I've never worked at DARPA, but yeah, they are a funding agency mostly so there's director-types who set research directions and create grant opportunities, admin-types who push money around and track status, and most the work is done by those who submit successful proposals. I've had a couple smallish tasks for DARPA while I was at a gov lab.
They have a nice model. The program managers (those who set research directions) are fixed-term IIRC, so they have very little incentive to politic, and instead can focus on seeing their pet program through to completion in the given time / funding.
One of their main "jobs" (aside from above), is to be an advocate for emerging tech among the military and civilian industrial partners to make sure it actually "becomes something".
To work at DARPA in this capacity usually requires a lot of successful R&D program management experience and some sense of grand vision. To work in a lesser, administrative capacity, including interacting with research partners, requires just a tad less, but on the average they've been exceptional, intelligent, and responsive partners for all the work we've done for them.
Program Managers are fixed term - up to 3 2 year terms (though Director Tompkins generally doesn’t like PMs to be around longer than 4 years - see section 1101 of the Strom Thurmond NDAA for more details about the hiring authority).
I don’t know about the admin vs director types split you’re talking about (at least in the PM ranks). Office directors generally provided top cover and some very sweeping research directions, but as a PM it was your job to come up with research programs that were roughly compatible, convince the office director it was, and then manage the technical execution with the performers and doing dog and pony shows when the pentagon called.
They have a nice model. The program managers (those who set research directions) are fixed-term IIRC, so they have very little incentive to politic, and instead can focus on seeing their pet program through to completion in the given time / funding.
One of their main "jobs" (aside from above), is to be an advocate for emerging tech among the military and civilian industrial partners to make sure it actually "becomes something".
To work at DARPA in this capacity usually requires a lot of successful R&D program management experience and some sense of grand vision. To work in a lesser, administrative capacity, including interacting with research partners, requires just a tad less, but on the average they've been exceptional, intelligent, and responsive partners for all the work we've done for them.