Pros
Career/Work *Our work benefits the US taxpayers; not making someone else rich *When you understand what you're doing or work for/with people who do, you can make a real difference *Many opportunities to do different types of assignments, special projects, and work overseas *DCAA is an excellent springboard into other careers; whether it's an OIG, investigative agencies, contracting agencies, working in public accounting, or being offered lucrative positions by industries on the receiving side of the procurement audit fence. If you work at learning the position and learn the ins and outs of the Federal Procurement process, you will become valuable and develop a reputation for competence. I have received offers and invites from all the industries listed. Offers started rolling in after my 2nd year and earning my DCAA funded CPA license. There is an office in Germany, regional IT auditor teams, system teams, and a fraud division as examples of opportunities... Benefits (Over Std Gov't): *Flextime - Work biweekly 80 hours how you want (Fridays off, start between 6:00-9:30am, etc) *Credit Hours - Anything you work over 40 hours is banked (up to 24 hrs) and can be used when you need, allows quick leave max and high leave bank, can be manipulated to take up to a week off without hitting leave *Telework - very flexible work at home policies *Career Development - Pay for education, training, and licenses (CFE, CIA, Masters Degrees etc.) Furthermore, many DCAA and DoD unique programs. *Mobility - DCAA has offices in every major city and them some, so if your spouse works, you can transfer *Overtime - if you want to work over 80 hours a week and have maxed out your credit time, you can earn overtime. If you are ambitious and/or a workaholic you can easily swing 20 hrs a pay period if you get yourself on the right team (forward pricing). This adds up quickly. DCAA has been generally excellent to me and offers incredible work-life balance.
Cons
Congress *The House Congress ("Freedom Caucus") is terrible and filled with self-serving morons who do not learn or understand the policy for which they are responsible. This has resulted not only it terribly executed furloughs (in some cases where half and office works and the other doesn't), but also preventing auditing of the non-DoD portion of contractors. *Management, especially upper Management, and Policy are frenetic. DCAA has drastic swings between hyper-excessive testing and borderline scope limiting due dates. This can be overcome by relying on source regulatory guidance and the actual auditing and attest standards. Also, Management does a poor job of allocating resources to pay performance related rewards and underestimates the significance/importance of these rewards. *Adequately Addressing Complication Factor - sometimes new employees start in locations, such as Resident Offices, that are very complex and difficult to grasp the "big picture." This can result in a lot of wasted effort and frustration for these employees and the employees trying to help these employees. Complication also makes the GAGAS standard of allowing an outside professional auditor to review and follow work-papers a challenge, too. Outside reviewers frequently fail to fully understand the complex issues. *The Working-retired and Permanently-disengaged: There are many individuals who for varied reasons simply hate working at DCAA but refuse to leave. Whether it was a bad performance review, a toxic manager, a rescinded report, getting sandbagged, or just have terrible attitudes and work ethic, these folks lack the courage to leave the Government and hold out for "better Government jobs" and either do not contribute or contribute just enough to not be fired but create toxic work environments. It can be tough being squeezed between these individuals and an antsy management. This is reflected in some other posts like Macbeth down there, to which my response would be, "nothing in his DCAA career became him quite like the leaving it" Get your masters/CPA, learn how procurement works and take a high paying job elsewhere. We may audit rocket science, but do not perform it.