[mellosouls]

They still don't generally need to use consultants. Even at the poor rates of pay in many government teams, there are still some decent technical staff who don't just chase the dollar. Bear in mind the salary standard is normal market, not FAANG/SV.

Consultants are nearly always used so that managers can say "we went with BigCo, its their fault" when things go wrong.

ie. they are generally a political choice rather than technical.

[xphos]

As a computer scientist who worked as a research scientist i was paid more as a Federal Surfguard (beach lifeguard) than i was doing TS cleared work with the government. The GS scale is fundamental a broken wager. When I gradated college the government was willing to pay 75K for employment. I had offers from private industry as internships making more than that per hour. They were easily 15K off my next offer and that was only because I thought I would like defense in general where the pay is pulled lower because they do so much government contracting. After exiting the defense industry I was making what I was predicated to make in 20 years at the government in 3 years in private industry. Not counting stock options etc.

The disparity is extremely but to be honest I liked the idea of working for the government. There was a lot of drive to solve for the mission and smart people. But the level risk mitigation made working extremely difficult. The government impressive getting people to work as hard as they do and I respect it, they were a good employer but political offices severely shackle it from doing even better work. In wages yes but even in allowing experimentation, political appointments waste a ton of energy and time to. Its like selecting the worst person for the Job in a non meritocratic way and expecting things to run smoothly is a poor idea.

[genewitch]

if you work for the government you can get your student loans forgiven without the tax burden, you get retirement, you get 1 hour of k-time (time off) per week of work, which means a day off every 8 weeks, or 13 days+ a year of PTO, plus sick leave, plus health insurance that is pretty good, plus...

maybe it's different at the federal level, but at the state level it's pretty hard to beat the benefits, unless you're strictly looking for hourly wages. Not everyone needs $500,000 a year, nor wants it.

[projectazorian]

> They still don't generally need to use consultants. Even at the poor rates of pay in many government teams, there are still some decent technical staff who don't just chase the dollar. Bear in mind the salary standard is normal market, not FAANG/SV.

The stated policy of the current admin is to "traumatize" federal employees so the number of these people is likely dwindling fast. Burnout was already a problem before the current admin - if your efforts hit a bureaucratic brick wall one too many times that private sector job starts to look a lot more appealing.

[bhouston]

Another reason why consultants are good in government is because of unions. I am generally pro-union, but a side effect of unions, at least in my experience, is that you will have a proportion of incompetent people who can not complete anything and you can not effectively get rid of them. Consultants who are clearly incompetent or even just not a good fit are much easier to get rid of.

Although the large consulting firms are also not great if they are just shipping software requirements overseas for cheap software dev labor, that also can be very ineffective. So many never ending government projects are a result of this. On the surface everything is competently managed (grant charts forever, with perfect org charts), but at the strategic level of actually getting it to work and on-time is lacking (because there are a ton of cautious "professional managers" who don't know how to actually ship.)

[bsder]

> I am generally pro-union, but a side effect of unions, at least in my experience, is that you will have a proportion of incompetent people who can not complete anything and you can not effectively get rid of them.

I am so tired of people who have "experience" repeating this talking point.

1) If an employee is union and being a freerider a manager has to document their failing before being able to fire them. And, yes, the union is going to defend them and make you do your job and put those documents in writing. The problem is that most managers don't want to put things in writing because, lo and behold, most of the time you wind up with written documentation that the manager is the problem instead of the union employee.

2) Union employees often hate freeriders more than managers do. Someone freeriding is making your own job far more miserable and if you can get rid of them, your own life is going to improve.

3) I can count the number of the freeriders I have encountered in union positions on one hand. I have lost count of the number of those people in non-union positions.

[LunaSea]

> there are still some decent technical staff who don't just chase the dollar

They are probably not chasing the job security either.

[0xffff2]

Working for the Federal government used to provide a solid pension, solid healthcare for life, and rock solid job security. The first has been mostly eroded away over the last decade. The last of course has completely evaporated over the past 3 months. AFAIK you still get healthcare for life if you manage to retire. All in all, I can absolutely see why someone would take the US civil service deal 20 years ago. Not so much 5-10 years ago.

[Den_VR]

https://www.nteu.org/blog/2025/04/08/Senate%20Passes%20Budge...

Healthcare may be vouchers soon.

[lotsofpulp]

Healthcare has also been eroded away as it is frequently needed to pay extra for concierge or direct primary care to be able to see a doctor, otherwise you are being seen by a physician assistant or nurse practitioner first.

[mjevans]

I heard that __used__ to be the appeal, now that goodwill and soft power has been completely nuked.

[RajT88]

Not just that political reason - you can scale a workforce up and down much more quickly with them.

[cgannett]

And that is one of the more charitable political reasons that exist. I'm guessing Dolette and the like didnt drop enough campaign contributions. Betting in a couple months Tesla is gonna get a big fat contract.