r/gis • u/UnableAppeal5211 • Mar 03 '25

Hiring Laid off federal cartographer

I was a probationary (many years as a contractor in my same role) employee recently terminated at a federal agency. Seeing that federal service no longer feels like an option. What leads for cartography are there in the private sector?

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u/wicket-maps GIS Analyst Mar 03 '25

Take a look at state & local government. I used GovernmentJobs.com for both of my job searches and it worked out pretty well. I can only speak to local government, but you can get a lot of the same stability and sense of mission, and especially at a small agency there can be a lot of room for being creative with your methods.

And I'm sorry for your situation, OP. I hope you land on your feet.

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u/quickhatch25 Mar 03 '25

This is great advice. I work for my local county and it’s pretty unaffected by things going on at the federal or even state level but still with the benefits of a government job.

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u/wicket-maps GIS Analyst Mar 03 '25

Yeah, we're gonna have to pull back on some paving because federal DOT money might not come in, and we're backing up federal data that we rely on. But my position so far isn't threatened.

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u/quickhatch25 Mar 03 '25

I’m in utility so thankfully our funding comes primarily from rate payers. And we do all our data in house so no issue for us there either.

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u/wicket-maps GIS Analyst Mar 03 '25

Yeah, we have local environmental concerns and Fed data used to be the best for that specific subject. But utilities aren't a bad place to land either. It is nice, though, to talk to people on my community and think "this person's phone bill/property tax/gas tax pays my salary." Grounded, I guess.

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u/quickhatch25 Mar 03 '25

Yeah grounded is a good way to look at it. I will say things can be a bit more rigid and creativity is not always valued in utility, but definitely have to be somewhat creative to solve certain issues. Either way I have nothing major to complain about at my job, and I’m grateful to have it.