FFRDCs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mitre recently furloughed many people - without pay - in lieu of a formal layoff. Management seems to be hoping a bunch of the lost work will return in coming months.

What about hssedi?

Looks like the IDIQ came in a few days ago. $400M, 3 years

https://app.g2xchange.com/fedciv/posts/mitre-attains-400m-dhs-st-security-systems-engineering-and-development-institute-hssedi-idiq

Smaller than expected. Who will do the work? Favored few remaining are not the best and brightest.

That's a 72% cut to ceiling. Yikes.

Given how top heavy they are, five to one ratio, the management will hoover all the overhead and fees and then still charge 10% to each task order, leaving the remaining ~30% to an army of early careers that will be hired into the labs. It will be very difficult to justify the high cost of MITRE when all they bring to the table are recent college grads who don’t know your mission and lack technical depth.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:My take is that a lot of these FFRDCs are just sucking up budgets w/o bringing extra value. A lot has happened which require change and big 4s and FFRDC are the one that need to cut the fat the most.

Don't disagree at all. The idea behind FFRDCs isn't bad, the recent implementation has been pretty bad.

How so?

Poor choice of words, maybe "things I've seen after a few years"

Worked at two FFRDCs over the years. Maybe my view is biased on what I've seen. At the core each was the SME on the topic that's being worked, helping the government solve the hard problem, or help with acquisition, or to evaluate the performer solution in an unbiased way, create regulations for things like AI. This is awesome and much needed.

At each, work ebbs and flows and you don't always need all that expertise. So then what happens? Papers are published for the sake of publishing papers. Overhead dollars are spend on building tools the government may need one day. Etc.


I get it, you have to run a business... but... feels like a huge waste

To put it more bluntly -- work is made up to keep the SMEs employeed. The government often didn't ask, didn't want and/or didn't need that work. And that's not the intended vision of FFRDCs.

Philanthropy is the only viable funding source for tackling long-term, cutting edge, existential problems. FFRDCs are on life support.

Philanthropy spawned Project 2025. What we need is a viable Federal Government.

Rumor is that Jason was at a GER offsite in San Francisco during our last round of layoffs at RAND.

GER is merely a vehicle for Jason and his groupies to exploit an established brand to stay relevant after their time in the (failed) Biden administration.

Getting RIF'd might be the push you need to leave the job you clearly hate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mitre recently furloughed many people - without pay - in lieu of a formal layoff. Management seems to be hoping a bunch of the lost work will return in coming months.

What about hssedi?

Looks like the IDIQ came in a few days ago. $400M, 3 years

https://app.g2xchange.com/fedciv/posts/mitre-attains-400m-dhs-st-security-systems-engineering-and-development-institute-hssedi-idiq

Smaller than expected. Who will do the work? Favored few remaining are not the best and brightest.

That's a 72% cut to ceiling. Yikes.

Given how top heavy they are, five to one ratio, the management will hoover all the overhead and fees and then still charge 10% to each task order, leaving the remaining ~30% to an army of early careers that will be hired into the labs. It will be very difficult to justify the high cost of MITRE when all they bring to the table are recent college grads who don’t know your mission and lack technical depth.

Yikes. With so many recent grade, do they think they are beltway consultants? While I worked there, everyone I worked with were already established folks who could hit the ground running.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you please expand on "giving up trash cans"?

Last year, MITRE took away individual trash cans in offices, requiring staff to use centralized trash/recycling in the common kitchen areas. We assume this was a cost-cutting measure to reduce custodial staff, but leadership guised the change as part of a “green” initiative. Leadership often does that, for example framing “return to office” as an effort to increase innovation instead of leveling with employees that we have significant facilities expenses within our wrap rate that need to be justified to our government sponsors.

This was justified as a pursuit of some sort of LEED certification to reduce waste. To be fair, private sector companies do this, or try to, as well. In reality the money was just funneled to sustainability, etc. The “sustainability” vp and HR nutcase who dreamed up this and other mad schemes while giving themselves massive raises were fired by the new CEO who is trying to cleaning house and bring back sanity.

I don’t understand how the same finance team that got MITRE into this mess hasn’t been impacted at all by the “cleaning house”

I’d like to understand why they still gave out merit raises to senior managers this year. What targets did they meet? Tone deaf company.

The decisions of Senior Managers are not crippling the company, it’s Director and C-Suite level finance decisions that are the backbreaker.

And Merit raises are 3%, which is almost insulting. As if you get no raise.

What percent do you think people get? That’s not very different from what we’ve given out for consultants on federal contracts especially DoD work for years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you please expand on "giving up trash cans"?

Last year, MITRE took away individual trash cans in offices, requiring staff to use centralized trash/recycling in the common kitchen areas. We assume this was a cost-cutting measure to reduce custodial staff, but leadership guised the change as part of a “green” initiative. Leadership often does that, for example framing “return to office” as an effort to increase innovation instead of leveling with employees that we have significant facilities expenses within our wrap rate that need to be justified to our government sponsors.

This was justified as a pursuit of some sort of LEED certification to reduce waste. To be fair, private sector companies do this, or try to, as well. In reality the money was just funneled to sustainability, etc. The “sustainability” vp and HR nutcase who dreamed up this and other mad schemes while giving themselves massive raises were fired by the new CEO who is trying to cleaning house and bring back sanity.

I don’t understand how the same finance team that got MITRE into this mess hasn’t been impacted at all by the “cleaning house”

I’d like to understand why they still gave out merit raises to senior managers this year. What targets did they meet? Tone deaf company.

The decisions of Senior Managers are not crippling the company, it’s Director and C-Suite level finance decisions that are the backbreaker.

And Merit raises are 3%, which is almost insulting. As if you get no raise.

What percent do you think people get? That’s not very different from what we’ve given out for consultants on federal contracts especially DoD work for years.

In industry, 3% raises are typical but you also get a bonus. Mitre supplements a bonus with a higher merit increase. Given the terrible year Mitre had, the lack of bonus isn’t surprising.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mitre recently furloughed many people - without pay - in lieu of a formal layoff. Management seems to be hoping a bunch of the lost work will return in coming months.

What about hssedi?

Looks like the IDIQ came in a few days ago. $400M, 3 years

https://app.g2xchange.com/fedciv/posts/mitre-attains-400m-dhs-st-security-systems-engineering-and-development-institute-hssedi-idiq

Smaller than expected. Who will do the work? Favored few remaining are not the best and brightest.

That's a 72% cut to ceiling. Yikes.

Given how top heavy they are, five to one ratio, the management will hoover all the overhead and fees and then still charge 10% to each task order, leaving the remaining ~30% to an army of early careers that will be hired into the labs. It will be very difficult to justify the high cost of MITRE when all they bring to the table are recent college grads who don’t know your mission and lack technical depth.

Yikes. With so many recent grade, do they think they are beltway consultants? While I worked there, everyone I worked with were already established folks who could hit the ground running.

I guess you did not work there recently. They have been sticking inexperienced non-experts on customers since before CoVID.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mitre recently furloughed many people - without pay - in lieu of a formal layoff. Management seems to be hoping a bunch of the lost work will return in coming months.

What about hssedi?

Looks like the IDIQ came in a few days ago. $400M, 3 years

https://app.g2xchange.com/fedciv/posts/mitre-attains-400m-dhs-st-security-systems-engineering-and-development-institute-hssedi-idiq

Smaller than expected. Who will do the work? Favored few remaining are not the best and brightest.

That's a 72% cut to ceiling. Yikes.

Given how top heavy they are, five to one ratio, the management will hoover all the overhead and fees and then still charge 10% to each task order, leaving the remaining ~30% to an army of early careers that will be hired into the labs. It will be very difficult to justify the high cost of MITRE when all they bring to the table are recent college grads who don’t know your mission and lack technical depth.

I agree. Top-heavy and entrenched-heavy management.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you please expand on "giving up trash cans"?

Last year, MITRE took away individual trash cans in offices, requiring staff to use centralized trash/recycling in the common kitchen areas. We assume this was a cost-cutting measure to reduce custodial staff, but leadership guised the change as part of a “green” initiative. Leadership often does that, for example framing “return to office” as an effort to increase innovation instead of leveling with employees that we have significant facilities expenses within our wrap rate that need to be justified to our government sponsors.

This was justified as a pursuit of some sort of LEED certification to reduce waste. To be fair, private sector companies do this, or try to, as well. In reality the money was just funneled to sustainability, etc. The “sustainability” vp and HR nutcase who dreamed up this and other mad schemes while giving themselves massive raises were fired by the new CEO who is trying to cleaning house and bring back sanity.

I don’t understand how the same finance team that got MITRE into this mess hasn’t been impacted at all by the “cleaning house”

I’d like to understand why they still gave out merit raises to senior managers this year. What targets did they meet? Tone deaf company.

The decisions of Senior Managers are not crippling the company, it’s Director and C-Suite level finance decisions that are the backbreaker.

And Merit raises are 3%, which is almost insulting. As if you get no raise.

What percent do you think people get? That’s not very different from what we’ve given out for consultants on federal contracts especially DoD work for years.

In industry, 3% raises are typical but you also get a bonus. Mitre supplements a bonus with a higher merit increase. Given the terrible year Mitre had, the lack of bonus isn’t surprising.

Not everyone is eligible for bonuses.

[Anonymous]

CNA is also top-heavy...worthless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mitre recently furloughed many people - without pay - in lieu of a formal layoff. Management seems to be hoping a bunch of the lost work will return in coming months.

What about hssedi?

Looks like the IDIQ came in a few days ago. $400M, 3 years

https://app.g2xchange.com/fedciv/posts/mitre-attains-400m-dhs-st-security-systems-engineering-and-development-institute-hssedi-idiq

Smaller than expected. Who will do the work? Favored few remaining are not the best and brightest.

That's a 72% cut to ceiling. Yikes.

Given how top heavy they are, five to one ratio, the management will hoover all the overhead and fees and then still charge 10% to each task order, leaving the remaining ~30% to an army of early careers that will be hired into the labs. It will be very difficult to justify the high cost of MITRE when all they bring to the table are recent college grads who don’t know your mission and lack technical depth.

Yikes. With so many recent grade, do they think they are beltway consultants? While I worked there, everyone I worked with were already established folks who could hit the ground running.

I guess you did not work there recently. They have been sticking inexperienced non-experts on customers since before CoVID.

Depends on the project, but yes, this can be a problem.

The 5-1 management ratio is troubling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mitre recently furloughed many people - without pay - in lieu of a formal layoff. Management seems to be hoping a bunch of the lost work will return in coming months.

What about hssedi?

Looks like the IDIQ came in a few days ago. $400M, 3 years

https://app.g2xchange.com/fedciv/posts/mitre-attains-400m-dhs-st-security-systems-engineering-and-development-institute-hssedi-idiq

Smaller than expected. Who will do the work? Favored few remaining are not the best and brightest.

That's a 72% cut to ceiling. Yikes.

Given how top heavy they are, five to one ratio, the management will hoover all the overhead and fees and then still charge 10% to each task order, leaving the remaining ~30% to an army of early careers that will be hired into the labs. It will be very difficult to justify the high cost of MITRE when all they bring to the table are recent college grads who don’t know your mission and lack technical depth.

Yikes. With so many recent grade, do they think they are beltway consultants? While I worked there, everyone I worked with were already established folks who could hit the ground running.

I find MITRE to be the opposite. Too many old geezers with PhDs and not enough young innovative (and cheaper) engineers who can actually help government counterparts.

[Anonymous]

RAND just put out a report recommending China-Taiwan unification. Why?
https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2025/10/28/taiwan-is-for-sale/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:CNA is also top-heavy...worthless.

I love how this one (I assume) disgruntled ex-CNAer periodically tries to jump into the middle of the RAND/Mitre bashing.

“Guuuys! Come on! CNA sucks too!”

“Who?”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mitre recently furloughed many people - without pay - in lieu of a formal layoff. Management seems to be hoping a bunch of the lost work will return in coming months.

What about hssedi?

Looks like the IDIQ came in a few days ago. $400M, 3 years

https://app.g2xchange.com/fedciv/posts/mitre-attains-400m-dhs-st-security-systems-engineering-and-development-institute-hssedi-idiq

Smaller than expected. Who will do the work? Favored few remaining are not the best and brightest.

That's a 72% cut to ceiling. Yikes.

Given how top heavy they are, five to one ratio, the management will hoover all the overhead and fees and then still charge 10% to each task order, leaving the remaining ~30% to an army of early careers that will be hired into the labs. It will be very difficult to justify the high cost of MITRE when all they bring to the table are recent college grads who don’t know your mission and lack technical depth.

Yikes. With so many recent grade, do they think they are beltway consultants? While I worked there, everyone I worked with were already established folks who could hit the ground running.

I find MITRE to be the opposite. Too many old geezers with PhDs and not enough young innovative (and cheaper) engineers who can actually help government counterparts.

They think they've got great skills, I'll give you that. Unfortunately they aren't willing to do the work to gain domain knowledge. Much easier for an old PhD who knows the domain to learn torch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mitre recently furloughed many people - without pay - in lieu of a formal layoff. Management seems to be hoping a bunch of the lost work will return in coming months.

What about hssedi?

Looks like the IDIQ came in a few days ago. $400M, 3 years

https://app.g2xchange.com/fedciv/posts/mitre-attains-400m-dhs-st-security-systems-engineering-and-development-institute-hssedi-idiq

Smaller than expected. Who will do the work? Favored few remaining are not the best and brightest.

That's a 72% cut to ceiling. Yikes.

Given how top heavy they are, five to one ratio, the management will hoover all the overhead and fees and then still charge 10% to each task order, leaving the remaining ~30% to an army of early careers that will be hired into the labs. It will be very difficult to justify the high cost of MITRE when all they bring to the table are recent college grads who don’t know your mission and lack technical depth.

Yikes. With so many recent grade, do they think they are beltway consultants? While I worked there, everyone I worked with were already established folks who could hit the ground running.

I find MITRE to be the opposite. Too many old geezers with PhDs and not enough young innovative (and cheaper) engineers who can actually help government counterparts.

They think they've got great skills, I'll give you that. Unfortunately they aren't willing to do the work to gain domain knowledge. Much easier for an old PhD who knows the domain to learn torch.

I have worked with multiple PhDs who could not be bothered to not write spaghetti code, learn to make a pull request, etc. I've interviewed and not passed other ones who failed the most basic of Python or SQL questions.

I used to think that surely if you had a PhD, you can learn what you need to learn. That may be the case, but if you don't want to, you're not going to. And if you've made it this long while your field was changing and you were not, you don't want to.