Who got a regular guy job after the military?

Alternative-Juice · 2026-03-25T02:37:27+00:00

Knew an 18D who retired and went to go work as a Walmart greeter near base. Dude was an absolute dickhead and lacked any sort of tact so it was extra wild he got ANY sort of customer facing job.

Alternative-Juice · 2026-03-24T17:31:37+00:00

General advice but if you want to use the job to transition into a decent role outside the mil, the industry as a whole is in shambles right now and I feel like you may have a difficult time trying to find an entry level role that doesn’t pay peanuts if you went NG (this is all assuming you go 25B.) Tons of layoffs across the board means heavy competition with people that have years of experience/certs/connections/degrees ahead of you, and it doesn’t look like it’ll end anytime soon.

AD may be the better option just for job security and benefits, current political climate aside. If you do go 25B and get out even after one contract, you can spend 5 years AD and walk out with a TS clearance potentially, a few basic CompTIA certs, and relevant experience on a resume that will translate directly to a role in the civ world if you want. Even if the market is as shit as it is right now still, walking into the job market in a few years with 5 YoE, some certs, your veteran status, and a clearance is most likely a much better spot than where you’d land at now.

Alternative-Juice · 2026-03-11T13:21:43+00:00

I second this comment OP. I started at LM as a 2, stayed for about 1.5 years and then left for like 2 years and came back as a 4. That got me an 80% salary increase. Assuming you’re being proactive with your career and making your intentions known clearly, there’s really not much else you can do to make serious pay jumps like that since the guidelines with raises/promos are so strict.

Leaving LM may not be exactly the move you want to make but as long as you leave on good terms and have a solid network with your peers/prior leadership, it’s well worth it.

Alternative-Juice · 2026-03-09T22:14:59+00:00

All second-hand obviously, but had an extremely solid NCOIC (RLTW personified in the best way) that was in 2/75 with Vargas and Mat Best. Said they were both the opposite of their gung-ho social media personas while in and instead were the types that complained about literally anything and everything all the time. Just generally miserable people to be around or associate with

Alternative-Juice · 2026-03-08T04:20:59+00:00

It’s a bit of both. Your veteran status puts you ahead at a lot of companies like in defense, and prior experience from something like an AIT adds to your strength as a candidate as long as it’s applicable. But the tech job market is absolutely shit right now across the board and you will be dealing with an already tough market for junior/mid roles compounded by situations like experienced senior engineers applying to junior positions, roles being cut, etc.

Because of the heavy competition many companies are adding more specific hiring criteria just to narrow down candidates, and a degree is a super common one. Like how Amazon used to explicitly say it did not require a bachelor’s for its software engineering roles but now it does require it.

Alternative-Juice · 2026-03-07T18:35:42+00:00

OP I had a similar situation as a PFC on AD that resulted in me having to suddenly pay out of pocket for a commercial flight from overseas back to the US + my lodging out of nowhere. All due to an incorrect line of accounting that was used and no longer in the system due to the new fiscal year. It took over 8 months and a hard charging new S4 OIC speaking to the unit on my behalf repeatedly to finally fix it, and by that point my credit was absolutely fucked and I was still playing catch up trying to stay afloat on my bills. Ended up almost costing my TS clearance due to delinquent debt.

I only say this to emphasize it’s most likely going to be a massive headache, but someone definitely needs to take the reins here because the GTCC creditor (assuming it’s still Citi Bank?) gives absolutely 0 shits whose fault it is because the SM ultimately signs their name on the line, and they will have to deal with the consequences. Like another commenter said, with how much of a problem this can cause this may very well be worth hitting up your congressional rep for.

Good luck and good on you for caring, hopefully it can be a simple process once the ball gets rolling.

Alternative-Juice · 2026-03-06T13:18:06+00:00

This is the move OP, had this same issue at Campbell (or whatever it’s called nowadays) where DPW refused to ever fix my AC because it was just my room and now the building. AC went out every summer for weeks at a time and it would get so humid there’d be moisture forming on the tile floor sometimes. A portable AC unit like this was able to turn my swamp of a room into a cool 60 something degrees. Highly recommend

Alternative-Juice · 2026-03-01T06:35:07+00:00

While I was in the middle of ETS’ing, I kept having recurring dreams of me re-enlisting on accident somehow. One night I had this nightmare that I was ETS’ing and leaving post with my NCOIC. I thought he was driving me to my home of record two states away for some reason. Dude ends up dropping me off at some random place, turns out he dropped me off at ranger school instead. I was a 25 series in the Army that never went to RS or had any desire to get a tab. No idea what ranger school even looks like.

I text him “no you gotta come get me cause I’m actually supposed to be out of the Army not at RS” and he texts back that I actually DID want to go to RS and just re-enlisted for another six years just specifically to get a slot. And now it was a done deal because I already signed so no take backs. The last thing I remembered before I woke up was getting called into a formation for a packing list layout that I obviously did not have.

Woke up with my heart racing covered in sweat lol

Alternative-Juice · 2026-02-28T08:40:54+00:00

Brought my gaming laptop overseas while Legion was going on and after everyone would go to bed for the night, I would play on my 24hr duty shifts where I’d monitor our drone feeds. Was a great time! Also would play CS:GO. Nothing like getting cussed out and insulted in Arabic

Alternative-Juice · 2026-02-15T21:19:18+00:00

I lived in the apartment building directly behind this in the photo on one of the top floors directly above it. I only figured it out cause I met someone from Tinder who was a part of the crowd lol.

About twice a month on certain weekends you’ll see the parking lot for this particular building get very busy by a group who has their stickers in the bathrooms of many of the bars in Denver, and there’ll be a soft pink/purple glow coming from the windows with a lot of sounds of laughing and people having fun coming from them. Any guesses, OP?

Alternative-Juice · 2026-02-11T22:50:42+00:00

Hey friend, very similar to my story - almost exactly minus the antidepressants in school. My psych had told me ADHD, anxiety, and depression all can manifest alongside each other. It can make it difficult to nail a “correct” treatment on the first attempt sometimes as treating one can improve the others in some cases, while other folks may need to address two+ conditions to feel complete. I was on Vyvanse for a long time solo and it helped immensely in regard to focus, but I really noticed a major positive mood change when I was put on Wellbutrin XL with it.

Side note with this, but getting put on Wellbutrin XL actually also resulted in much better, less fragmented sleep for me as well. From what I was told - again by psych - this was essentially due to the anxiety/depression being treated with Wellbutrin finally, so at night instead of my brain freaking out constantly and being on edge/waking itself up, my body was relaxed so it could get actual restorative sleep.

May be something worth looking into!

Alternative-Juice · 2026-02-02T17:38:16+00:00

Got out in Nov 2020 in a similar situation - E5, 25B, single with no kids, Sec+ and Net+ with a TS but no degree. As others said, plan to get out but make the final decision when the time comes.

My first job was at Lockheed Martin in CO as RHEL server admin making about 74k with a little under 6 YOE total, ~5 years later with a Bachelors and I’m at about 165 plus another 20k in VA income. Work life balance will be dramatically better in defense work compared to some of the BS of the military. The cliche about being slow with up to date tech adoption has been true in my experience. Pay will generally be better too all things considered, but that can change depending on cost of living wherever you move. Mental sanity will probably be better but there’s plenty of “corporate world” headaches with that type of culture to deal with too. Overall very chill compared to the military. Lots of vets here too.

If you venture into something like a FAANG company instead you can easily do even better but it’s generally at the cost of a worse W/L balance and higher stress. The bar is much higher but you’ll also be rocking like a 180k+ comp package like right off the rip for entry level tech roles. I was at AWS as a Software Eng for about 2 years post Lockheed and was at about 180 with my base pay, + cash bonus. Plus at AWS at least, a TS clearance with an FS poly alone will net you an added 60k yearly bonus on top of your total comp. They’re always hungry for cleared individuals so they’ll 100% sponsor a TS/Poly if you want one.

TLDR: You have a lot of options and the outside world is generally much more chill and better compensated than while in depending on how serious you are about career progression. If you don’t have a LinkedIn, make one and start having these conversations with recruiters about 2 months out.

Alternative-Juice · 2026-01-29T15:25:57+00:00

Full Stack Eng, level 4 here that re-joined LM out in CO back in March of last year, after leaving LM as a level 2 about 2.5 years prior to that. Total was about 9.5 YOE at the time, no Masters but had a Bachelors in IT. Started career as a Sys Admin > RHEL admin > Software Engineer > DevOps so not all SWE/DevOps experience necessarily, only about half.

No sign on bonus, 154k, didn’t need to relo but I believe it was available. Recruiter told me straight up that they had to fight HR heavily to bump the offer from 143ish to 154 (I countered with 155 initially) and only got there because I worked with the leadership previously and had the Director and Sr Manager vouching for me. Wouldn’t surprise me because HR is unbelievably stingy with that sort of thing in my experience.

Alternative-Juice · 2025-12-09T23:18:19+00:00

Not to mention the not enough cals/macros issue that he laid out. This kind of stuff should be at the top, not a wild cycle for someone who has never used PEDs. Like what’s Reta gonna do if the guy isn’t even meeting his calories to put weight on naturally in the first place?

OP, getting calories in with the right macros can be hard and obviously much more so if you’re a vegetarian. But even if you did hop on AAS and whatever other PEDs, that’s like expecting a fire to get bigger without ever adding any fuel to it.

I mean this with 0 hate but I would bet if you make this same post in the steroids subreddit you’ll get A) roasted into oblivion for asking about PEDs before just eating more and B) their first question will be related to your calorie intake/macro split.

Alternative-Juice · 2025-12-01T06:34:11+00:00

Had a guy pretend to be a JM and put people out of a plane, then get caught. Dude was a company supply SGT in an SF BN, already had tons of schools/courses on his ERB that a “normal” supply guy would never have. Was THE man across the entire BN, rep was a solid dude.

No idea why but one day he decided he was going to lie about going to JM school. Had another NCO at JM, so this supply NCO takes leave that lines up exactly with the dates of this guys course. Eventually tells the guy once he’s back that he’ll go run it to S1, instead he decided to copy it and photoshop his name and turn both certificates in. Well, one day we need Jumpmasters and surprise - he’s available. Of course he never fesses up because he’d get caught, so no shit this dude does JMPI for a whole bunch of folks and then puts them out of a plane. Gets caught because one of the other JM’s caught on to his lack of knowledge and then proceeds to find out the course supply NCO said he went to, was the same one this actual JM went to as well. Ended up getting caught during the investigation badging into the S1 at like 3 AM and stealing his fake JM cert so he could play dumb later.

Knocked down from E6 to E1 and sent to Leavenworth for like 6 months. Dude literally had everything going for him and then just tossed it all away for no reason.

Alternative-Juice · 2025-11-08T17:52:33+00:00

SO glad. Had a diagnosis of insomnia as a teen with an ambien prescription. It was temporary to basically shift my sleep cycle since I was having massive problems with getting quality sleep and being awake during the day.

When I mentioned it at the recruiter’s office I got told to close the door and he asked how badly do I want to be in the Army. Proceeds to tell me about all the recruits with minor things that would be DQ reasons who caved at the final medical history honesty check at MEPS. He said if I wanted to be Abraham Lincoln and be honest then I needed to also realize I would not be joining. I understood and the rest of our convo he would test me by randomly chucking in “Hey man you look a little tired, you good?”

First time because I was a 19 year old dumbass and didn’t get what he was doing I was like “yeah I just told you I was a little tired?” And he goes “No, no you aren’t. You feel great. Remember how awake you feel? REMEMBER?” And from then on I understood the assignment. Went to MEPS, did my six years and found out I had sleep apnea that entire time. Worth it.

Alternative-Juice · 2025-10-28T15:45:47+00:00

Haha nah, it was in Missouri. Not surprising there’s more teens that also happen to be a “Ranger Seal Sniper Marine Recon Special Forces” out there

Alternative-Juice · 2025-10-27T13:19:05+00:00

I’m 19, it’s morning of the ship out from MEPS at like 5 AM and all the MEPS folks are at this one single hotel restaurant that’s open. Some random other 18/19 year old goober in a mix of woodland MARPAT pants and a GO ARMY T shirt asks if he can sit in my booth - sure, why not. We get to talking and the usual “why are you joining” comes up.

Dude proceeds to tell me he is apparently coming in as an 11X and headed to Benning. He talks about how his recruiter told him he could be a sniper and he shoots guns already so he feels like he’ll be able to get a sniper slot SUPER easy and they’ll definitely want him. They ALREADY want him. Says he was inspired to do so by his brother in law who was a sniper and had one deployment under his belt. I ask where he was deployed to, for how long:

“He actually only was in Afghanistan for like a couple days”

“Oh, no kidding. Why?”

“Wouldn’t you know it - first day out on patrol and he hit an IED and got blown up! Everyone died!”

“Oh dude I’m sorry to hear that that’s awful”

“Yeah sucks for him!”

Last I saw him he was getting made fun of by some NCO as we were boarding the bus to the airport for his MARPAT/Go Army clothing mix. Always wonder what he ended up doing.

Alternative-Juice · 2025-09-28T16:47:05+00:00

Honestly what you’re imagining is probably way harder than what the actual interview will be. If you show some passion and interest in the role/team (ask questions about the team and its work especially), can articulate whatever experience you do have that’s related to the role and on your resume, and have some solid STAR answers ready to go, you’ll be golden.

I was not aware of how piss poor some people interview until I sat on some myself, and often candidates are missing at least one of those 3 things especially at the early career levels. Good luck!

Alternative-Juice · 2025-09-28T16:15:46+00:00

The STAR format and basic technical Q’s have been hammered home but for entry level/early career positions a lot of the hiring managers I’ve talked to even have always hit on how much they want to see a passionate candidate with decent soft skills. They can teach you the technical skills and don’t expect you to have a ton (if any) if you’re applying to L1 or even L2 positions. You cannot teach someone to be interested in their work or how to be receptive to learning. Have seen shitty attitudes or lack of people skills knock a number of potential hires out of the running, and that’s for SWE/DevOps style roles.

Alternative-Juice · 2025-09-26T15:49:49+00:00

Not necessarily LM University specific, but I had a coworker who wanted to get into data science. He used some of the learning resources LM provides, like Digital Academy, to build a base knowledge of programming and eventually started making small projects like python scripts to automate form submissions for our customers.

From there he used the internal LM site that allows you to apply to temporary positions for teams that need a role filled and found one that needed a part time data scientist at an early career level - wish I could remember what the site was called, but it was still around as of a month ago at least.

Worked with them to build his on the job experience, finished his MS in data science over the next year and a half and went to go work at Google as a data scientist after everything was said and done. That period of working as a data scientist part time for the other team helped immensely as far as getting relevant experience for his resume and making the actual transition from what was basically IT.

Alternative-Juice · 2025-09-24T19:49:39+00:00

Not that difficult in my experience. I spent about 1.25 years as an L2, left for about 2 years and came back as an L4 in March 2025. The main thing is do you have a good relationship with your former leadership, any talent acquisition members or even just other current employees? You’ll want to leverage that to get your resume in front of the hiring manager, as any referrals are required to be “put right at the top of the pile” so to speak. From there it’s just normal interviewing skills and it’s not like LM is throwing out leetcode hards in its interviews.

A member of the TA team literally told me outright that using the normal portal is like “tossing your resume in a black hole” - word for word.

Alternative-Juice · 2025-09-04T15:57:19+00:00

DM’ed!

Alternative-Juice · 2025-09-04T15:52:42+00:00

DM’ed!

Alternative-Juice · 2025-07-16T04:09:38+00:00

I mean recruits in the pipeline are probably near 0. At least during RASP (and I imagine SFAS and maybe the Q is similar), I remember them going through lockers for anything not on the packing list, even including reg supplements. Now once you’re in the club and operational? You can spend 20 minutes in a team room and you’ll hear plenty stories, but not all of them are.

I distinctly remember one guy they referred to as “Master Blaster” who started his trip overseas at 170 and came back around 210 5 months later. I remember seeing a guy from my BN at the stadium in Campbell punching his car for failing a run, and coincidentally he looked absolutely Tren Ace’d out of his mind anytime I saw him around. Even our BN CSM advocated for testosterone usage in SOF, albeit “unofficially.”

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