[oasisbob]

How are you defining "professional" in this context?

There's a classical sense of professional it seems you're reaching for, but I'm having a hard time thinking of a non-professional white-collar worker which would do better in federal government than the private sector.

Eg, surveyors are clearly professionals. Software developers? IT?

[jki275]

Software engineers, IT, EE, ME, tend to be paid significantly less than they would make outside of gov service. This of course varies a bit by level, but it's generally true.