Amazon relocating me at gunpoint to DC. Questions about wife potential job Wife is interviewing for role at Booz as senior consultant. She works in the defense as an Eng with an active clearance. Currently hates her job since she works 70 hours a week on average. She has MS in Eng from public ivy and a stem undergrad. Does the company have a good wlb? This will be important for her. As a consultant will she work in a Booz office or client site? Howās the training and onboarding? She does engineering rn. While the role is labeled consulting it sounds more like staff augmentation though. Does Booz have commuter subsidies for the metro or VRE? Only ask because if they do we can probably get by on one car and I can sell mine. If sheās on the bench, is she or a manager responsible for getting her a new contract? Me: 320k 6yoe Her: 160k 3yoe (we expect this to drop because she works tons of overtime rn)
I work at booz now. Been there for 3 years. Wlb really depends on the contract. First contract wlb was terrible for me. Next three have been way less demanding. Again depends on the contract. If it is a national security position then thereās an almost guarantee that sheāll be client site. Training and onboarding were pretty smooth for me. Never heard of anyone getting a commuter subsidy. If sheās on the bench sheās ultimately responsible for getting a new contract but usually the manager will help. Managers usually are more plugged in to which projects need help. Iām in data science and never been more than a month on the bench in between contracts.
Youāre right that your wife will likely be doing more staff augmentation than traditional consulting. Given her education, she may want to see if they could support her at the Associate vice Senior Consultant level. In terms of your questions: 1. Personally, I think the firm has a good WLB. I generally work 8-5, no weekends, and managers have been very respectful of honoring PTO. 2. From my experience training is ok but largely self directed. The firm has a good tuition reimbursement policy and provides $~5k in flex ed on day 1. 3. Where she works will largely depend on what contract or project she gets assigned to. She may have to be required to be on site 5x/week, may have some flexibility, or may have a fully remote role. It all depends (however, it seems like thereās a greater push to RTO in the DMV area). 4. I believe the firm offers some transportation subsidy. At the very least, I know they paid for my parking when I worked in Crystal City. 5. If your wife is on the bench, hopefully she has a good Career Management team that will help her land her next role. If sheās really struggling to find a role, her team could/should start stepping in and reaching out to Lead Associates/Senior Associates/Principals and say āHey, take a look at this person.ā From my experience, Iād say itās about 80/20 her responsibility/her management team to find her next project. There are plenty of networking opportunities available. But also, from what Iāve seen, Booz is a bit more relaxed when it comes to time on the bench compared to Big 4 firms.
highly contract / team dependent 70/wks in defense as a tech person? thats unusual but hey defense contracting itself is a big good ol boy club. since you guys are in the dmv, theres plenty of mid-sized firms with prime contracts. They'll tell you which contracts are hybrid/remote/on-site. From my experience, the ones that hold a secret and below are the ones that can be hybrid/fully remote. TS and above typically get you in the SCIF/client site, but you get more money. Still not more money than a FAANG gig.
Sheās not tech. MechE. IG I consider tech to be Software Dev or adjacent like tpms and design. Her role rn is very ops forward which is why itās so many hours. Would love for her to get FAANG money, I get it. Maybe she can work her way to big 5 or some specialized mech e role doing hardware one day. Referred her to a few jobs at scAmazon, but no buts unfortunately
From my experience, Booz Allen is a great organization, once you get established there and become respected by the partners.
How'd she decide on booz? My wife was senior consultant with clearance at a big 4 in DC, her old coworker went to booz and had better work life balance than big 4. Booz paid less than the big 4 firm though. On site vs office depended on the contract, if it is staff Aug it may be more likely in gov office. What type of engineering? What level clearance?
MechE with a focus on materials. She has a TS.
Fun! The defense contractors in the area would have work and are getting more transparent about pay plus a 80/9 work schedule, msft had a ts mech-e role for data center build I think may be up, another place to check would be Naval Research Lab for more corporate research lab roles. The single car thing may be difficult. Depending on where you live taking metro may be hard since there is no belt connecting lines and you would need to go to a more central station (getting from Kingstown on the blue to falls Church on the orange would need to go almost all the way to DC for instance).