Career Success after a Layoff: Part II – Working for a Department of Defense Contractor

In Part I of this series, I described how Mike Luo’s NY Times article revealed that I was the exception among the co-founders in the Professionals Network of Florida. I had been continuously employed and my income level had increased since I was laid off before 9/11. I stated that this revelation caused me to seriously reflect on what my unique situation was. This led me to what I think are some very interesting conclusions about the industry I have worked in for my entire career. I listed extremely important employee attributes that would help anyone in any type of career. But I also stressed that a vitally important reason for my success is to a certain degree luck, the unique combination of the discipline and the industry I’m in: I am a software engineer of highly complex, safety-critical, world-class Department of Defense (DoD) products.

The DoD product industry combined with the software engineering discipline seems to offer unparalleled opportunities for experienced workers in this country. Yes, there have been layoffs in the DoD contractor sector, big ones too, but eventually available experienced workers seem to continue to get employment in this field and up until recently, have continued to get pay increases over time. Here are my observations:

• I got into this field early in my career and there has always been work. This industry has not been as vulnerable to economic fluctuations as others have been.

• The technology is owned by the Department of Defense and for national security reasons, a lot of work must be domestic rather than sent abroad.

• These products have a very long life-span, some around 40 years.

• Working on these products in many roles requires very specialized and highly developed skill sets.

• This type of work is not for everyone. A very meticulous process must be followed to minimize errors. In fact, it appeals to a certain perfectionist personality. Also, there is a long development time which involves the ruggedization and militarization of the technology, and a rigorous certification process applied to every new piece of technology and software used in the creation of these products. When the product is finally released in the defense sector, the technology is already obsolete in other sectors. So if you are geek for new technology, you may get bored in this industry.

• These products are very pricey and some are actually exported to friendly nations.

• The end products involve thousands of employees from multiple companies and countries.

• The tight schedules and success of the development of these complex products depend on past experience to a large extent and a significant level of employee experience.

• Most of the people I have ever worked for and within this field have been really good employees. They have all those important employee attributes I talked about in Part I: hard working, ethical, team players, good attitude, and pride in consistently producing high quality work.

• Some key people whom I have worked for had vision and conviction about what they were pursuing. Combined with very strong personalities, they had tremendous impact on certain parts of the industry, an influence that continues to this day.
NASA and NASA contractors share many of these attributes with complex DoD products. I also think the biotech and power industries may have more potential for experienced workers than average because of the complex nature of the products and demand. But that demand probably fluctuates with economic health more than many of the DoD industries. And what is to stop these companies from outsourcing to lower cost companies in other countries? These products are not a matter of national security to the extent that the DoD products are. Competition drives companies to relentlessly look for opportunities to cut costs.

Yes, employment and salary have been good for me even though I was laid off in 2001. But I do see the push in the past few years to hire more low cost employees for every highly paid, experienced one and it has finally encroached into my own little highly specialized niche. I hope to retain this employment until I’m ready to retire because I absolutely love this work. I used to be optimistic that I could count on this, but I’m now seeing that holding onto what I currently have seems to be getting more and more difficult, and I wouldn’t be surprised at all if there are involuntary interruptions in this employment for the remainder of my career. Because of this I am now taking steps to keep myself afloat should I get laid off again. I know, most people have been doing this for decades. But this is the point of my article. I’m in a very unique career situation.

The next installment of this series imparts some basic information about job hunting that I learned during my own job search back in 2001 and 2002. The company that laid me off paid a consulting company to help the workers they displaced find new jobs. This was an invaluable benefit. I also did a lot of my own research and have come away with solid set of recommendations that I would like to share.