve anything, why any government contract ends up over budget, etc...
If the government was a dynamic work environment, it would burn just as much money. But instead of saying "the project went over budget", they'd say "we executed a strategic pivot."
Instead of employees "stagnating", employees would launch all sorts of initiatives and then abandon them after getting promoted.
Instead of maintaining legacy systems for decades, teams would turn down systems so that employees can work on shinier greenfield projects, leaving users in the lurch.
I do not oppose government efficiency. I support reforms to identify and eliminate waste in government. Unfortunately that's not what DOGE is doing.
> But instead of saying "the project went over budget", they'd say "we executed a strategic pivot."
Yeah, politicians already do this. They use different words but to the same effect.
I am not going to pretend I have the ultimate solution to all of this, but the idea that government employees get to sit there, do bare minimum for the entirety of their careers, and without any desire to improve anything for the sake of the people they serve (because clearly they forgot they work for the citizens of the country in which said government operates) is just so wrong. Maybe we deserve to live in mediocrity.
You can, at least, vote out a congress, house, or a parliament member if they are mediocre and not doing much (doesn't always happen but the option exists). Government employees are un-elected (technically) and get to spend their entire life in a "stable" job regardless of their performance. Is this status quo actually good for the country?
If you want private sector work ethic, you gotta pay private sector salaries.
(Many federal employees have a better work ethic than the average private sector worker. But you can't make that an expectation if you're paying less than they could make elsewhere.)
Not every software project needs the mentality you want to stamp on it. Most software in the world is boring, stagnant, legacy code. Maybe it was 'hip' one time, no one cares... that's the reason we have tons of COBOL still running around...
I am not here to tell you what we SHOULD do. Not to tell you who SHOULD get a job. My point is to tell you that some people, in this crazy world, want to do some work, and some of that work is not fancy, and for that they get a special place in the current environment.
> Most software in the world is boring, stagnant, legacy code
Honestly as I get older I find myself starting to look to that world in a more appealing light. Call it the tech version of Barrista FIRE but there's a certain appeal to getting a job crunching boring ass enterprise Java for some stupid company, getting a decent wage (relative to the rest of the country, not tech in general) and reasonable benefits.
> My point is to tell you that some people, in this crazy world, want to do some work, and some of that work is not fancy, and for that they get a special place in the current environment.
And this is fine. It is good to recognize this and build around it. My comment and my annoyance is with the idea that the government is a good place to act as a, and I mean no offense, dumping ground for such people.
The reputation of government jobs being very stable attracts such people and they then form the majority and things stagnates and nothing improves because there is no will.
To be clear, I am not saying every government department should be a copy of google in how they work and hire. But a balance needs to be struck between keeping government departments stable and striving to trim the fat and improve.
> The reputation of government jobs being very stable attracts such people and they then form the majority and things stagnates and nothing improves because there is no will.
This is substantiated entirely by feels. Do you actually know any government workers?
You will stagnate, and nobody will give a shit. People will come and go next to you, but you will be stable through the ages, like a pillar in an ancient Roman temple... Seasons will leave behind memories, but the winds will not take you with them. You will prevail, no matter what. Maybe forgotten, maybe overlooked, but more certainly not underestimated.