FFRDCs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I am hearing that IDA is planning to do lay-offs. Their report writing culture is so old and sucks up 1/3 time of an FTE.

How about RAND?

we don't have a lot of work with PP but they don't provide the same service. Some folks in intelligence area haven been let go.

Thinking about becoming an Astronautical Engineer at RAND? Honestly, just learn to fix PCs instead. If you check RAND's job board, the Windows SysAdmins out-earn some of the rocket scientists. Imagine spending years mastering orbital mechanics just to get out-paid by the SysAdmins. The bloat is so obvious.

This is what I was talking about. We were given a guy from RAND and he was ok, nothing impressive. He has a law degree that he doesn't use but his rates showed him at the higher tier and we pushed back. Him being an analyst has no use of his law degree with the work he would be supporting us and we declined to give higher rates. In addition, their overhead is more than 200%, WTH! They lost the whole contract with us.

Paying a sys admin with a TS/SCI poly $125k is not what's driving RAND's ridiculous overhead. That's just a researcher who's angry that anyone without a PhD might possibly make less than anyone with one.

*more than

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:average age of employee is above 60+ at IDA.

This is so blatantly and stupidly untrue that one wonders what the point of saying it is.

what are you talking about? I work at IDA and this is very accurate.

Oh, well then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am hearing that IDA is planning to do lay-offs. Their report writing culture is so old and sucks up 1/3 time of an FTE.

How about RAND?

we don't have a lot of work with PP but they don't provide the same service. Some folks in intelligence area haven been let go.

Thinking about becoming an Astronautical Engineer at RAND? Honestly, just learn to fix PCs instead. If you check RAND's job board, the Windows SysAdmins out-earn some of the rocket scientists. Imagine spending years mastering orbital mechanics just to get out-paid by the SysAdmins. The bloat is so obvious.

This is what I was talking about. We were given a guy from RAND and he was ok, nothing impressive. He has a law degree that he doesn't use but his rates showed him at the higher tier and we pushed back. Him being an analyst has no use of his law degree with the work he would be supporting us and we declined to give higher rates. In addition, their overhead is more than 200%, WTH! They lost the whole contract with us.

Seems like RAND’s sponsors are commenting on their business practices. Yikes!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:average age of employee is above 60+ at IDA.

This is so blatantly and stupidly untrue that one wonders what the point of saying it is.

what are you talking about? I work at IDA and this is very accurate.

IDA is not looking at another round of layoffs right now. In fact, they have plenty of business at the moment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:average age of employee is above 60+ at IDA.

This is so blatantly and stupidly untrue that one wonders what the point of saying it is.

what are you talking about? I work at IDA and this is very accurate.

IDA is not looking at another round of layoffs right now. In fact, they have plenty of business at the moment.

And the average age at IDA is not even close to 60, most people I work with who are full time are under 40.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am hearing that IDA is planning to do lay-offs. Their report writing culture is so old and sucks up 1/3 time of an FTE.

I am hearing that RAND is planning to do lay-offs. Fixed that for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:CNA suffering with tough times in their IPR practice...targeted layoffs...

How’s the FFRDC? Is it struggling like the FFRDCs at MITRE and RAND?

Steady for now...the FFRDC side has made some RIFs of staff who've been there for 25 years of so.

Steady? Doubt it.

CNA has cleaned the FFRDC side a bit, not at the level of RAND or Mitre. CNA is small and has been much smaller since the beginning of 2025. I predict the IPR side slowly dwindles this year...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:average age of employee is above 60+ at IDA.

This is so blatantly and stupidly untrue that one wonders what the point of saying it is.

what are you talking about? I work at IDA and this is very accurate.

IDA is not looking at another round of layoffs right now. In fact, they have plenty of business at the moment.

And the average age at IDA is not even close to 60, most people I work with who are full time are under 40.

That is not my experience with three different teams I interact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:average age of employee is above 60+ at IDA.

This is so blatantly and stupidly untrue that one wonders what the point of saying it is.

what are you talking about? I work at IDA and this is very accurate.

IDA is not looking at another round of layoffs right now. In fact, they have plenty of business at the moment.

And the average age at IDA is not even close to 60, most people I work with who are full time are under 40.

That is not my experience with three different teams I interact.

You know that IDA has more than three different teams working there, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:average age of employee is above 60+ at IDA.

This is so blatantly and stupidly untrue that one wonders what the point of saying it is.

what are you talking about? I work at IDA and this is very accurate.

IDA is not looking at another round of layoffs right now. In fact, they have plenty of business at the moment.

And the average age at IDA is not even close to 60, most people I work with who are full time are under 40.

That is not my experience with three different teams I interact.

Ageist comments. Shame on you.

[Anonymous]

Look, some of them do good work at the FFRDCs such as IDA, RAND but it is a lot of report writing, policy support etc and we don't need it that much. They are also very expensive and haven't changed their model for a long time. A lot of them need to go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Look, some of them do good work at the FFRDCs such as IDA, RAND but it is a lot of report writing, policy support etc and we don't need it that much. They are also very expensive and haven't changed their model for a long time. A lot of them need to go.

I find it hard to believe that all of the studies and analyses that the DoD has funded since the 1950s suddenly isn’t useful anymore - in the matter of a year or so. Yes, some isn’t but don’t mistake the current administration’s way of governing with the belief that there isn’t a need of any independent, high-quality analyses to drive debate and decision-making inside the pentagon.

[Anonymous]

It is not current administration but we had the same issue with IDA for last 7-8 years and they wouldn't listen so we didn't renew their contract.

[Anonymous]

MITRE has produced some great reports by real SMEs. Then the era of Jason and rapid growth came, and I've seen bids for work without SMEs lined up. "we'll figure it out" mentality. Junior and mid level staff start googling to get inputs for reports, instead of relying on institutional knowledge or SME backing.

That's not what they're being paid for. Quality of reports goes down. Sponsors notice. Gives MITRE a bad rep. Don't want to generalize for all of MITRE, just a small swim lane in national security.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MITRE has produced some great reports by real SMEs. Then the era of Jason and rapid growth came, and I've seen bids for work without SMEs lined up. "we'll figure it out" mentality. Junior and mid level staff start googling to get inputs for reports, instead of relying on institutional knowledge or SME backing.

That's not what they're being paid for. Quality of reports goes down. Sponsors notice. Gives MITRE a bad rep. Don't want to generalize for all of MITRE, just a small swim lane in national security.

+1000. Needs to be smaller and higher % of actual experts.