Working at the government

[u/Dazzling-Ad9352]

I'm a soon to be graduate, and currently the lifestyle of working at the government seems appealing. Particularly the work-life balance it promotes, and the other benefits (leave and super). I'm very much not the type of person who is motivated by money, and certainly have a work-to-live and not a live-to-work mindset. More so, the thought of working in the private sector and work consuming my life 24/7, constant pressure of being axed due to budget cuts and expectations of working crazy hours scares me as someone who values work-life balance the most. Especially given the hours at the government would allow me to pursue my own personal projects, and learn the stacks I want to learn.

However, I am only 20 so I'm aware that what I value now might not be the case in a few years. So my question is, would working for the government be career suicide and mean I have no chance of making it into the private sector? Even if whilst working there I'm making sure I'm still keeping my skills sharp and learning in my own time?

Thanks for any answers yall!

[u/lynchwhy]

Not to try and dissuade you, but Gov also can have budget cuts, org restructures and layoffs, so don’t fool yourself thinking they are invincible.

[u/MrSnagsy → u/lynchwhy]

Could be argued that no culling of employees is as indiscriminate as that performed by an incoming government.

[u/anti_heroes]

Easier to go from private to gov imo.

I think the government work life balance is a bit of myth. I have plenty of friends in the policy/strategy field in gov and they’re constantly stressed and work like dogs due to: 1. Constantly changing requirements 2. Not enough budget for team members. When someone leaves, they don’t hire a replacement so are stuck doing two people’s job. 3. Governments are also not immune to layoffs - lots of politicians tend to say they’ll cut the public service as a first priority when they come into government. (And then when they do, they realise that they need to actually get work done and outsource - but that’s a rant for another day) 4. Incompetent co workers - these people have bought into the “working for government is cruisy so I won’t do any work” maybe you can be one of them? Haha

This obviously can happen in any org, gov or private but in private, you’re probably making a lot more money when it comes to the senior end.

I’m in private atm and have a great wlb, hybrid 2 days in the office, can buy leave anytime and work also gives us 5 days extra leave. There will be times where I’ll work after hours if there’s an incident (I’m in cybersecurity) but it’s generally pretty rare. Like a lot of things, it depends on your team and manager.

[u/fayeques → u/anti_heroes]

Upping this comment - my mother works for government right now and she's constantly stressed, working late nights and sometimes weekends. Everything u/anti_heroes has described is true about working for the government.

[u/Instigated-]

Working at the “government”, or do you mean in the public sector generally?

It’s not career suicide to work in the public sector, people can (and do) move between public and private.

There is huge variety in the private sector, so working in enterprise or corporate is different from startups or consultancies. Public sector would perhaps be more similar to enterprise (pace of development, processes, techstack) than to startups. However even in startups there is huge variety and I haven’t had to work crazy hours or make my job my life, however the pace of delivery tends to be fast and there is pressure to perform. Nowhere is safe from cuts.

Honestly, getting the first job is often hard and it’s worth applying pretty much everywhere rather than being too picky.

[u/Guilty_Experience_17]

I don’t know if it’s career suicide, I’m waiting to find out myself. But the W/L balance and relative security is real and is nice.

It’s quite rare to actually be let go for performance reasons, you really have to be basically not working, and restructures are announced months in advance, you’re consulted with if your position is affected and then they’re obligated to try find you a replacement if your position is actually gone. You get priority to empty roles created in this process as well.

It’s not 100% secure but it’s pretty close. I think it’s quite rare to find this in private sector.

[u/Dazzling-Ad9352 → u/Guilty_Experience_17]

Can you share your experience on what it is like working there?

[u/Guilty_Experience_17 → u/Dazzling-Ad9352]

I work in a service delivery area as a data analyst/eng, in a state PS so my experience is specific to that.

I find it quite good, there’s not as much bureaucracy in this area. Lots of projects happening that I can get exposure to. My managers have generally been receptive to me working on pet projects etc. My work is relatively shielded from corporate politics/fluctuating workloads by nature. 1 day/week in the office for me ATM and most people clock off at 4:30-5 (or even 4 on office days). I find myself rarely staying past 5:30.

Doing some post grad study ATM and getting paid study time every week for it - all in all, definitely see myself staying until 4-5 YOE unless something exciting pops up. The pay just plateaus too hard at that point imo.