alt Hacker News> every math phd i am acquainted with has been approached by nsa recruiters.
how many of them took them up on the offer, and how many are in leadership roles?
it takes a very narrow range of personality to want to be a cop, which at the end of the day is a government job... the only people they make rich are contractors
I'm not saying there aren't smart people working there but it's ridiculous to assume they have an iron grasp on all communication from the top tech companies in the world, while also monitoring half the world's governments... they just don't
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> how many of them took them up on the offer, and how many are in leadership roles?
In my cohort? Several, and who knows? The recruitment effort is very visible and intense.
The US math phd market has been a slow-rolling disaster for over a decade. Everyone who can hack it outside the ivory tower is actively looking for the exits.
So why is it surprising that some of them go to work at the NSA?
> it takes a very narrow range of personality to want to be a cop, which at the end of the day is a government job... the only people they make rich are contractors
I don’t think you have context on what math phds are making in entry level positions, post-docs, or adjuncting. I just picked a random entry level NSA role on LinkedIn (doctorate + 0 yrs) and they’re offering solid six digits. There are tenured faculty (post-doc(s) + 5ish yrs) who don’t make that.
>how many of them took them up on the offer, and how many are in leadership roles?
this is not really relevant to the point, but to satisfy your curiosity: more than one, and one.
>it takes a very narrow range of personality to want to be a cop
the nsa's brightest aren't doing "cop" things. certainly none of the people i know of working there are "cop-minded" in any sense.
they are doing cool research and application things. otherwise they wouldn't be able to entice the phds to stick around. these are people that want to work at the forefront of their field, doing interesting work, and the nsa is one avenue of doing that (with good job security, benefits, etc.).
>it's ridiculous to assume they have an iron grasp on all communication from the top tech companies in the world, while also monitoring half the world's governments
we agree here. they are certainly doing "HNDL" (harvest now, decrypt later) at a very large scale. but obviously they are not able to collect and store every piece of communication at every tech company over years and years. (the intelligence community comprehensive national cybersecurity initiative data center is large, but not that large)