Executive and senior management pays only lipservice to innovation, despite the fact that it is a core "value."
As a consultant in the federal sector, you will likely have very little professional contact with your Service Area Manager ("SAM" - direct line manager). Consequently, s/he will not have a clue what you do each day on your project(s). When time comes to distribute bonus money (if there is any), managers are bias towards those of their employees they happen to work with on a project or work closely with daily.
Cut-throat culture favors an "it" crowd, similar to high school. Award fees and biz dev bonuses end up only going to those who are in-the-know, and are invited to work on proposals. If you're not in this crowd, forget it. There is no process for keeping employees abreast of new business or biz dev efforts.
Staffing is extremely difficult. They have Resource Deployment Managers, who are in charge of matching resources up with projects, but they're overburdened with administrative duties and they're working from the same database of positions that everyone else is. Also, it's not mandatory that an open slot be posted in the database, and most are not, as they are filled through word of mouth. So again, if you're not in-the-know and very well-connected, you will have trouble getting staffed, regardless of your skill set.
