Officer Promotion Overhaul

[Gatordev]

Not like TAR or warrant, from what was put out. There will be a board, people will get selected and essentially cycle between VT/HT and TRAWING gigs until they hit 20. It sounds like the target candidates are O4 1310 with the current focus on VT(J), which is where they need IPs. From my perspective, it fills an NAE need while addressing something people on this site have been asking for for years. I think numbers will be fairly limited. They may look at this option in certain FRS as well.

It actually sounds very similar to the Warrant program, but focused towards VFA/VT(j). Sounds smart, and for the short-term, may make a lot of people happy. I just wouldn't be surprised if the program evaporates when it's not helpful to Big Navy. That in and unto itself isn't anything new, but historically, Big Navy hasn't always been good about having enough seats for everyone when the music stops. Although it seems the music will keep playing until at least 2027.

On a more serious note, it will be interesting to see how the HSx communities fair as the airlines and deployment schedules continue over the next few years. It was interesting to watch even the "chosen few" at the FRS bail in increased numbers over the last 6-some years. Will be interesting to see if it levels off or continues upward.

 

[Jim123]

I wonder where the 1310s are going to come from when VFA 1310s over 10 YCS are bailing like rats off a sinking ship. If you pull too many helo/VP pilots then something will have to get done about all those critical billets in coffee making and slide preparation.

Anyway, it will be a moot point in about 3-5 years when the next economic downturn hits and enough people decide that, after all, they can put up with all the annoying little things they are getting out because of these days. And this professional flight instructor program will quietly fade away.

 

[nittany03]

The way to employ talent like Mark Zuckerberg is not through getting him to commission as an officer, but through federal contracts with industry. Although Mark Zuckerberg is a great programmer and businessman, I don't think that qualifies him to be an instant CO of a battalion.

People keep using the tech sector as an example, but there's a little more to it than that. Outside of maybe some very specific positions at certain three-letter agencies or other niche positions in DoD, I honestly can't think of a valid reason why you need an officer who can write good code as their job. That's like saying all Hornet aircrews need to have aerospace engineering degrees. Or all Growler crews need an EE degree. Designing and building a system usually != employing it.

Even in COMCIVPAC, there's different skill sets in different positions. A software developer is not the same beast as a technical PM, who isn't the same beast as a business analyst. I'm not going to tell my developers how to implement a Java class, but I'm sure as shit going to throw the flag when they're bullshitting about what they can commit to get done in two weeks, because I've got empirical data on that, because it's my job. And I know enough tech to know when they're bullshitting me on that, too. But they don't really do that, because my teams aren't douches that way. And while I don't like it when my years of flying jets means they're leaving me in the dust technically, they're glad I'm there, because none of them wants to stop coding to herd all the cats. TL;DR, "civilian techies" aren't all one thing.

At any rate, any of the above might make the jump to senior management. But in the military, being the greatest stick in the world doesn't make you the greatest CO or Admiral. And in COMCIVPAC, being the most 1337 hax0r (do people still say that? ) on the planet doesn't mean you're worth a shit as a director or CIO.

There's a reason that the people who build Next Gen Jammer or LRASM aren't making decisions about how to employ it tactically, and the same goes for the idea of bringing in techies to CYBERCOM at advanced ranks. Maybe some of them have a skillset of use, but an MS in CS doesn't automatically make you a military cyber expert.

 

[Flash]

...Outside of maybe some very specific positions at certain three-letter agencies or other niche positions in DoD, I honestly can't think of a valid reason why you need an officer who can write good code as their job....There's a reason that the people who build Next Gen Jammer or LRASM aren't making decisions about how to employ it tactically, and the same goes for the idea of bringing in techies to CYBERCOM at advanced ranks. Maybe some of them have a skillset of use, but an MS in CS doesn't automatically make you a military cyber expert.

Uniformed personnel are the only ones who can execute certain missions or exercise the authority over such missions, and there are a lot of civilians in the cyber world who could do those missions if tomorrow they were in uniform. For cyber at least they would often utilize folks already serving in very similar capacities as civilians and not straight off the street from Google or Facebook. There are also broader and more responsible jobs as well that might utilize more senior uniformed personnel but a lot would have to ironed out.

I don't see a broad application of it but the new flexibility would be very useful in some particular cases. I think the current Navy Reserve DCO model would serve as a good example, and an easy way to expand on a current successful program if they wanted to.

 

[nittany03]

Uniformed personnel are the only ones who can execute certain missions or exercise the authority over such missions, and there are a lot of civilians in the cyber world who could do those missions if tomorrow they were in uniform. For cyber at least they would often utilize folks already serving in very similar capacities as civilians and not straight off the street from Google or Facebook. There are also broader and more responsible jobs as well that might utilize more senior uniformed personnel but a lot would have to ironed out.

I don't see a broad application of it but the new flexibility would be very useful in some particular cases. I think the current Navy Reserve DCO model would serve as a good example, and an easy way to expand on a current successful program if they wanted to.

We're more or less in agreement. I understand that the modern DoD, in some of its more squirrelly manifestations, has to walk a LOAC line where certain functions have to be performed by people in uniform. But observe the sentence before the first one you bolded. Useful? Sure. But it's a niche capability for the right person in the right area, complicated by the fact that civilians who can do that job and do it well are in high demand and compensated accordingly. Plus there's the whole "you have to shave, cut your hair, and take a PRT and piss tests" problem.

 

[PhrogLoop]

Should anyone trust Zuck as an O-6 line officer in the field? Cyber is not JAG/medical...

I’m all for this but the truth of this situation would be even stranger than the Zuck setup. I work at a reputable Cloud IT firm. If the CNO asked my CEO to send his best/brightest coder/hacker/programmer to save the USA, that individual is 25 years old. Who hasn’t shaved in years (if ever) and doesn’t own a pair of shoes. O-6 annual pay is less than his bonus.

 

[nittany03]

I’m all for this but the truth of this situation would be even stranger than the Zuck setup. I work at a reputable Cloud IT firm. If the CNO asked my CEO to send his best/brightest coder/hacker/programmer to save the USA, that individual is 25 years old. Who hasn’t shaved in years (if ever) and doesn’t own a pair of shoes. O-6 annual pay is less than his bonus.

Feh. Depends on the job and the architecture. Cloud, sure. AR/MR/XR, sure. But I just lost (edit: to retirement) a 60-something architect who'd been with the company for 30 years. That guy was not only brilliant, but knew where all the bodies were buried. Technically speaking, for sure, and I never was around with enough drinks in the guy to speak for "politically." There was "stuff he designed" and "stuff he designed dumbed down so mere mortals could maintain." Of course, similar issues mil-wise, considering he was a true blue Seattle hippie.

There's people who code for money, or it's the best thing they can do for pay. And there's people who code because they've wanted to do it their whole lives just like all of us wanted gold wings. Get one of those guys/girls in their 40s or 50s, and they're fucking printing money making VP-level cash as a technical fellow at some company because they've made it past all their 25-year-old screwups.

 

[ben4prez]

People keep using the tech sector as an example, but there's a little more to it than that. Outside of maybe some very specific positions at certain three-letter agencies or other niche positions in DoD, I honestly can't think of a valid reason why you need an officer who can write good code as their job.

The point about Zuck isnt his coding skills - it's his leadership and management skills. I'd venture to guess the last time he actually shipped anything code-related was likely a decade or more ago.

You wouldn't make him an O-6...you'd make him a 3 or 4-star and put him in charge of some f'ed up program or strategic realignment.

The guy built one of the most amazing companies in the world, leading strategic shift after strategic shift on a global scale for a product that over 2 billion people use nearly every day. That isn't the work of a coder. It's the work of one of the most savvy individuals and leaders in world history.

One of his most impressive assets is his willingness to learn and experiment. The skill of transitioning from startup CEO to global scion is one very few folks have ever managed. He's not perfect by any means, but he's dealt with media, foreign governments, Congress, an angry public, made billion dollar strategic bets that everyone called crazy work, and built a 400bn+ company. In less than 14 years.

That not simply technical acumen. That's applied leadership and acquired knowledge that speaks of a strategic genius.

 

[nittany03]

The point about Zuck isnt his coding skills - it's his leadership and management skills. I'd venture to guess the last time he actually shipped anything code-related was likely a decade or more ago.

You wouldn't make him an O-6...you'd make him a 3 or 4-star and put him in charge of some f'ed up program or strategic realignment.

The guy built one of the most amazing companies in the world, leading strategic shift after strategic shift on a global scale for a product that over 2 billion people use nearly every day. That isn't the work of a coder. It's the work of one of the most savvy individuals and leaders in world history.

One of his most impressive assets is his willingness to learn and experiment. The skill of transitioning from startup CEO to global scion is one very few folks have ever managed. He's not perfect by any means, but he's dealt with media, foreign governments, Congress, an angry public, made billion dollar strategic bets that everyone called crazy work, and built a 400bn+ company. In less than 14 years.

That not simply technical acumen. That's applied leadership and acquired knowledge that speaks of a strategic genius.

I don't disagree . . . entirely. Zuck and company have also made some major, MAJOR blunders that speak less to strategic genius and more to naively ignoring some pretty damn glaring blind spots. Russiagate, anyone? "Young people are just smarter," huh? But that aside, so this thread doesn't get banished to the War Zone, let's let that go.

Zuck is what? Of Americans, one in maybe 30 million, if not less? I wasn't talking about guys like him. I was talking about the subtleties of how "techie" doesn't and shouldn't always equate to "instant commission at O-5+." Sometimes I could see it being a fit for a very specific subset of technologists in a very specific subset of billets. And even then, their lack of DoD experience may be an issue, depending on their job. It's a case by case thing.

Let's not confuse the outliers for what's within a couple standard deviations of the mean. In WWII, Roosevelt brought William Knudsen in out of the auto industry as an O-9, for a damn good reason. But that's not every Tom, Dick, and Harry with an MS in CS. If you made a mint in game development in Objective-C, I mean maybe you could make some rocking GMT or NSIPS apps, but we have contractors for that.

Application development does not necessarily equal operational employment of cyber.

 

[Brett327]

People keep using the tech sector as an example, but there's a little more to it than that. Outside of maybe some very specific positions at certain three-letter agencies or other niche positions in DoD, I honestly can't think of a valid reason why you need an officer who can write good code as their job. That's like saying all Hornet aircrews need to have aerospace engineering degrees. Or all Growler crews need an EE degree. Designing and building a system usually != employing it.

Even in COMCIVPAC, there's different skill sets in different positions. A software developer is not the same beast as a technical PM, who isn't the same beast as a business analyst. I'm not going to tell my developers how to implement a Java class, but I'm sure as shit going to throw the flag when they're bullshitting about what they can commit to get done in two weeks, because I've got empirical data on that, because it's my job. And I know enough tech to know when they're bullshitting me on that, too. But they don't really do that, because my teams aren't douches that way. And while I don't like it when my years of flying jets means they're leaving me in the dust technically, they're glad I'm there, because none of them wants to stop coding to herd all the cats. TL;DR, "civilian techies" aren't all one thing.

At any rate, any of the above might make the jump to senior management. But in the military, being the greatest stick in the world doesn't make you the greatest CO or Admiral. And in COMCIVPAC, being the most 1337 hax0r (do people still say that? ) on the planet doesn't mean you're worth a shit as a director or CIO.

There's a reason that the people who build Next Gen Jammer or LRASM aren't making decisions about how to employ it tactically, and the same goes for the idea of bringing in techies to CYBERCOM at advanced ranks. Maybe some of them have a skillset of use, but an MS in CS doesn't automatically make you a military cyber expert.

That’s not my quote.

 

[FrankTheTank]

Zuck got lucky and was able to capitalize on narcissism. He just took what was already there (MySpace, etc.) and users took it and made it into a billion dollar company. Dude ain’t a visionary or leader.

 

[Flash]

...Useful? Sure. But it's a niche capability for the right person in the right area, complicated by the fact that civilians who can do that job and do it well are in high demand and compensated accordingly. Plus there's the whole "you have to shave, cut your hair, and take a PRT and piss tests" problem.

They might be the same basic set of skills but what I am talking about is a particular subset that isn't really applicable in the civilian world, at least legally, and would not necessarily need a company's best coder or programmer, just a pretty good one that could follow orders and execute missions civil servants or contractors can't do.

The higher ranking folks would be much more complicated and would be much higher risk, unless they are already well-versed in the military and/or government I think there is a much higher chance of the transition not going well. It is not just because of bureaucracy or culture, there are legal and accountability differences for higher ranking folks that are vastly different than from the civilian world that would be very hard to adjust to.

 

[nittany03]

They might be the same basic set of skills but what I am talking about is a particular subset that isn't really applicable in the civilian world, at least legally, and would not necessarily need a company's best coder or programmer, just a pretty good one that could follow orders and execute missions civil servants or contractors can't do.

The higher ranking folks would be much more complicated and would be much higher risk, unless they are already well-versed in the military and/or government I think there is a much higher chance of the transition not going well. It is not just because of bureaucracy or culture, there are legal and accountability differences for higher ranking folks that are vastly different than from the civilian world that would be very hard to adjust to.

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=violent agreement

 

[Deleted member 67144 scul]

MS in CS doesn't automatically make you a military cyber expert.

And a citizen with an MS in CS and an established career isn't going to have much trouble choosing between 36k and 120k+ base. If the Navy (Navy Reserve DCO is a different story) really wants well-educated and experienced industry professionals, they're going to have to give some good incentives. The same recruitment fluff that works on kids having trouble affording college or preying on naivety isn't going to work on wiser and experienced 30+ year-olds. Inflated ranks don't feel like a good way to go, though. The Army's currently trying that with their Cyber direct commission program, but it caps out at O-2. I hear mixed things about its success.

Zuck got lucky and was able to capitalize on narcissism. He just took what was already there (MySpace, etc.) and users took it and made it into a billion dollar company. Dude ain’t a visionary or leader.

Speaking of narcissism, Facebook was originally created to rate how nice girls looked...

In the social media app development craze, a lot of success hinges on throwing your product at the wall and hoping it sticks as a result of conditions completely outside of your control or influence. I've known many people with some actual vision and leadership make such attempts. Facebook very easily could have gone the other way.

 

[Brett327]

I'm not sure why people (including Big Navy) are talking about this in an officer context. If they want high caliber technical innovators or thought leaders, they should be hired as civilians or contractors.