For a grad level position I'd argue it's just about acceptable - outside of the big tech companies UK salaries aren't that amazing, and it could probably be a nice stepping stone onto something bigger and better. Usual story in SE UK though - on that salary it would likely be a long and dull road of saving hard even to afford a shoebox, and patriotism doesn't pay the bills.
It's not a tech job. When they say war games, they mean guys running around a field.
The ideal candidate is probably a retired soldier.
In the UK, regular soldiers are paid much less than in the US, and have far fewer benifits and protections after they leave, so this would be a good oppertunity for someone.
Also, it's only 10% less than Atmel are offering graduate R&D engineers at their touch screen R&D facility down the road. Outside California and London, people just don't get paid very much.
"Develop and trial new technology for wargaming as well as maintaining existing capabilities, such as combat models, computer simulations and array of manual wargames"
> they mean guys running around a field
War games it not guys running around in a field. It's the absolute opposite of that. It's simulating, instead of running around in a field.
> In the UK, regular soldiers are paid much less than in the US
No, a UK private soldier is paid $24,631, while a US private soldier $19,198. A UK major $67,171, while a US major $55,231.
To be clear, your first quote ("devolop and trial") is what they (the lab as a whole) do, what the potential hire will do is listed lower:
You will:
- Assist in the design and development of wargames,
translating customer requirements into practicable
designs based on credible overarching scenarios and
vignettes.
They're wanting a wargamer to do wargaming and aid in the development of the technology, but not actually be the developer (programmer, systems engineer, tester, etc.). This is even clearer when you get down to the qualifications where they say they're open to people with history degrees amongst other options.
They want experts in simulations, which can be computerized or not.
n the UK, regular soldiers are paid much less than in the US
British Army Private £18,488 Lance Corporal £25,524, that's $24,633 and $34,007 respectively according to Bing. US Army is $19,198 and $25,066 respectively. Obviously cost of living etc is different, but British soldiers are comparatively well paid.
have far fewer benifits and protections after they leave
This is true. The way we treat our veterans is appalling. Upon leaving the Army they are basically disowned and discarded by the government (both parties) and it is up to the charity sector. Even discrimination based on veteran or reserve status is perfectly legal here[1]. One charity I actively support is https://supportourparas.org
[1] One reason the AR has no hope of reaching its target of 30k trained reservists. The TA 20 years ago managed 70k!
If I leave a company I’m basically discarded by that company. I worked for the U.K. government and I’ve got a reasonable pension and nothing else. Why should soldiers be any different? It’s just a job.
Most jobs do not require you to undergo an institutionalising training process, nor to place yourself at risk of violent death, nor to move house or even country every couple of years, nor many other things.
Well, it was your choice to work for the UK gov, why should you be entitled to a gold-plated final salary pension? Because it's - supposedly - a reasonable expectation for the opportunity cost of taking a different kind of job than you would find working for a corporation. Nowadays of course public sector salaries outstrip the private sector, so probably the pension should be scrapped.
Public sector jobs pay maybe better than market in rural and economically dead areas of the UK.
In the South East, they generally pay worse.
If you don't believe me, go find your job in the civil service website and remember there is no salary negotiation.
Senior civil servants make good bank though and have very nice revolving door opportunities, so it's a good career option financially if you expect to get there (i.e. elite education and very good at debates).
The final salary pensions you mention have mostly been closed to new entrants - now you just buy into a fund and cash it for an annuity like anywhere else, with like 3-5% employer matched contributions.
Existing staff often still have them but can get pushed off them during reorgs so I figure they will be completely gone in about 10 years.
I think that it’s a job that the soldier chooses to do, and were I to do that and suffer injuries (mental or physical) I’d expect to be treated by the NHS in the same way that I’d expect an industrial accident to be treated, or a first respinder’s PTSD to be treated. It shouldn’t be held apart, because holding apart leads to hero worship, which leads to the wrong kind of nationalism. It’s insidious.
I don't agree with any kind of hero worship or 'thank you for your service' either! It makes me cringe.
But it really doesn't make any sense to argue that 'it's just a job'. That's simply technically wrong.
A soldier is subject to a whole additional legal system to civilians. They can go to prison if they don't do the work they're told to do. They can go to prison if they leave before their contract is us. They can be told to do something that they know will get them killed. None of these things are anything like any other job.
That’s reasonable, but maybe the answer is to dismantle the additional legal framework about that industry? I’ve not seen any desire to do so, but that doesn’t mean the conversation isn’t worth having.
We know that UK veterans get relatively poor treatment from the NHS, especially for mental illness.
This is partly because there's often comorbid alcohol problems, and removing alcohol services from the NHS and dumping them in public health (eg, underfunded LAs) has been catastrophic. And there's often lack of clarity about what gets treated first - the mental ill health or the alcohol misuse, so people get ping-ponged between services.
You mention PTSD: Soldiers find it hard to engage with NHS mental health services because their experiences are so far out of the mainstream.
I know that staff at 2gether NHS Foundation Trust[1] needed extra support because they were being told stuff that was so distressing they were getting sub-threshold PTSD themselves.
For these reasons the Armed Forces Covenant is a good idea. We're not yet giving veterans equal treatment to the rest of the population.
[1] who provide MH services across gloucestershire and Herefordshire
Why should soldiers be any different? It’s just a job.
No, it isn't. People who serve in the armed forces and their families have a different lifestyle to almost anyone else. They make many sacrifices and lack many protections at work that others enjoy, for obvious reasons. They are trained in ways that profoundly affect them psychologically, because they may be forced to see or do things that in an ideal world no-one should ever have to see or do, and neither their mindset nor their experiences of those awful things just magically change back to normal when they're discharged. While serving in the forces may develop some admirable character traits and in some cases some very useful practical skills that would serve them well in other fields after they leave, that does not go for everyone, and many ex-forces personnel have great difficulty adapting back to civilian life, even if they've had a good military career.
Abandoning people almost immediately after they've been through that, as if they're just leaving behind a web site they used to run or some clients whose accounts they used to put in a spreadsheet, is somewhere near the wrong end of the inhumane/unethical scale.
> and have far fewer benifits and protections after they leave
Really? From what I’ve heard, the American benefits system is so messed up that literally everyone in the UK gets better benefits than anyone earning less than about $50k in the US can hope to afford even with assistance from their employer. And that’s just regarding health insurance.
I think crucially British soldiers do not get the funded university education that US soldiers do when they leave.
But that's because the UK does not have the same culture of young men going into the Army for a few years before going to college. In the UK if you wanted to go to college you'd do that before you joined the Army, and there are bursaries for that.
Hm. Student loans in the UK are certainly problematic. I think they’re better than US student loans, but UK loans might have become worse without me noticing.
Edit: also notable is the UK has a (basically free) qualification between highschool and university degree, as UK “secondary schools” finish 1 year before US highschool, and university starts 2 years after secondary school ends.
Factor in the civil service pension scheme (worth an extra ~20% of salary) and level of holiday you get and it looks rather more attractive. Based on my contacts there DSTL is also a very good place to work, with plenty of interesting stuff to get involved in.
I understand what you're saying, but the notability of the role would get lost in a general hiring post.
If you're suggesting it's simply impossible to discuss notable job descriptions on their own, that would be a bit sad. Alternatively, if it's that this isn't sufficiently notable, I guess that's arguable, but I found it interesting :|
"On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."
Don't find that UK's defence is hiring a wargames designer is curious?
I'd argue that, though this is an advert for a job, the reason it was posted here was for its news/interest value - the people reading it are unlikely to be applicants.
Quite true, but I think the other users are probably right that it wasn't posted qua ad but repurposed for curiosity. A salt shaker isn't a chess piece but it is if you use it as one.
Either something odd's going on and past submissions have been removed, or there's only two things from service.gov.uk. One of which is this and the other from 531 days ago doesn't appear to be allowing comments. Not saying you're wrong, but your link isn't backing you up so you may want to double check it's the one you intended.
They don't allow comments because the links are too old. But I was referring to the comment history of the accounts posting those links, not to the links themselves.
If it gets to be more of a problem we'll arrive at your view soon enough, and more importantly, I appreciate your watching out for the quality of HN. On that we agree fully.
This is the UK's Defence Science & Technology Laboratory, I'm wagering this is on a military base. The same perks are offered to most US civilians working on military bases as well.
Aren't the same perks offered by most workplaces? Every place I've ever worked, military and civilian alike, have offered some kind of gym and some kind of food on the premises.
No? I've never had those perks outside of working at universities or military bases. Perhaps in bigger cities? I've generally stayed in small cities though.
The website for the Connections UK, a yearly "Professional Wargaming" conference has photos and presentation slides/audio that give a good idea what this kind of wargaming involves:
I recognize the name Jim Wallman from "megagames," which are board games/wargames played by 30-60 players over several hours. The most popular of these is Watch the Skies, which pits nations against each other as well as unseen aliens.
This video is long, but a good introduction to Wallman's work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hN71v9H_gg8 Prior to this video being released, megagames were mostly played in the UK, but now they are played all over the United States.
The photos in this article look similar to my recreational experiences playing megagames, so I'm not surprised that he is able to handle wargame design for an actual military.
Oh yeah! A topic I know and about people I actually know!
> Basically, very complex board games that are intended to simulate real-world strategic situations.
Yes, and they aren't just war games. They are games involving humanitarian crisis's and what not. See the game Aftershock[0] as an example (both designers are friends of mine).
The reality is, using games to "game out scenarios" are an interesting tool, even in tech. Think about things like game days, where you take down parts of a service to see what happens. Its better to solve these problems in a "game" rather than in the real world. Think beyond war, but anything that involves challenges.
"AFTERSHOCK: A Humanitarian Crisis Game is a boardgame that explores the interagency cooperation needed to address the emergency and early recovery phase of a complex humanitarian crisis."
In 1942, Admiral Yamato of Imperial Japanese Navy presided over a wargame of upcoming battle in/around Midway, before heading out to the famous Midway Battle.
He was dead set on going through with the attempted landing on the Midway Island. There were ones below him who thought it wouldn't succeed.
The wargame showed the invasion wouldn't succeed. Admiral Yamato (or his aides?) brushed aside Japanese loses and even brought back Japanese carriers that got sunk in the wargame (basically cheated) to basically force a victory for the Japanese fleet.
And of course Japanese fleet was defeated massively. US Navy got few critical lucky breaks but the Japanese wargame predicted a defeat for Japanese fleet.
56 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 119 ms ] thread'Executive' in this case means 'getting on actually doing the work', and 'officer' means you are responsible for a particular job.
I know in the US 'executive' means management but when you think about what the actual word means that isn't universal.
Not so when I look at Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon and on and on...
The ideal candidate is probably a retired soldier.
In the UK, regular soldiers are paid much less than in the US, and have far fewer benifits and protections after they leave, so this would be a good oppertunity for someone.
Also, it's only 10% less than Atmel are offering graduate R&D engineers at their touch screen R&D facility down the road. Outside California and London, people just don't get paid very much.
> It's not a tech job
"Develop and trial new technology for wargaming as well as maintaining existing capabilities, such as combat models, computer simulations and array of manual wargames"
> they mean guys running around a field
War games it not guys running around in a field. It's the absolute opposite of that. It's simulating, instead of running around in a field.
> In the UK, regular soldiers are paid much less than in the US
No, a UK private soldier is paid $24,631, while a US private soldier $19,198. A UK major $67,171, while a US major $55,231.
https://www.army.mod.uk/documents/general/Ratesofpay-Regular...
https://www.goarmy.com/benefits/money/basic-pay-active-duty-...
They want experts in simulations, which can be computerized or not.
British Army Private £18,488 Lance Corporal £25,524, that's $24,633 and $34,007 respectively according to Bing. US Army is $19,198 and $25,066 respectively. Obviously cost of living etc is different, but British soldiers are comparatively well paid.
have far fewer benifits and protections after they leave
This is true. The way we treat our veterans is appalling. Upon leaving the Army they are basically disowned and discarded by the government (both parties) and it is up to the charity sector. Even discrimination based on veteran or reserve status is perfectly legal here[1]. One charity I actively support is https://supportourparas.org
[1] One reason the AR has no hope of reaching its target of 30k trained reservists. The TA 20 years ago managed 70k!
In the South East, they generally pay worse.
If you don't believe me, go find your job in the civil service website and remember there is no salary negotiation.
Senior civil servants make good bank though and have very nice revolving door opportunities, so it's a good career option financially if you expect to get there (i.e. elite education and very good at debates).
The final salary pensions you mention have mostly been closed to new entrants - now you just buy into a fund and cash it for an annuity like anywhere else, with like 3-5% employer matched contributions.
Existing staff often still have them but can get pushed off them during reorgs so I figure they will be completely gone in about 10 years.
Veterans are hero-worshipped by comparison. I actually feel the police deserve more respect.
(At least the British police - can't say I have the same affection for the American police, at least based on the news reports over here...).
But it really doesn't make any sense to argue that 'it's just a job'. That's simply technically wrong.
A soldier is subject to a whole additional legal system to civilians. They can go to prison if they don't do the work they're told to do. They can go to prison if they leave before their contract is us. They can be told to do something that they know will get them killed. None of these things are anything like any other job.
Except that a soldier can't even expect that (yes RAF I know but still) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/11892935/RAF-...
This is partly because there's often comorbid alcohol problems, and removing alcohol services from the NHS and dumping them in public health (eg, underfunded LAs) has been catastrophic. And there's often lack of clarity about what gets treated first - the mental ill health or the alcohol misuse, so people get ping-ponged between services.
You mention PTSD: Soldiers find it hard to engage with NHS mental health services because their experiences are so far out of the mainstream.
I know that staff at 2gether NHS Foundation Trust[1] needed extra support because they were being told stuff that was so distressing they were getting sub-threshold PTSD themselves.
For these reasons the Armed Forces Covenant is a good idea. We're not yet giving veterans equal treatment to the rest of the population.
[1] who provide MH services across gloucestershire and Herefordshire
No, it isn't. People who serve in the armed forces and their families have a different lifestyle to almost anyone else. They make many sacrifices and lack many protections at work that others enjoy, for obvious reasons. They are trained in ways that profoundly affect them psychologically, because they may be forced to see or do things that in an ideal world no-one should ever have to see or do, and neither their mindset nor their experiences of those awful things just magically change back to normal when they're discharged. While serving in the forces may develop some admirable character traits and in some cases some very useful practical skills that would serve them well in other fields after they leave, that does not go for everyone, and many ex-forces personnel have great difficulty adapting back to civilian life, even if they've had a good military career.
Abandoning people almost immediately after they've been through that, as if they're just leaving behind a web site they used to run or some clients whose accounts they used to put in a spreadsheet, is somewhere near the wrong end of the inhumane/unethical scale.
Really? From what I’ve heard, the American benefits system is so messed up that literally everyone in the UK gets better benefits than anyone earning less than about $50k in the US can hope to afford even with assistance from their employer. And that’s just regarding health insurance.
But that's because the UK does not have the same culture of young men going into the Army for a few years before going to college. In the UK if you wanted to go to college you'd do that before you joined the Army, and there are bursaries for that.
Edit: also notable is the UK has a (basically free) qualification between highschool and university degree, as UK “secondary schools” finish 1 year before US highschool, and university starts 2 years after secondary school ends.
Although I realise that deciding where you draw the line for "interesting job descriptions" is very blurry.
If you're suggesting it's simply impossible to discuss notable job descriptions on their own, that would be a bit sad. Alternatively, if it's that this isn't sufficiently notable, I guess that's arguable, but I found it interesting :|
"On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."
Don't find that UK's defence is hiring a wargames designer is curious?
If you feel that it is interesting then you're welcome to upvote the entry.
See:
https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=service.gov.uk
Which has a bunch of such submissions, always by 0 comment HN participants. It's most likely someone trying to fish the HN pool for applicants.
That it's borderline interesting is just a nice little hook to get around the rules. But feel free to undo my flag.
If it gets to be more of a problem we'll arrive at your view soon enough, and more importantly, I appreciate your watching out for the quality of HN. On that we agree fully.
how long until accommodation becomes part of the package.
http://professionalwargaming.co.uk/2017.html
Basically, very complex board games that are intended to simulate real-world strategic situations.
http://professionalwargaming.co.uk/17-20170906_192955.jpg
"Oh no, not THAT story again..."
This video is long, but a good introduction to Wallman's work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hN71v9H_gg8 Prior to this video being released, megagames were mostly played in the UK, but now they are played all over the United States.
The photos in this article look similar to my recreational experiences playing megagames, so I'm not surprised that he is able to handle wargame design for an actual military.
> Basically, very complex board games that are intended to simulate real-world strategic situations.
Yes, and they aren't just war games. They are games involving humanitarian crisis's and what not. See the game Aftershock[0] as an example (both designers are friends of mine).
The reality is, using games to "game out scenarios" are an interesting tool, even in tech. Think about things like game days, where you take down parts of a service to see what happens. Its better to solve these problems in a "game" rather than in the real world. Think beyond war, but anything that involves challenges.
"AFTERSHOCK: A Humanitarian Crisis Game is a boardgame that explores the interagency cooperation needed to address the emergency and early recovery phase of a complex humanitarian crisis."
Some really interesting things.
[0] https://paxsims.wordpress.com/aftershock/
He was dead set on going through with the attempted landing on the Midway Island. There were ones below him who thought it wouldn't succeed.
The wargame showed the invasion wouldn't succeed. Admiral Yamato (or his aides?) brushed aside Japanese loses and even brought back Japanese carriers that got sunk in the wargame (basically cheated) to basically force a victory for the Japanese fleet.
And of course Japanese fleet was defeated massively. US Navy got few critical lucky breaks but the Japanese wargame predicted a defeat for Japanese fleet.
Apologies.