Current salary is around $160k + Federal benefits/pension.... What are you looking for in the industry? Excitement? More money? More challenges? More on reddit.com

8 years split between SOC, IR, security engineering, $150k salary, 3 weeks vacation. Hybrid. I’m probably underpaid, but I don’t find my current job demanding, it’s safe from layoffs, and I have free time to have a life outside of work so I’m not complaining. Edit: Guess I should add more context. Based out of California but company has global work. Don't work for government, but government adjacent. I also have a MS in Computer Science, GCIH, OSCP, CISSP. Have presented at a few small conferences and done some open source contributions for detection engineering. Used to bust my ass doing IR work and had on-call rotations. Mostly do a mix of CTI and some consulting now. More on reddit.com

Y'all are underpaid over there.

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I say do it, and here's why:

Financially, the first three years of your career are going to be your lowest earning years anyway. If you are good enough to get a full ride scholarship, then you probably won't have any trouble finding a job, but it won't pay THAT much more than a gov position. Let's say you move to DC, which is a preferredidea for government work, and a pretty good idea for civilian cyber jobs.

Year 1 gov: 66k (GS11step 1)

Year 1 civ: 86k (high side of entry level cybersec because of masters)

-- 20k diff goes to pay off 120k debt, 100k left

Year 2 gov: 78k (GS12 step1)

year 2 civ: 98k (10% raise, plus some bonuses)

-- 20k diff goes to pay off 100k debt, 80k left

year 3 gov: 81k (GS12 step 2, maybe waiting on a gs13 slot) yea 3 civ: 113k ( median cybersec salary)

-- 30k diff goes to pay off 80k debt, 50k left.

Obviously, these numbers are only loosely based on your reality. But they should be at least comparable enough that you can see that your pay differential will likely be less than the amount of debt incurred (for those 3 years.

Other financial considerations:

If you aren't convinced you can get a job basically instantly upon graduating, then the numbers tilt towards the government position more. Every month of a job search will "cost" you roughly 5k.

If you work for the federal government 3 years you earn "tenure" which means that you have a much easier time of coming back into federal service if you leave.

Finally, working directly for the government means that you will have a much better chance, entry level, of being able to get a security clearance. A clearance will probably multiply your entry level / journeyman salary by a factor of 1.5 or 2 if and when you get a civilian job.

So, financially, those are the reasons why I think the gov job is a good choice. But there are a host of other concerns which may be more important to you. You'll need to keep thinking about it.

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