Best Posts in Thread: The Pentagon's controversial plan to hire military leaders off the street

Well, with all the new and quickly evolving electronic technology and all its peripherals, I can see why the DoD needs to lean into recruiting talent into these fields. And I can see how using the "ego carrot" of having some rank on your shoulder can work to attract a few - it's like skipping a few grades in school to these people. And, a couple of stripes or bars is way cheaper than bonuses and loan repayment programs.

For sure, the DoD has usually been out in front - they're generally the leading edge in the development and use of new "stuff". This is what is needed if the military is to stay ahead of threats - real or potential - and to maintain a preventive posture.

Not all specialties are front line, hard core, etc. Many are considered to be the "softer" fields. I like the idea of bringing back the Spec4, Spec5 ranks. This would be helpful in maintaining stronger leadership in those occupational classifications that are generally direct, front-line positions and leave these techie nerd military personnel with the in-direct, not generally combat positions with Spec ranks.

In any event, many of these folks will be college grads, so will probably be Officer types. One way might be to attract them with WO schools, with the ability to move to the Officer rank after their first hitch. I still think very solid loan repayments is another way.

Oh yeah. There's always the option of bringing back the draft - if they ever plug up all the "deferment" excuses to make that a fair and even keel deal.

The US gov't/DoD outbid the Soviets for all the post-war German brainpower. Many of the German Jewish brains were already here as they got out of Germany just in time and right before the Nazi "Final Solution".

I read an article not too long ago where the Silicon Valley's all over the US have large pools of foreign workers with green cards working in their R&Ds. The article basically said it was to the US Corporation's avantage to hire the best from around the world so other Corporation's won't be able to capitalize on these foreign nationals' creative potentials.

I wonder if the DoD can partner up more heavily with NSA and expand what NSA already has and does. Something tells me from what I've read that cyber warfare is the big thing now - and has been for quite some time. If this is true, then I suspect it will take more than just a few "push buttons" from the military to arrest this threat.

Methinks we need more than a bucket brigade. Again, I can't help but think sometimes the pencil pushers at the DoD think they can put out a 5-alarm fire with a squirt gun. I think they need to put some real teeth and muscle into this if they want to get out and stay out front of this threat.

This is no time to roll out another public affairs dog and pony show. They need to quietly amass a new force and partner up with NSA, MIT-type schools, and Silicon Valley Corps.

Just my two cents....

nwlivewire

 

The government has used the military, often as unknowing 'volunteers/guinea pigs' for not only social experiments, but much more heinous experiments for a long time. Nothing new.

 

Finding hackers (cyber warfare) has got to be really difficult for the military. Finding good tech people in general is hard. The market for good developers / programmers is insane right now and it's only growing.

This article was even mentioning Mark Zuckerberg for ****'s sake.

To get the level of tech talent that the Zuck's would hire probably isn't going to happen. These guys will turn down 6+ figure jobs just because they feel the company is spinning its wheels and they want to work on something more exciting. Job hopping is becoming more frequent. It's more about small teams working on projects as opposed to organizations. After the project, move on. For sure these sorts of people would have little patience to deal with the military structure.

Building up serious developer chops doesn't happen in a setting like the military. You need an environment where you can explore and deal with the pressures of the markets. A cushy military job with a stifling structure won't do it, especially when you are working under someone who doesn't know how to manage developers.

I don't know how you would find hackers. I guess you would have to train them, but then you run into the same issue as the developers. There isn't much of an industry for security people, at least not compared to developers. It's hard to get hired for gigs probing network security and you need experience to get the gigs. People don't like to pay for security probes because that doesn't make money (and talent is expensive). These people are usually bored misfits doing stuff they shouldn't be doing while growing up. Living with Mom and Dad is the only place where you can get this experience unless you are able to get a junior level job with someone who will mentor you.

The best gigs for security is big corps because they have deep pockets and something to lose. But that's the enterprise market and difficult to break into.

The alternative is to get someone with a deep enough knowledge of the underlying pipes of the software and networks that they could easily go hacker if they wanted to. All of these people are already employed in well paying jobs.

In any case, you have to go outside the military for deep talent. Try to grow this within the military and you get mediocre.

Retired military isn't going to do it either. At 40+ you have nearly seen the birth of the internet. If you haven't been keeping up your skills in the private sector, you are way out of date.