Pros
-Awesome mission set across various accounts/TOPIs -Excellent educational opportunities/ability to take cyber courses for free -Generally awesome/intelligent colleagues -Ability to change offices/skillset without leaving employer -PTO/benefits/work-life balance -Collaborating with other agencies/military organizations -Gain experience through details to other offices/agencies -Priceless experience for gaining knowledge in cybersecurity/technical analysis
Cons
-NSA21 reorganization was a dumpster fire -Field tour policy at field sites for civilians -Office politics, especially at NSAG -Painfully slow bureaucracy -Security theater -Some of the polygraphers are abusive and unprofessional -Toxic work environment in some offices/locations (NSAG included) -Moving from one US field site to another is a needlessly stressful/problematic affair -Anti-intellectualism/denigrating university education in many offices -Being in a SCIF all day without many telework options -NSA's response to COVID was atrocious and full of security theater -Federal civilian TDNAs, DNEAs, EAs, and TARs are severely underpaid compared to CTR personnel and comparable job roles common outside the IC, i.e. Cyber Threat Intelligence/Cyber Threat Hunting/Incident Response -Issues have continued to worsen over my time at the Agency for the nearly 12 years I was employed there, with no real improvement in employee satisfaction/well-being/retention of seasoned employees -Workforce Matters campaign is a joke overall