throwaway_woxx7

A counterpoint: The DoD government positions have slowly been converted into contract positions with okay pay (not great), bad benefits, and bad job security. As a contractor at a DoD facility, you're also likely to be treated like a second class citizen in many ways (sorry, you can't attend this meeting/can't use this resource/need to fill out extra paperwork to do something/etc.). The government positions are fine, if you can get one, but most people probably couldn't even before the current administration. I don't think this is the best path for people interested in science and technology.

On LANL's points numbers 1 to 3, here's a perspective from the other side:

I think their main problem hiring is that they are looking for perfect candidates. (The same may be true for some of the other DOE labs like LLNL as well.) I've interviewed for at least 3 positions at LANL. I have a security clearance and would love to work for them, but I have never received an offer from them since finishing my PhD. (I did a summer internship with them a long time ago.) Issues like there being relatively few Fortran programmers are convenient scapegoats. They seem to want someone who not only knows Fortran, but also can easily get a security clearance or already has one, can write highly optimized MPI code, is familiar with the unusual numerical methods LANL uses, etc. They seem unwilling to hire people who are 80% of the way there. I've never programmed with MPI, for example, but understand the basics of parallel programming and have programmed shared memory codes. The most recent LANL group I interviewed with also didn't like that I quit a previous postdoc due to disagreements about the direction of the project.

In contrast, in my current job at a DoD contractor, they didn't seem to care much about what I did before or knew previously. They apparently hired me because I had some familiarity with their problem and could learn what I didn't know. I've done well in this job working on things mostly new to me. I'd like to leave because of the bad job security and bad benefits, but otherwise, I have no major problems. (And yes, I do use Fortran on a daily basis here, including some horrendous legacy Fortran.)

Given this, I don't think LANL's hiring problems will stop if they switch all their active softwares to C++ or some other language, because that's only part of the problem.

Edit: Another problem is that LANL's hiring process is convoluted. I almost got an offer from them two years ago, as the group I interviewed with liked me. But they required me to write an internal proposal which would have to be approved by someone outside of the group. I think this is part of LANL's standard post-doc hiring process, though at the time I thought it indicated that they didn't have the money to hire me and were trying to get it. There was no guarantee that the proposal would be approved. I didn't have the time then and backed out, though in retrospect I wish I went through with it as I've heard this is more routine than I thought it was.

Edit 2: Also, for clarity, not every position I applied to required Fortran knowledge. But I think my basic message is correct, in that LANL tends to be fixated on hiring "perfect candidates" when there are plenty of capable people that they could hire instead who just need to learn some things, or might not have a perfect job record (gaps in employment, etc.).

The last time I spoke to him, I stated something along the lines of "I know that you have some problems with me". My goal was to see what could be done to reconcile with him. He explicitly denied having any problems with me. I was applying for jobs at the time and needed references from him, and after this conversation he stopped replying to those requests. His behavior doesn't make sense if he really doesn't have any problems with me.

From my PhD supervisor's perspective, he holds no grudges against me. He's simply believes that I'm unreliable. (Or something like that. He never clearly told me what his problem with me was.) I freely admit that I've made mistakes. Frankly, quitting my first PhD project was hard on me and I wasn't productive for a while after that. But I did eventually improve and he never noticed! He seemed to ignore anything good I did and focus on the (inevitable) things that didn't work.

In retrospect, it would have been better for me to switch PhD supervisors or quit academia entirely.

The problem is with the structure of academia in my view. Disagreements are inevitable, but don't make someone unemployable because of them.

To give an example of what you discuss:

My career has been seriously hampered by quitting a particular project early in my PhD. That project was intractable as far as I'm concerned. My PhD supervisor never treated me the same after quitting that project. I had to get advice from a third-party in my department to get my PhD supervisor to agree to let me graduate. My PhD supervisor refuses to provide me a reference now.

I wasn't able to get a research job immediately after my PhD, and worked as an underpaid bureaucrat (not doing research) for about 2 years before starting my current government contractor research position. My job security is comparable to that of a postdoc and I have worse benefits than most postdocs, but I am paid better.

I recently applied to a job at a national lab, and I could tell that the interviewer was alarmed when I said that my PhD supervisor refuses to provide me a reference.

The important difference between academia/research and non-research industry is that while saying no can jeopardize your current job in both cases, in academia/research saying no is far more likely to jeopardize your future jobs due to the heavy reliance on detailed reference checks.

One relative of mine insists on getting me gifts. They seem to think that they know what I'd like better than I do, but they don't! I frequently don't like the gifts they give.

I've tried to guide them towards better choices by giving them a wishlist every year and even giving them a few rules. But they don't use the wishlist as much as they should, and they try to bend the rules. "Oh, you said that you didn't want X, so I thought it would be nice to get you X'." I have to think about how they are going to misinterpret any rule I give them now.

Perhaps the worst part is that they get somewhat offended when I point out that I don't want particular gifts. They also frequently point out when you're using their gift. For example, I don't know how many times they've told me "nice shirt" when I wore I shirt they bought me. I also suspect that they get somewhat offended if they don't see me using their gift.

Maybe age is part of the problem for me. I'm about 10 years older than the undergrads, so they're not really in my dating pool. Most of the dates I've gone on were with fellow graduate students, but I didn't go on many dates before stopping.

I don't doubt SF, etc., is worse. My experience suggests Austin is a step down from where I lived previously.

Perhaps you're more attractive or patient than I am. I also just realized that I forgot to mention that I'm a teetotaler, which seem to be a major turnoff to people here.

If you don't mind me asking, how do you meet single women here?

I've lived in Austin for about 5 years. Grad school, not work. My programmer friends seem to have no problem getting jobs, and I have no shortage of male friends, but the gender ratio of singles is pretty heavily skewed towards men for introverted nerds. I'm a single male who doesn't have a lot of free time, so I gave up on dating in Austin. The city doesn't seem to attract many people I'd like to date. Particularly compared against where I lived previously. Many of the people under 35 in Austin seem to have been attracted to the city for the music festivals and relative lack of cold weather. I'm an introvert who finds the summer heat here worse than the cold on the east coast. As I said, Austinites are typically not my kind of people.

Something to keep in mind if you believe you might be similar to me. Austin is probably not worse than SF, but I don't intend to live there after I graduate either.