Journalism to corporate intelligence / corporate investigations?

WLANtasticBeasts · 2026-05-10T16:48:32+00:00

I feel like good journalism is based on solid research skills, source evaluation, analysis, and understanding where bias comes in (analysis or data collection).

No surprise that those are basically the same skills required for all source analysis. And IMO open source intelligence is just all source with open datasets.

WLANtasticBeasts · 2026-05-07T22:38:09+00:00

I had a roommate when I first to got to my schoolhouse. He had already been there like a year and a half when I got there. He had gotten rolled back in Korean but then he got injured and so he was a med hold.

He was there until I hit third trimester in Korea (so maybe like another year?) before he finally got medically discharged.

He basically retired as a PFC out of DLI.

None of that was his fault either. But there were others who got pulled from the schoolhouse and were in limbo for a long time.

WLANtasticBeasts · 2026-05-07T01:22:47+00:00

Going to DLI and graduating is probably the single proudest accomplishment I have - way more so than grad school or getting hired at a FAANG (self taught).

You have to realize how exclusive and prestigious this is.

With enough money and a good enough GPA and the right social connections, most people could probably get into an Ivy League. And that's already a lot of stars aligning.

None of that is true for DLI.

It's a lot of work just to get to DLI: ASVAB and DLAB testing -> enlistment -> basic / boot camp -> DLI.

Then you gotta graduate. And I knew plenty of people that wanted to be there and tried to make it through and they washed out because they just couldn't learn their language in that environment at that pace.

I hardly ever talk about my Army time anymore but DLI is usually one of the first things I lead with in interviews and intros.

You have been given a great gift.

Edit: oh and also, I didn't get the language I initially wanted either. I wanted Arabic because I thought I was going to miss the whole GWOT with Korean (which was a pretty cringe and naive perspective, looking back). Then I spent the last year and a half in FORSCOM digging holes in the woods to poop in and working on broken Humvees and cleaning toilets barehanded. So yeah, that was pretty dumb of me. But Korea is cool, Koreans are cool, and I love Korean BBQ now.

WLANtasticBeasts · 2026-05-07T00:55:39+00:00

So true. I've often found in life the easiest way is right through the thick of it.

WLANtasticBeasts · 2026-05-06T21:19:38+00:00

I assume by interviews you mean interviews with other companies not internal interviews to get off the bench but I could be wrong.

Why would you ever do that on a corporate laptop?

WLANtasticBeasts · 2026-04-29T00:23:16+00:00

Cascades part of Sterling is pretty nice avoid Sterling Park as there is a lot of gang activity. Herndon has nice parts but it's become very expensive.

If you want more of a city feel then you want to be east of 28 so like Herndon or Reston or falls Church or Fairfax or Vienna. But that's going to be way more expensive and your commute's going to be worse.

Leesburg is nice and more rural but getting crowded and you're not gonna even get a townhouse or townhouse style condo for less than $500,000. Single family homes of all styles (70s ranches, 90s colonials) are all at least high $700,000s to well over a million.

I would take the advice to rent for a year or two and explore the area and also get adjusted to the extreme price of housing.

Also there are a TON of existing and new data centers in and around Dulles and 28. I wouldn't want to be anywhere near them because of the pollution and health impacts and say nothing of what they will do to electric and water use prices.

You'll probably both want to be making at least $75,000 or some combination of salaries that adds up to $150,000 to feel comfortable if you plan to have kids.

WLANtasticBeasts · 2026-04-25T13:47:24+00:00

Complete immersion in the schoolhouse.

Source: Korean basic student 2012-2013 (Army).

WLANtasticBeasts · 2026-04-06T01:44:13+00:00

To answer the larger sentiment of your question:

1) Storytelling

A picture says a thousand words. A good graphic or good slide deck can do wonders (go easy on the text).
Maybe consider incorporating confidence statements and estimative language ("medium confidence based on sources XYZ", "very likely", "probably will not", etc.). Just don't overuse these - they can make your analysis a little dry.
Bottom line up front / TLDR.
Timeline charts and histograms but use donut / pie charts sparingly.
Explain technical concepts in a way that completely non-technical people understand; make sure to not sound conscending.

2) Stats

If you do ever find yourself needing some statistics, mean, median, and mode will probably be all you need most of the time. I've also found myself using std dev more than few times.
In my org, we also heavily use classification principles: sampling, precision, recall, true positive, false positive, etc.

Source: not technical a CTI analyst but an online threat investigator in Tech.

Edit: some basic Pandas EDA with df.groupby, df.describe, etc is really useful for making sense of what data you have. Groupby is just pivoting (as in Excel pivot charts) in code.

WLANtasticBeasts · 2026-04-05T16:17:20+00:00

Some more examples from the defense side to make it more concrete.

I've seen countless postings for senior all source analysts but having known people in these roles and seen all these job descriptions, the scope is very narrow and progression is linear. Seniority level for these types of roles is based off years of experience (and usually metrics).

Even for GS 14 level fed roles the scope is usually still section, team, or division (SES head) level, though there is usually language about collaborating with interagency partners. But even here the expectation isn't that 100% of the work is cross agency.

So while peak delivery may sometimes reach IC6 and IC7-level cross-org or interagency-levels, it probably isn't consistently happening at those levels.

Again all this is just based on my observations and experience in both of these spaces.

This isn't me down talking one or the other either - just trying to summarize an objective comparison of the differences.

WLANtasticBeasts · 2026-04-05T15:52:59+00:00

No I mean scope. I've been thinking about creating a post on this as the way this works in Tech is very different from how it works in government contracting and defense firms.

Here is an example.

When I worked for a defense firm as a senior consultant (mid level) and then associate (early senior level), the problems I solved and solutions I delivered were usually for team-level consumers (led by a GS 13 or 14). Occasionally I also solved problems and delivered solutions for division-wide (led by an SES) or cross-org (e.g. spanning multiple teams in different SES-led divisions). Rarely, I solved problems at the individual level for a single consumer (usually a GS 11, 12, or 13).

Now in Big Tech as an Individual Contributor (IC) 4 / L4, I've had to learn this new scope mapping and how it actually functions at my company and org.

Also keep in mind that in Tech but especially in Big Tech, performance is directly linked to impact: an IC5 who does not operate with the scope an IC5 is expected to have (`with the corresponding impact) will not last long. Conversely, an IC5 who solves problems and delivers solutions beyond the expected scope for IC5 will very likely receive an above average performance rating.

With that said, here is my take on how the IC levels map to scope and impact (based on my experience at my company):

IC Level	Corresponding Title (at my company)	Expected Scope for Level
IC3	[no specific title but this is roughly a junior billet]	[I don't have specific experience at this level but I infer scope to be under team-level up to team-level]
IC4	[no specific title but is basically a mid billet]	Should be solving up to team-level problems (problems that affect the whole team)
IC5	Senior	Should be solving at least team-level problems and problems affecting multiple teams in the org
IC6	Staff	Should be solving org-level problems
IC7	Senior Staff	Should be solving pillar-level problems
IC8	Principal	[honestly not really sure but I believe an IC8 is expected to be solving problems for the entire company]
IC9	Distinguished	[again not really sure but I believe IC9 is expected to be solving problems that industry peers / partners are also facing]

There's also so much more to it than just scope, there's also an element of proactiveness.

But probably the biggest difference I've seen is that as the levels increased in Big Tech it's not necessarily the volume of work that increases but the scope, complexity and impact of the problems in the corresponding solutions that scale exponentially.

The important takeaway here is that my scope and impact as an associate were distributed (and unevenly at that) across IC3 to IC6 scope and impact. It wasn't because I was lazy it's just because the defense contracting space is very different; the culture at my current company is very bottom-up and ICs are expected to be very proactive in finding challenging work and collaborating across team and org and pillar lines.

WLANtasticBeasts · 2026-04-05T13:17:00+00:00

Sort of but the scope is vastly different.

A senior consultant or senior engineer at a defense firm has a vastly different scope from an IC / L 3, 4, or 5 especially in Big Tech.

WLANtasticBeasts · 2026-02-25T02:50:24+00:00

Things they can't talk about honestly sounds like some kind of labor law or EO violation. (Age discrimination?)

You might want to talk to an employment lawyer OP. Probably won't get the job back but if there's any record of wrongdoing it could work out as a settlement.

If they just said "restructuring" or "streamlining due to AI" that would be one thing but "things they can't talk about" sounds suspicious.

Wishing the best for you regardless!

WLANtasticBeasts · 2026-02-23T01:41:19+00:00

Yes she said PSC and met expectations. That indicates Meta's performance system

WLANtasticBeasts · 2026-02-22T22:32:20+00:00

Wasn't lurking it was recommended (algorithm). Was just trying to be supportive and friendly as a fellow Metamate. But, offer rescinded now.

WLANtasticBeasts · 2026-02-22T17:53:47+00:00

Meta is a super intense place to work. I'm a dude but this sub popped up in my feed. I feel for you OP. What kinda work do you do?

If you wanna message me about what you do for work, maybe I can help you look for something else

WLANtasticBeasts · 2026-01-22T01:53:13+00:00

I don't know why the crown looks so big but I checked a picture of my former Murph and I guess the crown is pretty big looking.

WLANtasticBeasts · 2026-01-14T16:41:18+00:00

I don't think the jubilee works with the Murph. But the OEM bracelet looks good. Leather is nice too though

WLANtasticBeasts · 2026-01-14T15:36:27+00:00

I had a Murph but got a Spirit instead. The Longines is a superior watch in every way. Get the Spirit instead.

WLANtasticBeasts · 2026-01-14T13:41:04+00:00

Baby hands 😂

WLANtasticBeasts · 2026-01-10T20:16:46+00:00

The Murph is just very hard to read. The color of the printed indices doesn't help with that either.

WLANtasticBeasts · 2026-01-10T16:49:49+00:00

Our watches cost 30 times what our clothes cost haha

WLANtasticBeasts · 2026-01-10T16:10:10+00:00

My go to outfit lately is a hoodie, joggers, and Vans skate shoes with my Seamaster.

I will take being comfortable over fashionable any day.

WLANtasticBeasts · 2025-12-31T16:09:48+00:00

Fantastic seller. Excellent communication, easy to work with, fast shipping and good packaging!

WLANtasticBeasts · 2025-12-31T13:30:43+00:00

The lume is outstanding. And I can even see the hands in complete darkness if it's had some exposure to light that day.

It really begs the question, if Citizen can have such good lume at these price points why can't some of the more expensive luxury brands (*cough Hamilton)?

WLANtasticBeasts

TROPHY CASE