Pros
Good pay if you are a GS-13...you do little unique work.
Cons
An embarrassment to the country and its taxpayers. DIA is extremely top-heavy. A result of promoting a lot of young workers to GS-13 or higher during the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars when funding was high. This has resulted in a lot of mediocre people being promoted when they had no business being promoted. And now they think they were promoted because of their supposed expertise, and not because of good timing. In addition, DIA is rightly looked at in the IC and the government as the B-team (or even C or D-team) of the IC. It’s where analysts and others go when they can’t get into the top tier of the IC. And they either stew there a few years or resign themselves to being part of a redundant, mediocre organization that contributes little to the nation’s defense. DIA is also a place which encourages divisions between military, civilian, and contractors…frequently treating the latter as second class citizens. A marked contrast from other organizations in the government. The bureaucracy is also something to cringe at. All those GS-13’s and higher have to justify their paychecks. So there are a lot of useless middle management positions created which leads to ridiculous amounts of layers of bureaucracy.
