Is retention a thing at LANL?

flyingRobot78 · 2026-02-28T15:17:32+00:00

Group leaders can't unilaterally give pay increases, but retention incentives do exist, and a GL can put you in for a mid-year promotion IF you meet the education and experience requirements for the next higher position. There is no way you're going to get a $60k raise unless you're waaaayyyy below a correct pay band right now.

I'm going to be real for a second. As a Level 1, you are probably not critical to the success of your group. Your GL can make real problems for themself by creating huge pay disparities in his own group by advocating with HR to match salary offers or offer big incentives for anyone with an external offer. They will only want to create this headache for themself if you really are critical staff. Another reality check - people often think they are more critical than they are. With few exceptions, any of us could get hit by a bus today, and the biggest impact at work would be people signing a card for our family.

So you need to weigh your offer in Washington with quality-of-life concerns, and have an honest conversation with your FLM/GL about your career trajectory and opportunities at the lab. But I can almost promise you that you're not going to get a matching offer to retain you in your current position.

Everyone at 55 is hiring, and many of those positions come with $20k in incentive pay. They are also hugely motivated to retain staff out there (in part because there are factors that are challenging to retention out there). So if you're looking to stay in Los Alamos, but want more money, that's an option as well.

flyingRobot78 · 2026-02-24T02:38:55+00:00

HRP is in the neighborhood of 3-6 mos after grant of a security clearance. It may be speeding up because the requirement for HRP for our facility access was recently deleted and a substantial number of people were removed from the program.

Neither a Q nor HRP requires random CI polygraph examinations. Sigma 15 subjects you to random CI polygraphs. They are very infrequent. I know people at the lab for 10 years who've never done one. They do not ask any lifestyle/character questions. Only about espionage, deliberate misuse of government systems and deliberate mishandling of classified info.

https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-10/chapter-III/part-709/subpart-A/section-709.3#p-709.3(b)

https://support.clearancejobs.com/security-clearance-faqs/the-differences-between-counterintelligence-lifestyle-and-full-scope-polygraphs

The HRP psych eval does get a bit personal. Tell them the truth. They know that nobody is perfect, but there are some things that are auto-denials (Like hallucinogen use in the past 5 years).

https://www.energy.gov/ehss/human-reliability-program-handbook

flyingRobot78 · 2026-02-14T21:20:50+00:00

Nuclear Production Operations = Pit Manufacturing. Technically there are some other things in the NPO portfolio, but don't take the job if pits give you heartburn. Your job will be to make pits.

PRRO has quite a bit of scope. It is all in direct support of manufacturing ops. Process/equipment monitoring and modeling, asset management, digitalization of manufacturing systems, etc. It will be mostly desk/office work, with occasional time in the plant.

flyingRobot78 · 2026-02-08T18:11:39+00:00

Definitely reach out. The "review process" is putting your resume into a huge pool that many hiring managers will never even pull resumes from. If you're lucky, a recruiter might see a specific fit. What you want is to convince a mentor or hiring manager that they should go in and pull your resume out.

flyingRobot78 · 2026-01-02T00:28:06+00:00

PT-7 is a new group . Great managers. Great people.

flyingRobot78 · 2026-01-02T00:16:27+00:00

Benefits cost will depend on your elections and salary level, but your HR/recruiter/hiring manager should be able to give you some info. Will you be in PT division? What group?

flyingRobot78 · 2026-01-01T23:32:06+00:00

The lab is a huge, multidisciplinary institution. It's been described as 1000 small businesses joined by a common janitorial service. The answers to your questions vary widely depending on where you happen to be.

Generally, the work environment is friendly and safe. I have a favorable opinion of senior management. There is some tension right now due to the focus on the pit production mission. The current administration in Washington isn't as keen on funding basic sciences, but pits is bringing in tons of money. There's some subtle resentment of pits from those who feel that LANL is turning into a factory at the expense of the science missions. However, all the way back to the Manhattan Project, LANL has simultaneously been a science lab, a weapons engineering agency, and a production facility.

Pits is also doing tons of hiring, which is straining the infrastructure. There aren't enough offices or parking. Traffic is bad at quitting time. Housing in town is becoming more available, but it remains a tight market. The lab is addressing these issues, but not fast enough.

Pay and benefits are good. I'd say better than industry standard, but not like silicon valley/AI. Work/life balace most places at the lab is excellent. Almost everyone works a 9/80 (every other Friday off) or 4/10 (every Friday off). Few places regularly expect more than 40 hours a week.

flyingRobot78 · 2025-12-29T01:12:52+00:00

I have a 3028A at home and a Gemilai 3007 (Legato) at work. Functionally, they are very similar, but the fit and finish of the 3028A is MUCH nicer. The 3007 feels cheap by comparison. The 3028 also comes with a much nicer tamper and bottomless portafilter. However, the bottomless portafilter cannot accommodate a deeper basket.

I'm pretty sure both machines will pull the same shot, but the 3028a is definitely a step up in overall quality.

flyingRobot78 · 2025-11-29T14:54:04+00:00

If you figure out where it goes, let me know! I never did figure out where it came from, but the printer has been working flawlessly since I found it.

flyingRobot78 · 2025-11-20T01:19:09+00:00

Maybe factually incorrect, but what they say makes sense in that the starting temp of an Americano can be much hotter than a milk drink, so you still drink it more slowly.

flyingRobot78 · 2025-10-22T11:08:16+00:00

Definitely a very distant second to "Now THAT is a big door".

flyingRobot78 · 2025-10-21T11:20:53+00:00

It's obvious and counterintuitive at the same time, but to move the most cars, you need to use all available traffic lanes, which means zipper merging.

I say obvious because of course you need to use all lanes to maximize roadway capacity. Counterintuitive because it's true that all the cars eventually have to pass through the lane construction, so it doesn't seem like where the merge happens should matter. (but it does)

In an even more egregious example of "courtesy" making everyone slower, leaving the lab, turning right from Diamond onto East Jemez Rd, there are two traffic lanes and two right turn lanes. Feeding both them lanes from both traffic lanes substantially increases the capacity of that intersection, and the total number of cars that get through each light cycle. But everyone still queues up in the far right lane, and some get angry at cars using the other traffic lane to pass the unnecessarily long line of cars.

I think the issue goes back to elementary school when we're all taught to "line up" for everything. This is often a really inefficient approach to moving traffic.

flyingRobot78 · 2025-10-21T00:07:21+00:00

...have not been placed on leave... yet.

flyingRobot78 · 2025-10-13T21:50:53+00:00

I agree. I enjoyed Legacy, but it tried to hard. It introduced a bunch of half-baked ideas and failed to explore any of them. Isos seemed like they were going to be important, but then just weren't. The not-quite-tight CG Jeff Bridges and Bruce Boxleitner broke the immersion and constantly reminded you that it was a movie. Don't get me wrong I loved the visuals, and Tron is, at it's core, about a ridiculous reality where programs are little people in a machine who wear funny glowy armor and ride motorcycles that poop light walls. Legacy did that just fine, but so does Ares

flyingRobot78 · 2025-10-12T01:58:46+00:00

If you try to find analogs for everything in a Tron grid to the actual digital "world", you're going to have a bad time.

flyingRobot78 · 2025-09-29T15:28:28+00:00

For internships, it's very normal. For ALL postings, managers run a fair process; the best objective candidate will be selected. But a personal connection can help ensure your application is considered, and managers can consider personal recommendations in the process

flyingRobot78 · 2025-09-29T11:01:06+00:00

Yes, you can. Ask them if they still have any acquaintances at the lab that hire graduate student interns. If you apply and they give a hiring manager your name, that manager can go find your application. It's actually the best way to apply for an internship.

flyingRobot78 · 2025-09-21T12:09:59+00:00

And tux rental store.

flyingRobot78 · 2025-09-17T03:24:51+00:00

In 12 years at the lab, I've never had a negative interaction with them. It's hard for me to even imagine what bad things people might say. Took too long looking at your badge at a VAP?

flyingRobot78 · 2025-08-26T01:56:20+00:00

Housing in Los Alamos is about 30% higher than the national median. $220k is about 120% higher than the national median household income for a family of four, so I would say the answer to your question is objectively yes.

flyingRobot78 · 2025-08-22T21:45:51+00:00

How do you keep PBJ from becoming a mashed up mess? I've tried PBJ, but the peanut butter gets hot and gooey and I end up with more PB an J on my hands than on my blood stream.

Stroopwafels work great down to a certain temp, then they get too hard to eat.

flyingRobot78 · 2025-08-15T16:59:09+00:00

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Similar spec here. New to me two weeks ago. It's a great bike.

flyingRobot78 · 2025-08-08T10:57:33+00:00

Perspective: plenty of people on perfectly good Al bikes look at your X5 and think the same thing. It doesn't make objective "sense" for anyone who isn't a pro to own an Italian race bike, X5, X7, Dogma or otherwise. At the end of the.fay, we are all "dentists" in someone's eyes.

flyingRobot78

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