[alephnerd]

Depends on the agency and role.

You're in cybersecurity/IT which is sadly a massive shitshow in most agencies outside of the DoD and DoE.

All I can say is the grass ain't greener in similarly sized private sector organizations.

Edit: I actually upvoted you. That said, Cyber/IT is treated differently and the GS scheme is different.

Relatively junior Economists, Accountants, and Statisticians won't be given a GS-13 position out the door, but it's more likely for Cyber/IT roles due to the salary constraints.

[dmhmr]

I shouldn't have used such broad strokes, you accurately assessed that my opinion is based on my experience with IT/cyber folks in the government.

[alephnerd]

All good! The Federal Government is a massive employer and your experiences are heavily sub-agency dependent. No two people will have a similar experience.