Ranking Defense Companies
I checked out clearancejobs.com and saw over 1,900 employers listed. MS, AWS, OCI, Palantir, C3AI, Anduril, etc get a lot of attention here, but how would you evaluate all the other companies? Glassdoor? I'm specifically interested in an entry level software engineering role that would allow my to keep my TS/SCI. Is it even worth the effort to sift through all the companies or just stick my resume up there and see who bites? #engineering #software #swe #defense #clearance #clearancejobs
You also have a ton of contracting companies like booze allen, raytheon, caci, gdit, northrop grumman, etc etc. Base pay 150-200k
At the dinosaur contractors (Lockheed and like) you don't hit that base pay until 5-10+ YOE and you're an all star. Go to places like Palantir or Anduril and earn 2x-3x in comparison to the primes.
Some companies don't support up to TS/SCI fyi. If you're fine with a tier lower salary but still cool work, you could check research labs like APL, GTRI, Lincoln Labs. They definitely support all clearances. For MSFT, it should be easy to reach out to a cleared recruiter on LinkedIn, I know they are desperate for cleared engineers.
Good points. I'll definitely look into the research labs too. I forgot about them.