Anonymous
Post 12/08/2025 00:50     Subject: FFRDCs

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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?”


Are you a CNA bootlicker? Current IPR VP making over $250k/year, with high bonuses, can't market IPR work as a former FED even after your restrictions have expired?

The FFRDC portion is safe/sound for now as the Navy/Marine Corps requested changes at the FFRDC. IPR still has a high overhead rate.


Salaries are here in case you were wondering:
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/541558882


RAND is hiring for a "Salesforce Business Analyst Administrator" (whatever that means) who may earn more than a "Research Lead - AI Cyber Testing & Evaluation" Totally misplaced priorities.


The salary range for the research lead is $137,000 - $246,600 and $120,900 - $180,300 for the Salesforce role. "May" is doing a lot of work there.


Rand exec salaries
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/951958142


RAND leadership is succeeding in the difficult maneuver of setting money on fire while simultaneously high-fiving their sponsors goodbye and tripping over a pile of pink slips right in front of a news camera. This success demands a high salary!


LOL!!!
Anonymous
Post 12/07/2025 13:34     Subject: FFRDCs

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
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?”


Are you a CNA bootlicker? Current IPR VP making over $250k/year, with high bonuses, can't market IPR work as a former FED even after your restrictions have expired?

The FFRDC portion is safe/sound for now as the Navy/Marine Corps requested changes at the FFRDC. IPR still has a high overhead rate.


Salaries are here in case you were wondering:
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/541558882


RAND is hiring for a "Salesforce Business Analyst Administrator" (whatever that means) who may earn more than a "Research Lead - AI Cyber Testing & Evaluation" Totally misplaced priorities.


The salary range for the research lead is $137,000 - $246,600 and $120,900 - $180,300 for the Salesforce role. "May" is doing a lot of work there.


That pay range for merely running a salesforce database seems really high. Doubt your sponsors want to pay for that bloat.


I'm not at RAND. I think RAND has much bigger problems than this. But that's a normal salary range for the kind of moderately skilled technical job that no one wants to do because you're locked into a particular vendor, you're a cost center, it's boring, and there's no prestige in it. One of the consequences of GRT running RAND has been unwillingness to pay enough for non-PhD roles, not understanding that RAND can get a deal on researchers but no one is excited about coming to RAND to do basically anything else.


My office sponsors FFRDC work and these pay ranges really make me mad. We pay a lot of money for FFRDC employees to work from home and give us a giant report in over a year with conclusions that don’t solve the problem we need solved. And they are paying their Salesforce support staff these kind of large salaries and then they can work remote while I have to come in each day and make far less money?



IDA process of report writing is so outdated. By the time, they come up with a report, an alternate solution has already been provided.


Those reports are so long!


All the ffrdcs have this issue. You’re told that to create value you have to deliver deep expertise and the old way of doing that was thru in depth documentation. Then you have the scientists who have been around forever and work at glacier pace. We need to find a middle ground.
Anonymous
Post 12/07/2025 10:36     Subject: FFRDCs

Anonymous wrote:If some organization’s FFRDc is not adding value at a reasonable cost, then the organization ought to terminate / not renew that FFRDC contract. In that case, the organization ought also ought not put any funding on that contract unless it is legally required to do so.

Then, either decide to rebid the FFRDC or simply choose not to have one at all.


That’s already happening at RAND.