Finreg or best paying federal agencies?

[Anonymous]

I am a GS15 fed and committed to civil service but would want to maximize salary. I’ve been in executive branch for a few years and am ready for something different. If you could have any pick of an agency with the highest pay, which would you pick? Does the answer change for an SES? In meantime I’ll start my research but it seems like a lot of folks here have experience that could be helpful. I work in a sought after field and have a law degree but do not want to (do not currently) practice law.

[Anonymous]

What's your skill set? You're not entitled to a job that is not on the GS scale just because that's what you want.

[Anonymous]

"sought after field" who thinks they can work at any agency

DEI officer?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Troll from anti fed poster

I’m not this forum has always been helpful and I’ve always follows the mission of an agency and work life balance but my parents are experiencing issues where I need to reconsider my salary to help them. but don’t want to leave civil service

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What's your skill set? You're not entitled to a job that is not on the GS scale just because that's what you want.

I do want it and I will get it. I worked hard for my positions, I am fairly young, and a SME at a fantastic place with great connections and mentors but maybe I was naive about the difference in salary. The beauty of federal government is that our hiring has clear criteria I can meet or prepare to meet and want to shift my mindset for the next 2 to 5 years in terms of where I want to land.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"sought after field" who thinks they can work at any agency

DEI officer?

No but no reason for you to diss DEI folks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's your skill set? You're not entitled to a job that is not on the GS scale just because that's what you want.

I do want it and I will get it. I worked hard for my positions, I am fairly young, and a SME at a fantastic place with great connections and mentors but maybe I was naive about the difference in salary. The beauty of federal government is that our hiring has clear criteria I can meet or prepare to meet and want to shift my mindset for the next 2 to 5 years in terms of where I want to land.

Then you are perfectly capable of doing the research to answer your own question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's your skill set? You're not entitled to a job that is not on the GS scale just because that's what you want.

I do want it and I will get it. I worked hard for my positions, I am fairly young, and a SME at a fantastic place with great connections and mentors but maybe I was naive about the difference in salary. The beauty of federal government is that our hiring has clear criteria I can meet or prepare to meet and want to shift my mindset for the next 2 to 5 years in terms of where I want to land.

NP and that may or may not happen. For example, if you work at the state department you probably won't get experience with securities that would enable you to get a job at the SEC. Maybe some type of IT experience would be transferable across agencies but then again you're competing with other feds with those sake skills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's your skill set? You're not entitled to a job that is not on the GS scale just because that's what you want.

I do want it and I will get it. I worked hard for my positions, I am fairly young, and a SME at a fantastic place with great connections and mentors but maybe I was naive about the difference in salary. The beauty of federal government is that our hiring has clear criteria I can meet or prepare to meet and want to shift my mindset for the next 2 to 5 years in terms of where I want to land.

Then you are perfectly capable of doing the research to answer your own question.

Not as easy as researching the GS scales especially when you get into the higher bands (…I guess corresponding to GS15 or SL) but it sounds like you don’t want to help so I’ll research AND see if there’s input here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's your skill set? You're not entitled to a job that is not on the GS scale just because that's what you want.

I do want it and I will get it. I worked hard for my positions, I am fairly young, and a SME at a fantastic place with great connections and mentors but maybe I was naive about the difference in salary. The beauty of federal government is that our hiring has clear criteria I can meet or prepare to meet and want to shift my mindset for the next 2 to 5 years in terms of where I want to land.

NP and that may or may not happen. For example, if you work at the state department you probably won't get experience with securities that would enable you to get a job at the SEC. Maybe some type of IT experience would be transferable across agencies but then again you're competing with other feds with those sake skills.

All agencies have budgets my experience is generally in that / adjacent to that but that’s what im trying to track if the SMEs are paid differently or more than operations at a finreg or if it doesn’t matter. Like at a law firm a support person is paid differently than a lawyer.

[Anonymous]

Go to fedsdatacenter, type in budget as the occupation, pick one of the titles that it suggests, then sort the results by high to low salary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's your skill set? You're not entitled to a job that is not on the GS scale just because that's what you want.

I do want it and I will get it. I worked hard for my positions, I am fairly young, and a SME at a fantastic place with great connections and mentors but maybe I was naive about the difference in salary. The beauty of federal government is that our hiring has clear criteria I can meet or prepare to meet and want to shift my mindset for the next 2 to 5 years in terms of where I want to land.

NP and that may or may not happen. For example, if you work at the state department you probably won't get experience with securities that would enable you to get a job at the SEC. Maybe some type of IT experience would be transferable across agencies but then again you're competing with other feds with those sake skills.

All agencies have budgets my experience is generally in that / adjacent to that but that’s what im trying to track if the SMEs are paid differently or more than operations at a finreg or if it doesn’t matter. Like at a law firm a support person is paid differently than a lawyer.

Gotcha, at least at the sec they are in the same pay scale. However, your starting pay will be set differently. There are different pay matrices for attorneys vs other occupations. I never looked to see how they differed though like whether attorneys started higher than others. But once you're in the scale and raises are the same.

[Anonymous]

different finregs have differing benefits and payscales.

SEC will not pay match, but will calculate your pay in your position band based on an experience matrix. the resume you submit to the job application has to have ALL of your work experience in order for that to be used in the pay calculation. I think CFTC and FDIC also have secret pay matrices rather than pay matching.

SEC offers an additional 3% retirement match into a *cash* account that vests after 3 years that you can sweep into the TSP on a rolling basis until its fully vested at 5 years. If your annual raise takes you over the maximum of the payband the overage is given as a cash bonus. You can roll over 400ish hours of annual leave, all employees now start receiving 6 hours of leave per pay period rather than starting at 4, and the bump to 8 happens at 10 years of service. They provide vision and dental insurance, and options to purchase life insurance, STD, and LTD policies.

At OFR, if you contribute 5% to TSP and 1% to the OFR 401k, OFR will match 5% in the TSP and deposit an additional 5% match in the 401k. There is also a $1400 health-and-wellness benefit, STD and LTD and life insurance policies, as well as dental and vision. OFR uses OCC geo-pay tables, so calculations involving base salary and geo pay will vary compared to other agencies.

CFPB leverages the FRB pension plan, which is very different than the FERS plan (calculations are complex, but it works out to about 1.3% per year rather than the FERS 1%). I believe once you are at 5 years you can decide whether to roll over your FERS years into the FRB plan, the only caveat is there is no way to roll BACK if you go back to a FERS position before retirement, and the FRB plan makes it very punitive to retire before 67. OTOH, you can retire at 55 after 5 years.

FDIC does a total of a 10% match to a thrift plan, CFPB does 8%, FRB does 7%.

There are generally not different type of payscales per speciality in the finregs, there can be IT specialists and lawyers and economists all in SK-14 payscale, which is the "equivalent" of a GS-14.

[Anonymous]

OP, it's odd that you won't say what your field is. That makes it difficult to come up with ideas. It's relatively easy to transfer agencies with certain kinds of law practice (every agency needs procurement attorneys, for example) or other widely needed specialties (HR, IT, PR, contracting) but if you want to be in policy you are going to need expertise in the subject matter that agency handles.

If your plan is learn a new field, the two that are most likely to have special pay scales are cybersecurity and finreg. And sometimes law enforcement.

[Anonymous]

To 13:00:

You state that the FRB pension plan penalizes retirement before age 67.

Could you explain? I am at FRB and have never heard this. There is a large incentive to retire after 65 up to age 70 via an increasing multiplier, but I have not heard that retirement before 67 is penalized.