Who: A Department of Defense (DoD) field activity that has been operating since 1997. Small and engineer-centric. ~90% are engineer/scientist.
What: Provide solutions to other US Government agencies and allies. Some tasks are engineering brand-new products and some tasks are re-engineering devices to keep legacy systems running. We do not compete with private industry but regularly work side-by-side with industry to get stuff done. We also have the only semiconductor foundry still operational within the federal government.
Why: US Government agencies sometimes want products built that are so technologically risky or low-volume that private industry does not want to do them. We fill the gap.
Where: Sacramento, CA -- California's fourth largest metro area. Home to two major state universities (CSU-Sacramento and UC-Davis). The farm-to-fork, and regular, capital of California.
Benefits: We are federal employees and receive federal benefits (google "opm benefits" for more info). Time off starts at 36 days/year (13 vacation + 13 sick + 10 federal holidays) and grows to 49 days/year over time (26 + 13 + 10). We have flexible schedules and most of us work a "9-to-5.” Hiring is for GS-13 engineers (google “gs pay scale 2024” and look at the Sacramento locality).
Tech Stack: Altium for Hardware design. Modern C/C++(C++17) for embedded. C#/.net for desktop application development and some server services. Python for scripting/automation. Gitlab for SCM/CI. We're using modern tools to solve modern problems.
Interview: Must be a US citizen. Must be able to achieve and maintain a security clearance. 2 x Phone call [1 hr] >> Onsite w/team [full day]
Apply: Send your resume to DMEA-hnjobs at groups.mail.mil (please DO NOT contact if you are a recruiter)
Who: A Department of Defense (DoD) field activity that has been operating since 1997. Small and engineer-centric. ~90% are engineer/scientist.
What: Provide solutions to other US Government agencies and allies. Some tasks are engineering brand-new products and some tasks are re-engineering devices to keep legacy systems running. We do not compete with private industry but regularly work side-by-side with industry to get stuff done. We also have the only semiconductor foundry still operational within the federal government.
Why: US Government agencies sometimes want products built that are so technologically risky or low-volume that private industry does not want to do them. We fill the gap.
Where: Sacramento, CA -- California's fourth largest metro area. Home to two major state universities (CSU-Sacramento and UC-Davis). The farm-to-fork, and regular, capital of California.
Benefits: We are federal employees and receive federal benefits (google "opm benefits" for more info). Time off starts at 36 days/year (13 vacation + 13 sick + 10 federal holidays) and grows to 49 days/year over time (26 + 13 + 10). We have flexible schedules and most of us work a "9-to-5.” Hiring is for GS-13 engineers (google “gs pay scale 2024” and look at the Sacramento locality).
Interview: Must be a US citizen. Must be able to achieve and maintain a security clearance.
2 x Phone call [1 hr] >> Onsite w/team [full day]
Apply: Send your resume to hn@dmea.osd.mil (please DO NOT contact if you are a recruiter)
Who: A Department of Defense (DoD) field activity that has been operating since 1997. Small and engineer centric. ~90% are engineer/scientist.
What: Provide solutions to other US Government agencies and allies. Some tasks are engineering brand-new products and some tasks are re-engineering devices to keep legacy systems running. We do not compete with private industry but regularly work side-by-side with industry to get stuff done. We also have the only semiconductor foundry still operational within the federal government.
Why: US Government agencies sometimes want products built that are so technologically risky or low-volume that private industry does not want to do them. We fill the gap.
Where: Sacramento, CA -- California's fourth largest metro area. Home to two major state universities (CSU-Sacramento and UC-Davis). The farm-to-fork, and regular, capital of California.
Benefits: We are federal employees and receive federal benefits (google "opm benefits" for more info). Time off starts at 36 days/year (13 vacation + 13 sick + 10 federal holidays) and grows to 49 days/year over time (26 + 13 + 10). We have flexible schedules and most of us work a "9-to-5.” Hiring is for GS-13 engineers (google “gs pay scale 2023” and look at the Sacramento locality).
Interview:
Must be a US citizen. Must be able to achieve and maintain a security clearance.
2 x Phone call [1 hr] >> Onsite w/team [full day]
Apply:
Send your resume to hn@dmea.osd.mil (please DO NOT contact if you are a recruiter)
Defense MicroElectronics Activity (DMEA) | Electronics Engineer, Embedded Hardware Engineer, Embedded Software Engineer | Full-time | Sacramento, CA | Onsite | $70 - $120k
Who: A Department of Defense (DoD) field activity that has been operating since 1997. Small and engineer-centric: ~200 employees of which ~180 are engineer/scientist.
What: Provide solutions to other US Government agencies and allies. Some tasks are engineering brand-new products and some tasks are re-engineering devices to keep legacy systems running. We do not compete with private industry but regularly work side-by-side with industry to get stuff done. We also have the only semiconductor foundry (90nm) still operational within the federal government.
Why: US Government agencies sometimes want products built that are so technologically risky or low-volume that private industry does not want to do them. Wes step in to fill the gap.
Where: Sacramento, CA -- California's fourth largest metro area. Home to two major state universities (CSU-Sacramento and UC-Davis). The farm-to-fork (and regular) capital of California.
Benefits: We are federal employees and receive federal benefits (google "opm benefits" for more info). Time off starts at 36 days/year (13 vacation + 13 sick + 10 federal holidays) and grows to 49 days/year over time (26 + 13 + 10). We have flexible schedules and most of us work a "9-to-5.” Hiring is for GS-11/12/13 engineers (google “gs pay scale 2018” and look at the Sacramento locality).
==Interview==
Must be a US citizen. Must be able to achieve and maintain a security clearance.
2 x Phone call [1 hr] >> Onsite w/team [full day]
==Apply==
hn@dmea.osd.mil with questions or info on how to apply (please DO NOT contact if you are a recruiter)
Who: A Department of Defense (DoD) field activity that has been operating since 1997. Small and engineer-centric: ~200 employees of which ~180 are engineer/scientist.
What: Provide solutions to other US Government agencies and allies. Some tasks are engineering brand-new products and some tasks are re-engineering devices to keep legacy systems running. We do not compete with private industry but regularly work side-by-side with industry to get stuff done. We also have the only semiconductor foundry (90nm) still operational within the federal government.
Why: US Government agencies sometimes want products built that are so technologically risky or low-volume that private industry does not want to do them. Wes step in to fill the gap.
Where: Sacramento, CA -- California's fourth largest metro area. Home to two major state universities (CSU-Sacramento and UC-Davis). The farm-to-fork (and regular) capital of California.
Benefits: We are federal employees and receive federal benefits (google "opm benefits" for more info). Time off starts at 36 days/year (13 vacation + 13 sick + 10 federal holidays) and grows to 49 days/year over time (26 + 13 + 10). We have flexible schedules and most of us work a "9-to-5.” Hiring is for GS-11/12/13 engineers (google “gs pay scale 2018” and look at the Sacramento locality).
==Interview==
Must be a US citizen. Must be able to achieve and maintain a security clearance.
The background check process is involved (taking ~3-24 months), and since clearance is condition of employment, employees are sometimes let go if they fail to obtain a clearance. For anyone interested, clearedjobs[1] has a good faq about how clearances are obtained and adjudicated. Before applying, it's worth asking yourself if you want to go through the process and possibly risk having to leave the job if you fail to obtain a clearance.
As far as compensation goes, government pay will always be a little lower. Our new grad pay is notoriously low (GS 5-9), but we'll pay for your background check and a Masters/PHD if you're interested. For engineers with ~5-10 years experience GS-13 pay ($95k-$120k) is pretty competitive when you consider the cost of living in Sacramento (A nice 4bed/2bath house, in a great neighborhood is ~$400k). Additionally, we have management and technical promotions tracks within the organization of which both go up to GS-15 (non-management GS-15 jobs are pretty rare within the federal government).
Translation: accept lower pay because you're doing interesting work in the national interest with good job security and benefits; go through a background check because that's part of getting a job like this
Programming jobs don't get much better than that. I guess you could program the Voyager probe for NASA, which is even older. Programming missiles would be fun too; I've heard that memory leaks are accepted because it will be set free upon impact. Medical implants and spy equipment are probably fun too, with 8-bit CPUs being likely.
This kind of stuff sure beats web and phone app programming to sell ads, cause addiction, and scoop up people's lifestyles.
If you want peace, you have to be prepared for war. We're currently the better part of a century into The Long Peace, something that has never happened before in human history, and it came about in part because of weapons development.
The same tools that provide the means for evil also provide the means for subjugating evil.
That said obviously we get into a lot of unnecessary war where a lot of people die who didn't need to. Still, you'd be a fool to sit on your hands while Russia and China race ahead in weapons development, with lower regard for human rights than the rest of us. You don't want them knocking on the door.
"without you all this killing cant go on": It's impossible to disarm, because it's impossible to prove the other guy (russia, china) is being honest about disarming.
The long peace has lasted 50 more years since that song was written.
Do you have a particular point to make regarding the song?
The Long Peace means there have been no wars between major powers since 1945, we fear nuclear weapons. All wars now engaged in by great powers are asymmetric.
We do a lot of work on ARM Cortex processors and TI MSP430s. On a recent project the main processor was an Atmel ATSAMA5D3x running embedded linux. Most of the embedded work is C but some engineers use C++. There's a lot of peripheral support software we write as well, which is usually in C# or python. It's easily been 15+ years since we've done any projects in assembly.
There's more to life than money (like getting to work on cool stuff), plus you know the government isn't going to shut down in 9 months like every startup, or get acquired, or "restructure" your job to puff up the numbers this quarter.
The OPM hack was a succession of hacks over a few years with long detection & dwell times. Hard to turn that kind of ship..
Anyways, pretty fascinating.. as long as you and your colleagues aren't in the database. We work on tools to bring visibility & reliability to these kinds of incidents, it's pretty wild in practice!
Who: A Department of Defense (DoD) field activity that has been operating since 1997. Small and engineer-centric: ~200 employees of which ~180 are engineer/scientist.
What: Provide solutions to other US Government agencies and allies. Some tasks are engineering brand-new products and some tasks are re-engineering devices to keep legacy systems running. We do not compete with private industry but sometimes work side-by-side with industry to get stuff done. We also have the only semiconductor foundry (90nm) still operational within the federal government.
Why: We are often a last-resort for our customers. US Government agencies sometimes want products built that are so technologically risky or low-volume that private industry does not want to do them. We fill the gap.
Where: Sacramento, CA -- California's fourth largest metro area. Home to two major state universities (CSU-Sacramento and UC-Davis). The farm-to-fork (and regular) capital of California. Right between Tahoe/Sierras and San Francisco.
Benefits: We are federal employees and receive federal benefits (google "opm benefits" for more info). Time off starts at 36 days/year (13 vacation + 13 sick + 10 federal holidays) and grows to 49 days/year over time (26 + 13 + 10). We have flexible schedules and most of us work a "9-to-5.” Hiring is for GS-11/12/13 engineers (google “gs pay scale 2018” and look at the Sacramento locality).
==Interview==
Must be a US citizen. Must be able to achieve and maintain a security clearance.
2 x Phone call [1 hr] >> Onsite w/team [full day]
==Contact==
hn@dmea.osd.mil with questions or for info on how to apply
We do hire interns but we don't have a regular (e.g. summer) internship program. Interns are hired when we have a space and usually stay until graduation. Right now we have interns so it's unlikely we'll have new intern positions until, at least, the end of this year. If you're interested I would sign up for USAjobs.gov and create a notification for engineering internship positions. You can see a list of our current open positions [1] on USAjobs.gov as well.
Who: A Department of Defense (DoD) field activity that has been operating since 1997. Small and engineer-centric. ~90% are engineer/scientist.
What: Provide solutions to other US Government agencies and allies. Some tasks are engineering brand-new products and some tasks are re-engineering devices to keep legacy systems running. We do not compete with private industry but regularly work side-by-side with industry to get stuff done. We also have the only semiconductor foundry still operational within the federal government.
Why: US Government agencies sometimes want products built that are so technologically risky or low-volume that private industry does not want to do them. We fill the gap.
Where: Sacramento, CA -- California's fourth largest metro area. Home to two major state universities (CSU-Sacramento and UC-Davis). The farm-to-fork, and regular, capital of California.
Benefits: We are federal employees and receive federal benefits (google "opm benefits" for more info). Time off starts at 36 days/year (13 vacation + 13 sick + 10 federal holidays) and grows to 49 days/year over time (26 + 13 + 10). We have flexible schedules and most of us work a "9-to-5.” Hiring is for GS-13 engineers (google “gs pay scale 2024” and look at the Sacramento locality).
Tech Stack: Altium for Hardware design. Modern C/C++(C++17) for embedded. C#/.net for desktop application development and some server services. Python for scripting/automation. Gitlab for SCM/CI. We're using modern tools to solve modern problems.
Interview: Must be a US citizen. Must be able to achieve and maintain a security clearance. 2 x Phone call [1 hr] >> Onsite w/team [full day]
Apply: Send your resume to DMEA-hnjobs at groups.mail.mil (please DO NOT contact if you are a recruiter)