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Defense Contract Audit Agency

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BEWARE OF POOR SUPERVISORS - Auditor Defense Contract Audit Agency Employee Review

2.0
5 Aug 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

* Agency-wide there is a commitment to training, they will send you to Atlanta for weeks to learn the correct way to do things. * Federal benefits, pays for gym membership, pays for masters degree/professional certifications, telework AND flex time * For the majority of the year the job is relatively stress free

Cons

**NOTE: These complaints come from an auditor who has worked for the agency for less than 4 years. These cons might not be a concern if you are lucky enough to get a good supervisor, but from my experience there are maybe 20% supervisors who deserve their position** * Training doesn't translate to the field, Audit seniors and supervisors tell you to do things different than agency quality. When quality comes in to correct working papers often times Supervisors don't admit to improper guidance. * Supervisors play games with a lot of the benefits. The HR people might say that teleworking shouldn't be a problem but then it feels like you have to "prove yourself" to your supervisor before they will allow you to do so. Furthermore, auditors are reprimanded if they're in a few minutes after 9:00 AM or if they take a long/late lunch. I see supervisors and managers do all of these things routinely. The hypocrisy is abundant. * Supervisory guidance is non-existent and the review process is severely under-documented and never done timely. * Supervisory answers to my questions felt like they were just blowing me off with a generic response so that they could tend to something more important. So much of my guidance was "use auditor judgment" when I'm a new hire. With respect to contract audit my judgment needs to be developed. * I was working on material for 6+ months before any of it was actually reviewed. While my supervisor told Quality that she was looking over my work, she was looking over virtually nothing. My first 3 months on the job the supervisor had her door closed almost every day to the point that I wasn't even sure she was there most days. I routinely get this line that it "takes 3 years to learn what you are doing" but I'm convinced it's this way because supervisors aren't committed to their employees. * It is commendable to try and get the most out of every employee, but that's a problem with an agency that has so many GS12s who are content with their position and generally lazy or unqualified. It gets to the point where new hires are doing all the work and usually getting paid much less than their peers because of the GS schedule. * The entire job hinges on communication with the Defense Contract Management Agency. They are the client for our audit reports. Unfortunately DCMA and DCAA are always at odds. They both believe the other is incompetent and it feels like a lot of our reports aren't even useful to DCMA. * There is a completely artificial deadline placed on reports being completed by government fiscal year end. This number often times matters very little at all but for political reasons. I believe the agency wants to say they questioned $XXX amount in the fiscal year to validate their existence. The issue is this artificial due date results in some really bad work being pushed through. What happens if we find problems last second? Do we extend the due date? No. We just work overtime to polish poor work, explain away problems, or question costs hastily in a way that won't be sustained.

Explore other reviews about Defense Contract Audit Agency

5.0
3 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good work life balance, good benefits.

Cons

Management sometimes does not share changes/important workflow details with employees.

3.0
27 June 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

If you work on small and medium size contractors, the work shouldn't be too stressful. You learn a lot about federal contract audit.

Cons

Large contractor audits can get way more reviews and attention from inside and outside agency which can require more and deeper documentation. This can create pressure.

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