Freud called love and work the cornerstones of our humanness. This being the week of dinner, dancing, and gifts for our cutie pies, the love part of life is handled. (Free gift idea: have a Madagascar hissing cockroach at the Bronx Zoo named after your sweetheart. “Seal it with a hiss,” the zoo explains.) But what about work? Are your needs being met there? Does the passion still burn within for whatever trade you call your own? If not, perhaps it’s time for a career change. Just in time for Valentine’s Day, I’ve pulled results from multiple job satisfaction surveys to compile a list of the top clearance careers that people love.
CONSTRUCTION MANAGER
What’s not to love about this job? As a construction manager, it’s you and the crew, starting the day at sunrise, work boots on your feet, hardhat on your head, and insulated coffee cup in your hand. That’s the life—the dirt, the steel, the hammers and cranes. When you punch out after a long day, you know that what you leave behind, whether a tool shed or hospital, might stand for centuries. If you hold a clearance? Look out, because you’re doing this all over the world.
PHYSICIAN
Why a doctor who is based stateside might need a top secret clearance is a mystery to me. Perhaps the people being treated are under cover. Perhaps the cause of injury is itself the secret. Perhaps the patient isn’t a who, but a what (extraterrestrials)? Post your guesses in the comments. Regardless of the reason, medical careers—most notably physicians—regularly fall at the tops of lists of jobs people most love doing.
SOFTWARE DEVELOPER
Computer programmers love their jobs so much that most lists have to divide the career field by language or platform—”Java developer” and “Android developer” and so on. And what’s not to love? You make a lot of money. You type arcane strings of code for a living while being forced to wear khakis and a polo shirt to the office, and yet on television you’re portrayed with either James Bond coolness or cyberpunk rebelliousness. ClearanceJobs is packed with developer jobs. If you have a security clearance and a degree in computer science, you can basically write your own check.
DATA SCIENTIST
STEM overall seems to dominate most of these sorts of lists. In part it’s the love that goes into the field in the first place. (You don’t major in mathematics if you hate numbers, after all.) Data scientists find hidden meaning in data. The shopper buying prenatal vitamins today will mysteriously receive diaper coupons from the same store nine months later. It’s not magic; it’s science! With a median base salary of $110,000, it doesn’t take a data scientist to see where at least some of the appeal lies.
INSTRUCTOR
Teaching is an art. The conveyance of some body of knowledge from one mind to the minds of many is a bit like acting in that it looks easy when done by a master, but is actually really, really hard. (Everyone at some point has tried to say a few lines from a favorite movie, and has been disappointed that it never quite sounded correct.) That’s one reason why instructors are in such high demand in the clearance world. The material that needs to be taught is mission critical and might mean the difference between life and death.
FINANCIAL ANALYST
Accountants love their jobs. The career ranks high on every job satisfaction survey. To some extent, the fields of accounting and data science are related. Both involve finding hidden trends and extracting elusive meaning. Think Sherlock Holmes, but for spreadsheets. And there’s no shortage of such jobs in the defense industry, which is known for having a dollar or two in the ledger, and to be involved in areas that are need to know.
SYSTEMS ANALYST
Sure, you might hate your IT department, but a lot of work went into every aspect of your system, and it’s a systems analyst who thought it all through. Your computer had to meet a certain standard for ruggedness, portability, performance, and price. Your network has to be secure but accessible, large but fast. Your data has to be protected but transmissible. (The password requirements, though, with the six uppercase letters, three special characters, four numbers, and to be changed weekly? That has to be some sort of psychology experiment gone wrong. And on that note…)
MENTAL HEALTH
There’s no aspect of the clearance industry that doesn’t lean heavily on the work of psychologists. Sometimes it’s about having someone monitor the basic well-being of employees on the factory floor. Other times, it’s about making sure the right person is allowed into some sensitive position. (There’s a good chance a guy like Robert Hanssen might have been found and helped long before he betrayed the nation.) Job satisfaction surveys consistently find the same thing: psychologists, psychiatrists, and therapists love their jobs and make a lot of money. And if you know one who doesn’t, why not brighten their day with the best Valentine of them all? After all, roaches are forever.
