Why Are the Best and Brightest Not Flooding DARPA? 597
David W. White writes "Wired mag's Danger Room carried an article today that highlighted how desperate the US Military's DARPA has become in its attempts to bring in additional brain power. The tactics include filmed testimonials, folders and even playing cards all screaming join DARPA! Where are all the Einsteins who want to be on the cutting edge for the Government?"
I used to do that kind of work (Score:2, Interesting)
It's quite simple, actually. (Score:4, Interesting)
I'll tell you why (Score:5, Interesting)
Government labs no longer do the stuff for the most part. There are still some pockets left, but they are few and far between, and shrinking. I graduated with a MS in computer science, with a two-year focus on computer security. I was offered a job in a research team with with a DoD lab and eagerly took it. But it wasn't research. It was contract management. Essentially, I got to read research proposals from companies, and decide whether or not those companies would be funded for their ideas. My ability to influence the actual research of the companies was quite limited. I was able to come up with 'calls for proposals,' that is, statements of new topics that we'd like proposals on from companies. By the time these ideas were raped^Wvetted by the various program and contract managers, the descriptions were so incredibly vague that the proposals received in response to the call were completely off-topic. I got frustrated very early on and left.
In my exit interview, I asked my supervisor to define research. His definition was adequate. I then asked him if that's what we did. He stammered a bit, and ultimately conceded that we, "facilitated research." We had a very interesting discussion. Due to research project overruns throughout the 80s, particularly with software projects, as well as the end of the Cold War, the Congress changed the focus of DoD research programs. New funding rules dictate that research projects are placed under contract. In this way, if a company is paid to do research and development on a project, and it fails to deliver, the government has some recourse. If actual government employees received funding and failed, there would not be much that congress could do to them (Congress could slash the non-salary portions of the failed project's budget, but that's not very intimidating to the employees when you think about it).
The place where the 'cool' stuff happens these days is by the contractors. If you want to work on ARPA and DARPA quality work, start a small business and start winning on SBIR awards. I wouldn't recommend actually working for DARPA or a government research lab, though, unless you really want to be a contract manager and not be very hands-on with technology and ideas.
Re:Bullshit. The Jobs and Morals were Exported. (Score:3, Interesting)
Well your post is offtopic and insulting to boot, but it would seem to me that the jobs are here in the US. Except of course that most of them are Indian and Chinese employed by IBM and companies like that.
No, not really. I'd agree with the wars part, but the trade thing is certainly false. Why do you hate China so much? Any particular reason? You keep going on and on about this and I still don't understand it.
That's rich, coming from the guy who has to pretend he's eleven [slashdot.org] different people.
We don't have the best and the brightest anymore (Score:4, Interesting)
The stipulations were
A) Had to be a resident when graduating high school
B) Had to be an instate college
C) Had to have a B average and maintain it through college
When the enacting governor left office, the replacement governor promised college for all students.
The result was grade inflation where the D average inner city kid got that magical B average
and because of affirmative action, the D average kids got head of the line admission to the universities over the real B and A achievers.
We see animosity from the educational unions over the home and private schooled kids because their results are better and it's the unions that say that the results aren't fair.
Political correctness got rid of the best and brightest.
Re:Government Bureaucracy (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Likely Reasons (Score:3, Interesting)
This is a good point: to work at DARPA, wouldn't you have to relocate to the Washington, DC area? That place is a complete dump! You couldn't pay me enough to live in that hellhole. Maybe the government should try getting away from this idea that all Federal government stuff must absolutely be located in the DC area, and try locating in more desirable places, and then maybe they'd have more job applicants.
Re:Perhaps they have a conscience? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I'll tell you why (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd like to emphasize that there are some great people that work in DARPA and the various other research labs. I was definitely fortunate to work with or at least meet with the people that I did during my time in DoD. Quite a few people are technical and smart, and can see some big problems that we're facing. That is an incredibly good thing. I think that, from a human resources angle, the research labs are facing a legitimate problem though: they need people with technical expertise and passion to do a job that does not utilize that technical expertise and passion in a very glamorous way. It is downright demeaning to a lot of people with advanced degrees in a subject to do a job that doesn't involve actually doing the stuff that they studied, but instead watching other people do that stuff (and often doing it wrong!).
It is incredibly hard for DARPA and other agencies to spin the job in the right way to smart people. My point is that they're going about this whole 'selling the job' thing wrong -- they should try to change the job a bit to make it more technical in order to get people interested. Maybe they (the Congress) could require government contractors to accept the government-employed contract manager into their fold as a department head, paid for by the government. It could certainly be an interesting experiment that might yield a good outcome (which, I daresay, would be research worth funding).
Re:Umm... because they want to work tomorrow, too? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Because they pay crap (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Young Techies Hate Bush. (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not saying the man is infallible, and frankly that's the reason why I like him as a candidate.
He's OLD SCHOOL washington, the kind that consult experts and demand substance.
He represents the possibility of yanking the US government out of wacky-land and back into sanity, where further progressive efforts will at least be examined on merit.
Of course, my congressional votes will go republican to help prevent another unified government.
Re:More money to be made elsewhere? (Score:2, Interesting)
I also got an offer from NASA; but I didn't want to live in Alabama, and their offer was only half of what I was offered at my internship company. Plus, structural dynamics sucks, and it was only a two-year contractor position.
My point? Government needs to offer better pay if they want people to come work for them. Not trying to say I'm a super engineer or anything, but a 33-50% pay differential is quite significant.
Because DARPA is a government mess (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Bullshit. The Jobs and Morals were Exported. (Score:3, Interesting)
I understand what you're saying, and I agree with you and what the link proves. But you are not understanding my point. A great many of those people who are hired in those countries end up working here in the United States. IBM has thousands and thousands of "employees" working here, for IBM and under contract for U.S. companies. They might have been hired in India and China, but lots and lots of them are working here.
I should know, I work with an enormous amount of them every day.
Re:Like the CIA (Score:2, Interesting)
Why is a (loooooong retired) WWII pilot any kind of authority on this? That also comes from an ignorant, delusional point of view.
Re:The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Anyone (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a wise observation: for a particularly detailed account of one such person, read Richard Rhodes' Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb [amazon.com]. It prominently features Edward Teller, who was the driving force behind the hydrogen bomb even when many of the other Manhattan project scientists, and most notably Oppenheimer, had lost their zeal for weaponry and their certainty that we are the good guys, as the GP argues.
Note too that I pitched a theory as to why this is a problem [slashdot.org] in another comment.
A no brainer (Score:1, Interesting)
benefits are still good (Score:3, Interesting)
You need to work 5 years to get a pension (1% of your salary per year for your three year high, i think you can collect it when you turn 62).
You get plenty of vacation and sick leave, accumulate 4 hours every 2 weeks, 6 after 3 years, and 8 hours after 15.
Flex schedule. Basically you can work your 80 hours any way you want in a 2 week span.
Nearly 100% telework. Still have to come in 1 hour a week, but wanna live out in NYC and come in for an hour to the DC area, you can.
Managers don't have enough tools to retain people. You are dead on about positive renforcement.
Re:Because DARPA is a government mess (Score:3, Interesting)
Sounds like a good reason to join.
Re:Because DARPA is a government mess (Score:5, Interesting)
Sheesh. DARPA is designed specifically to avoid being an "old boys network". DARPA staff are rotated out after 4-6 years -- no one is around long enough to form an "old boys network".
From Wikipedia: The staff is rotated to ensure fresh thinking and perspectives, and to have room to bring technical staff from new areas into DARPA. It also allows the program managers to be bold and not fear failure.
It's a procurement job, not a management job (Score:4, Interesting)
A DARPA "program manager" is often what Government procurement people call a "Contracting Officer's Technical Representative". This is someone who knows what the project is about, technically, and goes out to check on progress. Back at HQ, you write reports, go to meetings concerning what projects ought to go forward, and look at incoming proposals. You get to see a lot, and have some influence over research, but don't really do much yourself. The problem is finding people smart enough to do the job, willing to work for the Government not actually doing technical work, senior enough to tell companies and professors what to do, yet not has-beens.
Although many academics are unhappy with DARPA under Dr. Tony Tether, I think he's done good work. Academic robotics needed a serious butt-kick. DARPA had been putting money into robot vehicles since 1969 without getting anything usable. Tether dreamed up the DARPA Grand Challenge to light a fire under academic researchers. Early on, the big-name schools didn't want to field entries. It was quietly made clear to them that the gravy train was over - if they couldn't compete, they weren't getting further funding in robotics. Entire academic departments were devoted to that problem, and it got results. More recently, Boston Dynamics' "Big Dog" robot has been demoed. Again, this was something far better than anything from decades of academic work. I can't speak for work outside robotics, but DARPA really has succeeded in forcing robotics groups to produce.
Re:Umm... (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, don't forget the coolness factor. During the cold war the military invested significant sums into basic research. Therefore the most advanced computers and electronics were often found in a military setting. Now, the military doesn't fund basic research to nearly the same extent, and, as a result, one is equally likely to find advanced technology in a private setting.
Re:Kuhn, eh? (Score:3, Interesting)
No it does not. If you are a scientist and you want to see your career plummet, try writing anything against Turing or his ideas.
Turing is basically the same as Newton in this situation.
I disagree with the analogy. Turing is not anything like Newton. Turing did not come up with anything really new about computers that had not already been invented by Charles Babbage a century earlier. If you don't believe me, ask any programmer to name one of Turing's unique contributions to computer science that they use in their every day work. Just one.
If you can disprove his theorems, or build a machine that operates under less restrictive assumptions, then get to it and make a name for yourself.
I wish it were that easy. You either misunderstood Kuhn or you are willingly oblivious to reality. Turing is an infallible god in the computer science community. His computing model is considered a god's gift to humanity even though it is awfully inadequate and seriously flawed. The truth is that the Turing machine is inherently and implicitly sequential by definition and does not even consider parallel computation, whereas the universe is parallel. The inadequacy is acutely obvious in light of the parallel programming crisis. Logic dictates that a true universal machine should be inherently and implicitly parallel. Sequential order should be explicit. One man's opinion, of course. History will judge one way or another because computer science is still in its infancy.
Saying science is like a religion, where nobody dares challenge the "orthodoxy", and there's a disincentive to upturning conventional thought, is freaking ludicrous claim in light of the facts.
Well, Thomas Kuhn said it and so did Max Planck and a bunch of others. Your opinion against theirs. I agree with Kuhn because I see it with my own eyes.
PS. I disagree that there has been any progress in quantum computing but that's a different story.
Re:Umm, because .... (Score:5, Interesting)