[kbarros]

I'm a computational physicist at Los Alamos and would echo these sentiments.

Note that there are two main types of DOE labs: NNSA (Sandia, Los Alamos, Livermore) and Office of Science (Brookhaven, Berkeley, Oak Ridge, Argonne, ...). Although the former is more focused on "nuclear weapons stockpile stewardship", there is still much basic science at all DOE labs, especially where computer science meets physics and other domain sciences.

Perhaps relevant to HN, I would mention the Applied Computer Science group at Los Alamos, which is in hiring mode (https://www.lanl.gov/org/ddste/aldsc/computer-computational-...). Besides supporting computational physicists in code development efforts, this group does a variety of researchy things like designing programming model, doing compiler development, building ML models, especially with an eye towards large scale scientific computing. The pay at a DOE lab is less than FAANG (PhD student interns might be around $80k/yr and starting staff scientists maybe $130k/yr), but the tradeoff for some people would be the research-flavor of the work, and the flexibility. Many of the LANL codes being developed are open source, for example. Other DOE labs have similar computer science divisions. For example, Oak Ridge, Argonne, and Berkeley all have "leadership computing" facilities.

[shrimpx]

Curious, is there room at LANL for a senior full-stack generalist engineer who hasn't necessarily been doing published research work? I've looked at LANL Careers and can't gauge how biased you guys are toward research backgrounds.

[manimino]

LANL definitely needs and uses generalist engineers. I interned there as one, many years back. Standard CRUD-app stuff to help the lab do its main goal of nuclear stockpile stewardship.

But it will help if you enjoy research culture. The location is rather isolated and you will probably be friends / co-workers with people doing research. (I say this because not everyone likes being around PhDs; I've met several people in software who disdain academics.)

[jimmygrapes]

Think they need any janitors/maintenance techs? I can't do much but I can relocate to Oak Ridge fairly easily and I can surely unclog a toilet and clean up blood and paint some baseboards pink for breast cancer awareness month and reset some tripped breakers and change your backup generator fluids and swap out a jiggly door handle and refill the printer paper and repair the reserved parking sign that fell over and set rat traps on the drop tile ceiling space and swap out a malfunctioning automated transfer panel and buff the floors and refill/repair the vending machines and hang the pictures of the boss on the wall and upgrade the circuit breaker to accommodate all the space heaters and check/replace the fire extinguishers and AEDs and rekey the RFID door readers and I dunno, whatever else that "engineers" don't even realize needs to be done. HMU I got an expired TS but nothing precluding a renewal except for (currently) slightly disagreeable ideas that I don't express beyond internet fora.

[fooker]

Do you have an insight into the career trajectory in the labs for international students with a PhD from an US university?

I have heard it’s easy to get fixed term positions and incredibly difficult to get a permanent one.

[graderjs]

But you can only work for these labs if you're a US citizen, am I right? :) Also are there any such labs or outposts in Hawaii? Would be a great beautiful place to live

[helsinkiandrew]

You need to get security clearance for most roles - even a joint citizenship may be problematic:

Sandia is required by DOE to conduct a pre-employment drug test and background review that includes checks of personal references, credit, law enforcement records, and employment/education verifications. Applicants for employment need to be able to obtain and maintain a DOE Q-level security clearance, which requires U.S. citizenship. If you hold more than one citizenship (i.e., of the U.S. and another country), your ability to obtain a security clearance may be impacted.

Applicants offered employment with Sandia are subject to a federal background investigation to meet the requirements for access to classified information or matter if the duties of the position require a DOE security clearance. Substance abuse or illegal drug use, falsification of information, criminal activity, serious misconduct or other indicators of untrustworthiness can cause a clearance to be denied or terminated by DOE, resulting in the inability to perform the duties assigned and subsequent termination of employment.

[totagodo]

I work at Berkeley Lab and there are tons of internationals here. I think it differs between labs - just an hour away at the Livermore Lab there are a lot fewer internationals because of what they do. We don't do anything classified and this lab hands out visas like they're candy.

[graderjs]

Inspiring thank you!

[graderjs]

Is that true for all national labs or just Sandi/all DoE labs? Also, where did you copy paste this from!!? :)

[helsinkiandrew]

One of the interesting looking jobs on Sandia's job page:

https://sandia.jobs/jobs/

[graderjs]

Ah, yes, I see, for instance, under: "R&D Nuclear Engineering (Experienced)", https://sandia.jobs/albuquerque-nm/rd-nuclear-engineering-ex...

It looks like the exact text of your copy above:

Sandia is required by DOE to conduct a pre-employment drug test and background review that includes checks of personal references, credit, law enforcement records, and employment/education verifications. Applicants for employment need to be able to obtain and maintain a DOE Q-level security clearance, which requires U.S. citizenship. If you hold more than one citizenship (i.e., of the U.S. and another country), your ability to obtain a security clearance may be impacted.

Applicants offered employment with Sandia are subject to a federal background investigation to meet the requirements for access to classified information or matter if the duties of the position require a DOE security clearance. Substance abuse or illegal drug use, falsification of information, criminal activity, serious misconduct or other indicators of untrustworthiness can cause a clearance to be denied or terminated by DOE, resulting in the inability to perform the duties assigned and subsequent termination of employment.

[floren]

Sandia has a site on Kauai, but it's for very specific purposes: https://www.sandia.gov/locations/kauai-test-facility/

[graderjs]

Cool, thanks!

edit: wow from the looks of their capabilities that site seems like a mini NASA.