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So why do people think working for the state is so great? Pay is VERY low for senior IT jobs compared to private sector and you really need to put in 20 years to get a decent pension which really is not that great.
I am looking to move back to private sector pay is 3-5x what I make in senior IT job now and better perks like remote work, 401k, bennies and so forth.
This is probably going to sound over-the-top patriotic. But, hey, it's the Fourth of July so why not ...
When I first started with the State, I wanted to contribute and make a difference. The pay was decent, the benefits were good, the work was steady (almost guaranteed), and the pension added a nice cherry to the mix. At that time, the private IT industry was exploding. Pay was through the roof but companies were expecting people to give their lives (24/7) to the job. Benefits were uncertain and retirement was an after-thought. I had a lot of friends who ran in that direction and laughed at me and my lower salary. (I laughed at them having to work every weekend.) When the tech industry crashed, a lot of my friends lost their jobs. They had been living high on the hog, so there was little in savings and they had not been saving for retirement either ("I'll do that later, I want another new car.") They asked me for help getting a job with the State and most of them are still there.
Now, the tables have turned. State employee salaries and benefits have turned into cards that politicians play with on a whim. When Schwarzenegger stated that he was going to do his best to "starve out" his employees and that paying $7.25 an hour was reasonable and fair, I knew that the State was no longer an employer of choice. (It's funny, the transcription of that speech was replaced on his official website with a copy of a speech from another forum about a week after it was posted. The original disappeared and they did a good job of scrubbing it from the web. I can't find it anywhere.) At that point, I already had 20 years in and I knew I could stick it out until retirement. I will have a pension check that will be about $400 more than my current salary check.
I would never recommend someone get a job with the State. The pay raises are few and far between and rarely result in higher take-home pay, the benefits get more expensive every year, the retirement costs get more expensive every year, and everything we have can be taken away by the governor and the legislature with no recourse. (There is a ruling from the State Supreme Court stating that California State Employees are not covered by federal labor laws that was never appealed so it is the law of the land, State labor laws specifically exclude the State from having to follow them, and the contracts can be changed unilaterally.) Just a couple of more years, then I am out of here!
So why do people think working for the state is so great? Pay is VERY low for senior IT jobs compared to private sector and you really need to put in 20 years to get a decent pension which really is not that great.
I am looking to move back to private sector pay is 3-5x what I make in senior IT job now and better perks like remote work, 401k, bennies and so forth.
I've worked in the public and private sector.
The biggest problem is that the majority of government agencies are really just employment centers for people with connections. If you have no connections you merely fill in the gaps and assist as needed.
So because promotion is purely based off nepotism/politics, it makes for extremely incompetent management. This results in poorly run agencies. The craziest thing is, the people who get employed or promoted due to nepotism think they earned these positions because they are smart.
Every once in a while someone will do a FOIA request on an agency, and people are shocked when they see 40% of employees have a relative working there. If you factor in people who got hired because of friends, its easily another 40%. So you have all these agencies where the people in charge and the people employed probably have no business working there.
My government job is ok. The work is easy, repetitive, and the hours are stable. But the fellow employees I have, are easily of the lowest quality I have seen. I have more respect for the co workers I had as a teenager at an ice cream parlor, than most of the my co workers at superior court.
Speaking strictly about the Sacramento area, private vs state IT salaries don't seem to be that much higher for jobs with the former. Places like Intel and Toshiba seem to have low starting pays for entry-level engineers in the mid-$60K-70K range, up to maybe the low $100K range for non-senior engineers/developers. Senior engineers and developers may make closer to $140K. You may get more in the SF Bay Area but cost of living will also be considerably higher.
With the State, you have middle of the road classifications of IT jobs maxing out at $103K. Supervisors may make an extra $10K or so on top of that. Plus you have a pension but no 401K match or performance bonuses. With the pension being watered down over time, new employees within the past 5 years to current are placed into the 2@62 pension plan. That means if you stay until retirement age, you would get 2@ for each year of service, based on your highest annual salary in your final 3 years of service. Prior to this, state employees got something like 2.5@55, which would let you retire 7 years earlier and have a higher multiplier. Pension may or may not be worth it when you factor in how many years you have to work to earn X amount in retirement, how much you contributed from your paycheck every month for all of those years to help fund it, how many years you're likely to live once retired where you can actually enjoy the pension, etc.
Whether it's still currently worth going with a state job vs private sector job depends on what kind of performance bonuses and 401k match you get with private sector, the annual salary differences, the work-life balance tradeoffs, whether you'd find state work mind numbing and soul deadening enough to make it not worth the stability (maybe you are not as risk averse or value being challenged and working with latest technology/hardware/software and maximizing your potential with your finite days on this earth more than a safe but unfulfilling state job), and other factors. One thing to consider is how volatile the private tech sector can be, and how one's priorities in middle age can change to being focused on kids and family life, which means you'd no longer want to or would no longer be able to burn the midnight oil and compete with recent college graduates with newer skill sets and fresh legs. You could run the risk of being on the chopping block year after year while stressing about how to put your kids thru college while also saving for your retirement if you lose your job. Also, private sector grass isn't necessarily greener across the board.. you'll deal with incompetence there as well, both on the peer and management level, and rudderless leadership that will steer the organization towards realizing plan A and then new leadership comes in during a re-org that steers the organization towards plan B after you've invested a lot of time and effort into plan A. And both may ultimately fail, leaving you possibly wondering if your time and effort was all worth it or not.
Other considerations: 1) At 2@62, your pension will be frozen until you reach at 62, so even if you were to stop working at 55, you'd have 7 years where you'd have to fund expenses thru other means. Unless you want to settle for what you earned up till age 55, then you could retire at 55. 2) there may be some possibility that the state pension will still remain solvent by the time you hit retirement age or sometime into retirement.. then what? 3) performance bonus and 401K match may be a better option depending on the amount of bonus and match, as at the very least you could cash that out with a penalty vs waiting until 62.. what if your health deteriorates and you don't foresee yourself living much longer than that? 4) given 1,2 and 3 above, would you rather bet on yourself, your own savings and retirement vehicles, and personal ingenuity and skill sets rather than take the safer path that also has its own potential pitfalls?
Each individual has to run the numbers and be mindful of these and other considerations in order to make the best choice for them.
Agree- I am looking to move back to private sector- better colleagues and more empowered management.
I am frugal and maxxed out 401k in private sector and the matching is better than what State pension is over time.
That said, having public sector experience looks good on a tech resume so it will help me move up. Politics is way worse in state as well. I also miss working remote most of the time which is something the state jobs fail to provide in spite of technology.
I left a private sector job to work for a public agency, I took a hit in pay but there were other considerations. The company I worked for was relatively large but run by a family, it wasn't unusual to see a long time employee disappear only to be replaced by one of the owners nephews or grandchildren. There was an expectation that I would never call in sick and that I would take vacation only when it was convenient for the owners. I had two young kids at the time and even though it only happened a few times, there were occasions when I had to leave work early or go in late because of an emergency with one of the kids and when that happened I was called in and lectured about my apparent lack of commitment. I was salaried but when I worked 60 + hours a week I would have done better if I was an hourly employee. I had no health insurance and no pension. I found working in the public sector to be the complete opposite, my hours were regular and I wasn't treated like a criminal because I had to take off work to take a kid to the ER & I got great benefits. I retired with a great pension and I get an awesome employer paid medicare supplement, and with the tuition assistance offered by the public agency I was able to get my masters degree without taking out a student loan.
Agree- I am looking to move back to private sector- better colleagues and more empowered management.
I am frugal and maxxed out 401k in private sector and the matching is better than what State pension is over time.
That said, having public sector experience looks good on a tech resume so it will help me move up. Politics is way worse in state as well. I also miss working remote most of the time which is something the state jobs fail to provide in spite of technology.
How long were you with the state? what made you leave private sector in the first place? how long= do you have until retirement?
I enjoyed being able to WFH whenever I had to, working in the private sector.
Problem is low pay and bad micromanagers. I was laid off from private sector and took the state job to get by until economy improved. I would have to work at least 20 years for a pension and at my age just not worth it.
So why do people think working for the state is so great? Pay is VERY low for senior IT jobs compared to private sector and you really need to put in 20 years to get a decent pension which really is not that great.
I am looking to move back to private sector pay is 3-5x what I make in senior IT job now and better perks like remote work, 401k, bennies and so forth.
You might want to look at county jobs, they seem to pay higher than state. Although when you say private sector pays 3x to 5x more than what you make now that doesn't seem right unless you're only making $30k to maybe $40k a year? Lets say you're making $50k I don't see how you would get $150k to $250k for the same job in the Sacramento area unless you have scarce in-demand skills with little competition. I am in IT also, and the only time I see jobs in that salary range it's usually in the Bay Area. If you are in IT and making less than $45k I think you're getting the shaft. Even less than $60k - shaft.
If you work for a high tech bay area HQ firm and live in Sacramento as a sales engineer, making 200k is not unreasonable.
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