Comment by fastneutron
3 years ago
The national labs are a huge asset I wish more people knew about. You get to work on interesting, meaningful projects, are given access to all the expertise, training, and development resources you could reasonably want, and have a relatively secure job with a good work-life balance.
I often talk to graduate students in STEM fields about their career prospects, many of whom are interested in software development, but are disillusioned with the career paths academia, FAANG, and the standard tech companies have to offer. Many of them just aren't aware of what the labs have to offer when I bring it up, unless their faculty advisor is in some way involved.
I looked into working at a national lab after grad school. It seemed like way too many of the openings were post doc positions with a two year contract that was supposed to come with a research proposal. No thanks. I have no interest in spending two months writing a proposal so I can make a 60k salary for two years and then get let go. It's hard to be disillusioned about FAANG when that's the alternative.
Yikes, it sounds like they want a huge contract workforce of dubious quality.