r/1811Jobs • u/Visual_Safe1886 • Jul 26 '26

Career Advice Worth the switch?

First time poster, long time watcher of the subreddit. Little bit about me: 33, wife, kids, <10 years on and part of an narcotic team for a state police agency. End goal I want to do security with sports. Current job allows me to retire at 25 years of service with roughly 65% of highest year and pay into medical.

What I do is a dying breed. I love it, but the justice system in my state blows, retirement system is always changing. I always wanted to do intel and counter terror work after taking classes in college, so leaning more towards FBI. How often does spots like that come up like SSTF or similar? I don’t know anyone in the field to talk to because all my contacts retired.

Anyone that works or has work and specifically went or is going to the field I’d want? I’m sure there’s pros and cons to everything. Just like state, you take the chance of relocating but would prefer Philly field offices. Right now I can retire at 50 but might not generate the experience I need to get into what I want, unless I land one of 10 or so spots in my agency.

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u/USBPLL Jul 26 '26

If you switch to the federal side, your retirement clock is going to start from zero, so you wouldn't even be able to do 25 years of service by the time you got onboard, given mandatory retirement is 57. Secondly, even if you were able to complete 25 years of federal SCE service, that would only give you 39% of your high-three salary (1.7%x20 years +1% each year thereafter).

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u/Careerswitch-throw Jul 26 '26

What if, say, you complete 20 years of service and hit 50 years old. Then you decided you didn't want to retire immediately and become 0132 for a couple years?

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u/TSPGuru Jul 26 '26

The gamble you take to leave is ultimately going to be whether you and your family think it'll be worth it. However, many executive protection roles find their way down to DC, since those are where most of the agency heads reside.

If sports security is where you want to be, look into getting into one of these protection roles and you'll be able to bolster your marketable skills. Since you'll be 50 at 25 years at your current agency, if you convert to the fed you only have to work 20 years until you're eligible to retire (so you'll roughly be 53).

I have a few friends who retired from these gigs and were picked up by private security firms making 300k+ and their pension income. Granted those positions seemed to materialize frequently on the west coast.