Help me get out of the military industrial complex
August 8, 2012 11:25 AM   Subscribe

Working for a defense contractor is getting me down, help me stop working for the Man?

I'm a embedded software engineer currently working for a satellite communications company that is heavily involved in defense contracting. I've been here for a number of years and have held up reasonably well so far as the culture is incredibly relaxed considering the work we are involved in. As you can see from my past questions, I've been going through some life changes and reevaluating where I stand and I'm realizing one thing that is bringing me down is actually working for a defense contractor. I've taken the first step of turning in my security clearance which limits the projects I can work on a bit but I still want to get out of the military-industrial industry.

Quitting is easy, but where do I go next? It is important to me that my work is important, that it helps people and makes a difference. How does a programmer do it? If I can't do it as a programmer I'm also finishing up a M.Sc in physics and have a fair bit of data analysis experience due to the nature of my research. Can I leverage this?

Specific companies would be fantastic. Right now I am limited to the DC area until I finish school but in the future I'd be open to moving. Also, I'm most definitely not a web-developer of any sort; I do low-level drivers, boot-loaders and network code.
posted by Loto to Work & Money (16 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
I've rationalized away my desire to have jobs that "help people" by realizing that I'm not very good at helping people, but I am pretty good at making money. I can convert money into helping people by donating to worthwhile organizations. In other words, I think it's somewhat short sighted to think certain jobs aren't helpful for society.
posted by saeculorum at 11:35 AM on August 8, 2012 [4 favorites]


I've been a defense contractor, too, and after a while I found that it was exhausting to maintain the cognitive dissonance you need to just get through the day. Good on you for making a change.

1. Set your departure date. It can be 3 months from now or a year from now. You can do anything so long as you know there's an end to it.

2. Save up money and resources.

3. Think about the industry you'd like to be part of and the needs they have, and then comb your resume for similarities. Shape your resume so it's as relevant as possible. Network and ask people you know. This is what LinkedIn is for.

4. Leave. If you don't have a FT job lined up, get in touch with technical temping agencies. It feels good to leave. A lot of people forget to do this step.
posted by mochapickle at 11:40 AM on August 8, 2012 [3 favorites]


As another comment, if you do want to get out of your job, you might find that your employer will take care of that for you. A programmer in Bethesda working for a defense contractor is, in general, not useful without a security clearance. You may be laid off shortly by your employer. In that case, you might as well get laid off with unemployment benefits than quit voluntarily without unemployment benefits.
posted by saeculorum at 11:42 AM on August 8, 2012


I still want to get out of the military-industrial industry.

Okay, but the fact that you're an...

embedded software engineer currently working for a satellite communications company

...is going to pretty drastically limit the number of potential employers that are going to be interested in your skill set. This...

I do low-level drivers, boot-loaders and network code.

...suggests that you might have some portable skills, but really, anything likely to need that sort of thing is a big honking machine. You're looking at heavy equipment manufacturers. Turns out that defense contractors represent a big chunk of those companies. I mean, what sorts of products do you think need that sort of thing?

And get this: just because you switch companies doesn't mean that you stop working for a "defense contractor." We generally limit the term to companies like Lockheed-Martin or General Dynamics that derive the majority of their income from the Pentagon, but General Motors gets like $73 million in defense money every year, Caterpillar gets $1.4 billion, and General Electric gets almost $9 billion. None of those are generally described as "defense contractors," but they all do defense contracting. The fact is that the sort of company likely to need someone with your skill set is almost certainly doing work for the Pentagon.

Look, all those hundreds of billions that the Pentagon spends every year are actually one of the biggest stimulus projects that the world has ever seen. By my count, we spend upwards of $200 billion, every year, giving guys like you jobs who wouldn't otherwise have them. There's a certain sense in which this is grounds for political corruption, in that congrescritters will try to divert that spending towards their own states/districts. But there's another sense in which it's necessary. There is zero demand for tanks, bombers, fighters, or submarines outside the military. If the military doesn't constantly spend money on those things, the companies that produce them will cease to exist.

So. If you want to not just stop working for a "defense contractor" in the limited sense but stop working on Pentagon projects, period, you may need to think about changing what it is that you do. Again, any machine big enough to need your particular skills is almost bound to have military applications. I think data analysis is probably a good direction to go.
posted by valkyryn at 11:46 AM on August 8, 2012 [3 favorites]


If you change your mind, keep in mind that you have two years to reactivate your security clearance. After two years, if you decide to go back to clearance work, you'll have to go through the whole investigative process again, as opposed to merely having the clearance reinstated.
posted by tckma at 11:50 AM on August 8, 2012


http://www.inhand.com/ is in your local neck of the woods and would probably love all of the skills you have.
posted by k5.user at 11:53 AM on August 8, 2012


Yeah, and if you want to stick with data analysis, you might try finance. I ended up in market data (Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters, etc.). They're not saving the world, but again, you could use your earnings to promote the causes that are important to you.
posted by mochapickle at 11:54 AM on August 8, 2012


I've taken the first step of turning in my security clearance which limits the projects I can work on a bit

Is this process complete? Because if you can stop the removal of your clearance, there's a ton of clearance-necessary positions in the cybersecurity field that don't involve being part of the MIC. CDC and NIH in particular could probably use someone like that.
posted by zombieflanders at 12:14 PM on August 8, 2012 [3 favorites]


I am also a former defense worker, and I encourage you to follow your bliss even if it means leaving behind the job security of a clearance. My particular bliss was clearly, obviously not working in the defense industry, for many reasons, and I wanted to escape all of it, specifically including the security clearance. But I knew that it would be hard to do in the DC area, because so many companies consider the clearance to be a premium.
I managed to get a degree in a field tangentially-related and I moved out of DC entirely. The clearance was moot once I was moving to a Midwestern college town and looking for a job in a new field. It was still terrifying to leave, though. It was my only career experience so far, and so much of it was classified. I knew I'd never be back inside that building or see any of those people ever again, like slamming a steel door shut behind me. Six years later, I am so happy and relieved to have left all of it behind me.

Right before I left, I spoke to a woman who told me that she thought it was so great that I was leaving, and that she'd always hated working there, and always wanted to leave. I asked her how long she'd been in that place, and she told me, "Twenty-seven years." I often remind myself that I could be that lady, still there and hating that job right this minute. It was hard to leave.
posted by aabbbiee at 1:48 PM on August 8, 2012


I work for national laboratory for DOE and there is such a broad range of science from improving prosthetics to environmental solutions for 3rd world countries and the rest of the world. List goes on. HQ is in D.C. and since you've already worked for the man, thatwould be a plus. Especially if you are ex-military.
I think theres also a lab in MD somewhere.
posted by KogeLiz at 1:51 PM on August 8, 2012


Also, I'm most definitely not a web-developer of any sort; I do low-level drivers, boot-loaders and network code.

Assuming you have some savings to live off for at least a few months, I think you can become a web developer or any other more commonly needed sort of developer without too much effort. Pick a web technology stack, and start on a project. Get it to a demoable state, and you'll get your foot in the door. This also applies to mobile development or straight desktop software development as well.

Something that's going to work in your favor here is the popular view that low-level stuff is harder that high-level stuff often held by people working on high-level stuff. (It's a poor assumption, but it is still widely held, so you might as well take advantage of it while you can.)

If you happen to want to work on political stuff directly that you feel will offset your time at a defense contractor, check out the listings on idealist.org and the like. Caveat: Non-profits are often a little less exacting when hiring developers, but they may also have a poorer understanding of how they work.
posted by ignignokt at 2:49 PM on August 8, 2012


(I meant "harder than", not "harder that".)
posted by ignignokt at 2:50 PM on August 8, 2012


One thing to consider is to go to a consulting firm (Booz Allen, Deloitte, etc.) who do the work you do now for a few years. Then you get to call yourself a "consultant" and go do whatever it is you really want to do because you've got "consulting" (whatever that is) experience.

Also - the data analysis is something to think about, as well as the comments about "Big Data." All the firms around DC are talking a good game about that and "The Cloud." Note that none of them have any clue what either of those two things are, but they're the current buzz words.

The other thing to think about is commercial satellite work (Harris/CapRock), however as someone else pointed out a large percentage of the traffic is military/intel related.

MeMail me if you have other questions - I just left one of the big consulting firms in DC and now do finance-related work in the same markets.
posted by Farce_First at 6:28 PM on August 8, 2012


Look into the wartime contractor positions oversees in Afghanistan and other forward locations that pay huge money and can be exciting.
posted by kanaan_minks at 10:36 PM on August 8, 2012


You have tons and tons of options outside the defense industry - I'd start with Silicon Valley. Many high-tech firms need your skills such as Intel, Nvidia, Qualcomm, Broadcomm and so on. In fact, pretty much any industry that needs customized electronics for their products will need your skillset. Enjoy!
posted by the_ancient_mariner at 7:24 AM on August 9, 2012


How about making medical equipment?
posted by Harald74 at 8:03 AM on August 9, 2012


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