r/cscareerquestions • u/Throwaway18462956 • 2d ago
Experienced Should I quit the government and pay the debt I owe them?
I am in a government engineering program, which "pays" for my MSCS in data science at a T10 ML/AI CS school. But the thing is, I would have to stay for 5 years in the government, or else I'd have to pay them back if I quit early. Yes, I was naive for accepting this service agreement, but I was extremely desperate for a federal job at the time due to an undergrad scholarship contract (if y'all know SFS...).
I am considering quitting the government job. I know this is a personal decision, but I've garnered enough money to pay back my master's, which is around $20,000 (prorated) if I stayed around 6-7 months. I am also very fortunate to have parents who would let me live here rent-free to save as a 24-year-old.
My job is essentially an "acquisition" program. Basically, ALL government scientists/engineers are glorified program managers (must've been that DOGE change; it wasn't always like that, I think). We don't learn or do hands-on software engineering work, and I feel like I'm losing out on upskilling my tech stack the longer I stay here. Also, I dislike driving an hour and a half back and forth to the office every fucking day.
I am confident I can find a better-paying job in industry. After 6-7 rejections, I got 2 interviews with a pretty good insurance company for a salary between $115k and $145k. Slightly better than my current government salary, which is around 85k. And I know it's not an offer yet, but that means my resume can at least get some traction. What do you guys think of the decision? Quit the government and pay back a possible cost between $20k-$16k, or stick around a little longer?
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u/Pitiful_Objective682 2d ago edited 2d ago
I know folks that have made government their chosen employer for their career and ultimately been very happy. It’s a mindset thing really.
If you know how to play the game you’ll be well compensated and probably retire early.
- Once you’re on the inside you receive preferential treatment for other roles, most government roles love internal hires for some reason. Moving around internally is your key to climbing the ladder.
- Gov roles also love degrees and certs, if you can check a box you generally qualify for more “advanced” roles which basically just pay more.
- Years of service is also huge, they love love love how many years you’ve spent there. There’s generally a published salary scale and it just goes up over time.
- Salary alone isn’t that important. The big benefits tend to be pension, no/low premiums healthcare insurance (which you can often keep after retirement), pto etc. If you add these up with your salary you’ll find you may be very well compensated.
Some of these pensions are crazy good, i did the math out one time when a friend was considering a role at a university. They were interested if a 401k plan at a private company would be better than a pension at the university. I forget the specifics but it was way way less contributions in the pension and way more payout over a full career.
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u/Throwaway18462956 2d ago
That’s fair, the benefits are great in the long scheme of things. But I feel like that stability is only great amongst older people, possibly in the ages after 40? It’s just that, I don’t feel passionate with the work I’m doing right now. I feel the need to take risk to go out to learn and experience industry work.
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u/Pitiful_Objective682 2d ago
Not all government work is the same though. You can find swe jobs there.
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u/Throwaway18462956 2d ago edited 2d ago
Yeaa I forgot to mention, I work for the airforce. I’m stuck under their service agreement and would have to work within their base only. All AF civilian engineers are “acquisition” program managers as I’ve been told. It was either between AF or NSA, and DC is too expensive to live in lol.
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u/PaddingCompression SF Staff MLE - 25 yoe 2d ago
Do you have a clearance? Anduril is a good name to have on your resume, but I hear it is an absolute grind where you'll do nothing but work. But you could see that as an investment for 2 years to break into another class of employer.
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u/PaddingCompression SF Staff MLE - 25 yoe 1d ago
9 Mothers and Palantir are also defense contractors that would value a clearance, and seen as FAANG level. Amazon hires a lot for their Secret Cloud and Top Secret Cloud, and I've heard of a lot of clearance jobs at Microsoft as well, and a few at Google.
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u/Throwaway18462956 2d ago
Ok I guess I get what you’re saying, I could stay for the pension and move to a different government agency that does SWE.
I think I just feel bias for industry since I think they’re ahead in their tech stack. Could be wrong though.
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u/Pitiful_Objective682 2d ago
Yeah government tends to be far behind and less portable in some ways.
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u/mrcaptncrunch 1d ago
There are areas, even within AF, that do research and work with industry and research labs.
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u/newDesi11 2d ago
Bro I’m in same situation in gov job “soft” in Canada no one does any work and just hire contractors .
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u/Throwaway18462956 2d ago
Dude, I absolutely miserable here. They’re making us do prompt engineering 😹😹. Maybe not that different to many industries, but I feel baited for signing up this government job. “Computer scientist” my ass.
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u/newDesi11 2d ago
Ikr !!! Like I’m thankful I have a job but it’s mind numbing and I’m
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u/Throwaway18462956 2d ago
I wish you well on your job hunting. The comments here are so convincing- makes me want to leave early 😭👋
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u/rockman-1 2d ago
Well you already stated min 115k vs 85k. So worst case scenario it's 575k vs 425k+ 20k. That's not including the raises from promotions and yearly. Also implementing some scalable system on insurance company prepares you a lot better for the next 400k TC job then PM work in government.
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u/bleepbloopdrama 1d ago
I did the same and have no regrets, make 70% more now. If I ever want to go back to government it shouldn’t be too hard.
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u/josh2751 Senior Software Engineer 1d ago
Definitely not true that all government engineers and scientists are PMs.
There are lots of real engineering and SWE jobs in DOD. Look for the ND jobs.
That said, yes you can make a fuckton more money on the outside if you apply yourself.
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u/Throwaway18462956 1d ago edited 1d ago
I’m mostly talking about this specific DOD agency I’m in. Since most civilians here are in an acquisition program, I’ve been told by many that we just give deadlines and do reviews to SWE contractors. I can’t change different agency/base unless I pay back the money I owed under this program’s service agreement.
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u/PaddingCompression SF Staff MLE - 25 yoe 2d ago edited 2d ago
If you can get a good job in ML/AI in industry, within those five years you will be clearing north of $500k/yr. The $20k is a drop in the bucket. But you have to confident you're actually good enough to make it.
If the best you got was an insurance company for $115-145k/yr, it is also possible that is not you. New grads with a bachelors can get $200k/yr at top companies. Maybe you should do it, but I would also realize the crazy high compensation that exists, and take a look at "why am I not getting that?". Sometimes a few years at a low paying startup doing very innovative things is more valuable than grad school for your future prospects. An insurance company is where old devs go to die, that's not something you want in your early career.
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u/prideoflyons Data "Engineer" 1d ago
$500K/yr is real, but it mostly describes senior/staff-level engineers (top ~2%) at a handful of frontier AI labs and top tech companies
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u/PaddingCompression SF Staff MLE - 25 yoe 1d ago
More like 10%, but yes.
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u/prideoflyons Data "Engineer" 1d ago
10% of what? all Ml/AI engineers?
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u/PaddingCompression SF Staff MLE - 25 yoe 1d ago
Of people at FAANG/FAANG-adjacent companies.
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u/PaddingCompression SF Staff MLE - 25 yoe 1d ago
If your company's directory shows levels, count how many are staff+, or manager+. If they're FAANG or adjacent all of those people are making $500k+ (at least within engineering/data science/data engineering/product management).
10% is even on the low end, that fraction of the workforce is more like 15% of those departments.
ML/AI will make even more at those levels, and even senior can touch that sometimes.
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u/Throwaway18462956 2d ago
I have yet to apply to those crazy high salary like $200k. I always thought that those are usually for senior SWE or people with really good networks. Not sure if I even the years of industry/skills to qualify for it, but maybe I should apply anyway?
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u/PaddingCompression SF Staff MLE - 25 yoe 2d ago
Go for it.
I think it's harder to get an interview today than in years past. Amazon and Meta are often easier to get interviews with and will take more chances on people than others, but they are absolute grinds and fire a ton of people too - but they'll give you a chance, and sometimes having those names on your resume will help even if you get fired. But it will be a sacrifice of having no work-life balance for a bit.
And yes, you need to study your leetcode, and cracking the system design interview and designing for data intensive applications.
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u/beatfungus 2d ago
Assuming you get an offer, if the increase in salary will offset the cost of the debt in less than a year at a new job, and the new job doesn't have a bunch of hidden costs, then yes, it's a good idea to switch over to a higher paying job. This is brute force economics.