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Comment by huytersd | Hacker News Reader

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huytersd·

How do people hear about things like this? I would have loved to be involved but it’s too late now.

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FedBizOpps. Here is a link to a search for more DARPA opportunities:

https://sam.gov/search/?index=opp&page=1&pageSize=25&sort=-m...

I live in this world and had no idea how to construct that link. This is the sort of stuff that keeps me coming back to HN.

Similar link for Defense Innovation Unit: https://www.diu.mil/work-with-us

That link worked yesterday but not today.

For DARPA (and IARPA) projects it's usually large teams that get selected, generally a university or a large federal contractor--or sometimes consortia from several such organizations. Unless you know how to make a tricorder, your chances of getting in are pretty slim unless you're a member of an organization like that. And that's fairer than it sounds, since usually DARPA-hard means lots of moving parts and therefore lots of experts on different topic areas on any given team, else the problem is hopeless.

Defense contracting can be intimidating to get into, for sure. Like most professions, it's a universe unto itself, and there are meetups in larger cities around the topics (aerospace, for example) to make friends in the industry.

As for the work itself, if you're interested in going into defense contracting, some online courses may be freely available to you at Defense Acquisition University, which educates on a lot of the policy and bureaucracy (hope you like acronyms).

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