Public Sector IT vs Private sector IT?

Bchen22

What would be the difference?
Anybody ever worked in both sectors in terms of IT?
What would be pros and cons?

Kragster

I just started a public sector job this year (local government) after 12 years coming up the ranks in private sector. Here's how I see the major differences at least where I'm at if you compared identical jobs at both. And remember this is just my experience, different private sector companies will be completely different from one another.

Public Sector:
-less money, almost no raises
-limited or no budget for training/conferences, etc
-a LOT less stress, I rarely work more then 45 hours a week
-extremely good retirement benefits if you work 20-30 years.
-lots of paid holidays

Private Sector
-more money (in general)
-more training/conference opportunities
-more stress, rarely worked less then 50 hours/week at my last job, and 60 was common
-possibility for raises (depends on the company)

To sum up, if you're still wanting to advance to a higher position, private sector gives you the most opportunities for that. If you want to focus more on other things like spending time with family and retirement then public sector is definitely worth a look at.

Just to reiterate, this is my opinion based on my experiences. YMMV

Verities

I've worked in both and concur with Kragster. However, you also have more job security/stability in the public sector.

bryanthetechie

If you get a job with a large state university, you get free classes/degrees Great perk for us academic junkies.

dave330i

Many public retirement funds are underfunded. They may offer only fraction of what was guaranteed.

eansdad

I agree somewhat, being a public sector IT employee that was laid off and knowing of other county and local shops that have done the same it isn't any safer for job security unless you mean being fired. Public sector usually does have raises, small ones but raises (maybe 1-3% right now). Be prepared to be paid less then your worth as people with more time their will make more even if you've been doing it longer and/or have more education and certs. We had 1 person who was fairly clueless but was making $70k/yr simply because he'd been their 25 years. We also had a guy who knew his stuff and has a BS in Networking that was making $35k, you get the point.

Don't count on the pension. Pension systems are falling through and the popular thing is to screw the public sector workers. If Christie becomes president watch out...

The stress level is pretty low but so is the ability to further yourself.

For what it is worth I would go/stay with private sector.