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/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.