I worked for Sandia

I'm a computational physicist at Los Alamos and would echo these sentiments. Note that there are two main types of DOE labs: NNSA (Sandia, Los Alamos, Livermore) and Office of Science (Brookhaven, Berkeley, Oak Ridge, Argonne, ...). Although the former is more focused on "nuclear weapons stockpile stewardship", there is still much basic science at all DOE labs, especially where computer science meets physics and other domain sciences. Perhaps relevant to HN, I would mention the Applied Computer Science group at Los Alamos, which is in hiring mode ( https://www.lanl.gov/org/ddste/aldsc/computer-computational-... ). Besides supporting computational physicists in code development efforts, this group does a variety of researchy things like designing programming models and doing compiler development, especially with an eye towards large scale scientific computing. The pay at a DOE lab is less…

My friends who worked there say that the job was great but living in a remote science outpost made dating unbelievably difficult

I've worked at a few DOE sites albeit as a consultant not an FTE, Fermi, Los Alamos and a couple others. You are correct that the work is interesting and a like academic atmosphere, it was the academic atmosphere part that I found off putting. Where I worked there was very much a hierarchy and if you didn't have a PHD your opinion didn't matter much, you just did what you were told. Having a couple of decades of experience and being brought in to spin them up on their system and being talked down to on a daily basis like I was a Sophomore in college was really annoying -that said I'm a consultant so I get paid to be annoyed by the people who hire me. Aside from that I liked working there, the tech was cool, as far as the moral issues I don't ask nor do I want to know about what I'm working on -I don't have a need to know.

I worked, as a civilian, for part of the R&D arm of the Navy, but it has a very similar feel to what you have posted. I would 100% agree with everything you have said, except the pay. One thing I will add is getting tools and resources to do the work you want to do can be a challenge. There can be times when getting through the process to buy a $75 multimeter can be more difficult then the $16,000 signal generator.

Not all DOE national labs do weapons stuff. For example, Fermilab (FNAL) is pretty much all open science research. FNAL doesn't even have fences and the guard booth just checks to make sure you have a drivers license if you're driving. Argonne and Brookhaven are a bit more on the defensey side but not as much as say oak ridge or sandia.

Hacker News welcome | new | threads | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit funajoy (1) | logout Worked at Sandia National Laboratories from 1990-2013 in ABQ/NM, after 10 years in the Silicon Valley (CA Bay Area). I was recruited as a PM in Nuclear Energy to lead joint, cost-shared programs with the US Power Industry. Worked in tech. leadership roles in many areas including Homeland security, Intelligence, Nuclear Deterrence and Emergency Response Readiness, Global Security and Leading a remote test site within a USAF Base. All Missions of National Importance. Had opportunity to help shape national policy and strategy, team with allies and work with some of the smartest technical minds. Great R&D resources and funding. It's world's largest engineering R&D organization with currentannual budget of >$4 billion and workforce of ~15,000 professionals. Having a MS or Ph. D. from top te…

Worked at Sandia National Laboratories from 1990-2013 in ABQ/NM, after 10 years in the Silicon Valley (CA Bay Area). I was recruited as a PM in Nuclear Energy to lead joint, cost-shared programs with the US Power Industry. Worked in tech. leadership roles in many areas including Homeland security, Intelligence, Nuclear Deterrence and Emergency Response Readiness, Global Security and Leading a remote test site within a USAF Base. All Missions of National Importance. Had opportunity to help shape national policy and strategy, team with allies and work with some of the smartest technical minds. Great R&D resources and funding. It's world's largest engineering R&D organization with current annual budget of >$4 billion and a workforce of ~15,000 professionals. Having a MS or Ph. D. from top ten schools used to be requirement for entry. Salary is competitive, with excellent benefits including …

Are you allowed to publish papers (for non-sensitive basic science/CS)? Do you have to relocate?