re: Private Sector vs state employment

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CPRA

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Does a ton of government work. You could take the job and go the government route later, plus come in in higher end of pay scale

both. but not go somewhere for the money. i did that for my current job (pays well but doing something i dont like) and i f**kin hate it

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its an engineering job for CPRA. im young and just trying to figure out my life right now

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Engineering jobs are a little different than your general environmental ones like Environmental Scientist or Biologist.

Engineer Intern 1 position is a great start with a state as you get the qualified experience needed to take the PE. I would take the Engineer Intern position over a non-engineer position in the private sector for sure.

Might be a terrible time to start at CPRA because there's a chance you'll get cut loose if they merge CPRA with DENR as you'll likely still be probational. But... A job is a job. Better to start your engineer career now rather than working in a different position.

federal is much better if you are a democrat then you can get retirerment and ss

Be a state troooper.

Also, if you get an interview. Never mention the "foot in the door" line about why you want to work for them.

I've seen otherwise decent candidates get immediately rejected because they consider themselves overqualified but just want a "foot in the door."

An engineer intern job with CPRA would also give you a chance to build some professional contacts as the bidding and work process will have you working very close with private industry.

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its an engineering job for CPRA. im young and just trying to figure out my life right now

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You can make bank working for the state as an engineer. And CPRA pays their engineers well. It’s not as much money as you could make in private more than likely, but that’s where you have to weigh the benefits of both and make the choice that best suits you.

But being an engineer for the State is sort of like the best of both worlds. You’ll pretty quickly be making more than more state workers but you’ll also have the stability, retirement, etc. I’d say do it for a while and if you like it stick with it, and if you don’t you can most likely find a private job (and your government experience will likely benefit you). You can even take out the money you’ve put into retirement when you sever ties with the state as well (though I don’t recommend that unless you are 100% sure you’ll never go back).

I worked for the state for a few years fresh out of college. This was 25 years ago, but at the time the pay wasn't competitive. I left for the private sector for like a 70% pay bump.

I've done both.

Private sector: pay is usually far better, profit motive pushes for less tolerance for bad employees... usually (things like DEI being an obvious exception).
Healthcare plans vary wildly, time off is limited.
Retirement can be good, but it's all on you.

Public sector: lower pay but lack of a profit motive can allow for shitty employees to remain far longer than they would in the private sector (even being bounced around).
Healthcare plans are generally better (except for couples), time off can be ridiculously good (depending on the state).
Retirement is solid, you just have to put the time in and be competent enough to not get fired (which can range from being an extremely low bar in some offices to a bar with constantly randomized height in others).


Management in both sectors can be influenced by office politics. Weak management is weak management. That said, I've seen a greater propensity of weak managers in the public sector. Those managers usually promote less-quality employees, then get them promoted to management as well. These managers often job-jump to other agencies before they can be held accountable. The lack of a profit motive and political hirings (unclassified agency heads) seem to allow that to flourish more (or at least be more noticeable) in the public sector than in the private.

I've seen flagrantly wasteful spending in both sectors (see: management), but I've seen less accountability for it in the public sector.
Oddly, I've encountered more who are actually interested in ways to do more while spending less in the public sector, it's just that those management types who aren't concerned with using taxpayer dollars wisely tend to have greater authority in spending (and greater amounts to spend).

A footnote to retirement: It doesn't matter if you worked your full 40 quarters in the Social Security system. Once you become vested in the state's pension plan you automatically lose around half of whatever SS benefits you would have gotten had you done anything else but go to work for a state system which does not pay into the federal government's Ponzi scheme.