https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries... - All pay scales
https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries... - DC area, so base + locality.
Note that at the top the GS-15 steps 6-10 all get the same pay. The linked position's listed pay range spans GS-13 through GS-15, which is actually a huge spread and kind of funny. That's a large spread in responsibility between GS-13 and GS-15. In civil service, as a manager a GS-13 might be responsible for on the order of 50-100 people and millions in contracts and equipment, a GS-15 might be responsible for thousands of people and billions in contracts and equipment (location does matter a bit, the folks in DC, because the cost of living is so much higher, usually end up with some grade inflation so drop them 1-2 grades to compare to the rest of the US).
it's worth it.
Firstly, a job of this level should be executive scale pay.
Secondly, on site should include a 30% boost above remote. It costs you money and time to commute, and thats part of total compensation.
I'd highly recommend looking for a new job.
Nobody who is actually qualified would take it, unless they're on the grift.
That's true for GS and WG positions (though they can get performance based bonus step increases, these are relatively rare unless you play golf with the boss), but the pay bands mostly try to get around that and give performance-based raises. Supervisors don't like getting taken to EEO so they often won't give low scores even to people who deserve them, though. This results in the top performers usually getting bigger raises than low performers, but low and middling performers end up with roughly equivalent raises.
In theory, most of the pay band systems offer an effective way to weed out poor performers, but it's just not used.
I guess we'll all be transitioning to open models soon enough.
They would just leave and pursue one of the many open positions paying double that for fully remote work that also typically include RSU's, bonuses, or options.
I know project managers that make twice that in smaller cities, just because they're AI adjacent.
No. You're completely missing the point.
If they paid competitively then candidates would be competing against qualified engineers.
Regardless of qualification, it's a valuable position, because of the responsibility and capability of setting policy. You don't need any qualification for that. It probably helps not to have it. And that's value that can be turned into other forms of compensation, perhaps using fancy accounting.
Thats why I said "unless they're on the grift". "Grift" is slang that means something like scam or confidence game (the origin of the term 'con').