r/GovernmentContracting

I have been trying to get my entity registered with SAM and I keep getting kicked back because I have a shared office space with another entity. This is the message I keep getting:

> Please note the following non-physical address types are NOT acceptable for SAM entity validation: Post Office (PO) Box, Mailbox Rental, Virtual Address, Coworking/Shared Office, Short Term Leased Space, Storage Unit, Mobile Office, or Hired Registered Agent address. Reference KB0058176 for further information on SAM physical address requirements.

This is a physical office and we have an annual lease but that is still getting rejected because it's shared with another entity in the building. EIN and state have our address, plus bank, etc... no problems.

Can somebody else advise if this has changed recently? This is going to be a problem for many businesses, I suspect, that operate in an office park similar to ours.

Hello everyone!

I am new to government contracting, and I am in the market of selling SaaS. i want to understand the timeline a bit more.

For SaaS companies, do they bid on a contract, then build upon winning the contract? (bid then build)

Or do they build first, then bid on contracts?

Would the former be more suited as a SaaS consulting company that just delivers solutions if a government asks for a specific solution to be fulfilled and the latter be something more niche specific (i.e Palantir) ?

Thanks!

Anyone used GovTribe and found it helpful? I did a demo and everything looks so clean and very user friendly. It's seems to be a nice, cleaner more condensed version of SAM.gov for federal contracting opportunities. Has anyone used it and found it useful? Or others that may be useful

I am in DC at the moment and was just made aware of a grant with the SBA that’s perfect for a project I’m been trying to build. The issue is, the deadline is set for May 29th. I do not have a SAM account but have all of the documents I need to get it. How long does it take to get an account approved?

I recently left my W-2 role to fully launch my own GovCon consultancy (registered S-Corp, fully insured, active Secret clearance).

I’m trying to find the most efficient, non-soul-crushing ways to get on a Prime's radar for subcontracting/1099 work. The standard route of cold emailing SBLOs and filling out endless supplier portals feels like a black hole. I’ve sent out a wave of highly targeted capability briefs over the last few weeks and... absolute crickets.

My background/offering in a nutshell: I bring 13 years of federal acquisition experience, including a long tenure as a GS-14 Contracting Officer with FAC-C Level III signing authority, followed by corporate Senior Contracts Management roles.

My firm focuses on the complex post-award compliance and technical advisory side—specifically bridging the gap between highly technical/regulatory data programs (like FDA/life sciences compliance) and FAR/DFARS administration. Basically, we handle the high-level compliance overhead that keeps a Prime safe during audits but that technical PMs hate doing.

Given that I’m local to the DMV area, I'm already hitting upcoming matchmaking summits in person (like SMART PROC). But outside of live networking, what are the actual high-traction strategies you’ve used to get past the corporate portal gatekeepers?

• Are people finding success bypassing SBLOs entirely and targeting Program Managers or Capture Leads on LinkedIn?
• Is anyone pulling data from USAspending to map out Primes with active small-business utilization deficiencies and pitching them directly?

Appreciate any blunt insight, backdoor strategies, or realities of the current 2026 subcontracting landscape. Thanks!

Quick question for anyone who's been through (or tried to get into) the SBA Mentor-Protégé Program, how did you find your mentor?

I'm an SDVOSB poking around the MPP and the public list of active agreements is a PDF that's basically unsearchable. SBA's site is set up for after you've already paired with someone — the "find a mentor" step seems to be either (a) you already had a prime relationship, (b) you cold-called large primes in your NAICS, or (c) you knew someone who knew someone.

Am I missing an obvious channel? Is there a resource or directory I haven't found? Or is it really just network + cold outreach until something sticks?

Curious whether this was painful for other small businesses or if I'm overcomplicating it.

I'm a fed 1102, so I genuinely wonder about this.

Most of federal contracting doesn't touch sam.gov. If you only use sam.gov, you don't know what's going on, right? So how do you know what's going on? That's the question.

Context: In my department - HHS - sam.gov is involved for relatively few new contracts/orders - somewhere between <10% and (at a theoretical maximum) 40%.

For IT, an actual solicitation was posted to sam.gov for at most 5% of new IT awards - but the real number is probably a rounding error away from zero. This makes sense - the vast majority of IT is available from the many existing sources (GSA alone has so many).

Every force is pushing us to use open market only as a last resort. So less will show up there. So how do you all deal with this?

I wanted to know how easy or hard it would be to simply call the people that have received contracts and just tell them about my affordable construction materials, is there any specific point in the contract chain that I should call? I see that they sometimes have these sheets with the list of materials and there prices, if I am simply cheaper or same as the contract states, then can I just call them and offer mine?

Do they always have suppliers on the ready every time for everything?

My company is dipping their toes into government work, and we're discovering the incredible amounts of red tape that lay in our path. Currently, we plan to submit proposals for some SBIR opportunities, but we're ultimately going to need to be CMMC L2 compliant. There is a service called Greypike that can guide us to compliance, but they also offer an 'enclave' which appears to be a workspace that they host, where CUIs and other info will live. There's a monthly cost for them to maintain the workspace. My understanding is that this is a decent alternative to transforming our current internal cybersecurity infrastructure ourselves (hiring more staff, buying hardware, and creating all the policies involved).

Has anybody used a service like this before? The service is costly, but it's also costly to do it ourselves. We come from an entirely different industry, but feel we have something unique to offer for DoD work. When I look at our current cybersecurity structure and methods, and compare them to what CMMC L2 requires...it gives me a migraine. I'm struggling to justify the costs for using a service like Greypike. Any advice is highly appreciated! Thanks all!

Does this make any sense? It's from the latest labor law poster. Seems illogical.

Federal Contractor Minimum Wage

The Federal Contractor Minimum Wage poster has been updated to reflect an increase to the minimum wage for certain federal contractors. Effective May 11, 2026, federal contractors with contracts that were entered into on or between January 1, 2015, and January 29, 2022, that were not renewed or extended on or after January 30, 2022, must pay employees $13.65 per hour. Revision Date: 05/2026.

Hey everyone.

I recently started a role with a government contractor. I work on a military base. My coworkers are very nice people, I make $115k, boss/GS is also nice, but I feel like my role is totally pointless. I have a PhD in social science, and honestly most days I just learn sql or run pointless tests with the company AI or just read random articles. Technically I have a supervisor, but I sit right next to her and I see that all she does is scroll LinkedIn and Google scholar and whenever she produces a product it’s some AI slop that our GS just gushes over,

The hours are flexible and despite my PhD, I’d probably take a pay cut going into private sector. Other research/analyst roles pay low, like $75-90k. I can’t justify taking the pay cut, but I also am just sick of trying to “keep busy.” Honestly the only guys who seem to actually have work to do in my SCIF are the former military guys, who have roles I wouldn’t qualify for, and the comp sci dudes. As I transition into industry vs academia, I’ve realized that if I’m going to have to sit at a desk all day I might as well have shit to do. Not to mention my whole job feels like I’m scamming the tax payer.

I have a TS. I’m a fast learner. I saw a post here where some guy was essentially recruited to become a software engineer. I know R, SPSS, learning SQL. I want out of my role so badly but I don’t want to screw my fiance and future kids over by taking a pay cut. Help?

I applied for a job that ended up being a government contracting job. Now I am being told it is a 5 year contract and the salary is about 30k above my current salary. However, I am hearing horror stories about contracts ending early. I believe it’s a W2, as benefits are being offered. I already have great insurance through the military.

I would like to transfer to a more secure GS position afterwards, but was recommended it be a good foot in the door to do contracting.

Not sure if anyone else has any experience with this themselves and can offer some guidance.

I've watched this pattern enough times to know exactly how it ends. Two companies, similar size, similar capabilities, similar NAICS codes. One wins consistently. The other grinds through proposals, lands the occasional contract, and can't figure out why their win rate stays flat.

The difference almost never shows up in the proposals. It shows up in everything that happens before a proposal gets written.

The winners already decided whether to bid months before the solicitation dropped. They responded to the sources sought. They know the program manager. When the RFP hits, they're not starting from scratch, they're finishing something they've been building since the pre-solicitation phase. The proposal is the last step, not the first.

The grinders treat every opportunity like a separate event. They scan for whatever posted that week, find something interesting, and start writing. Bid decisions happen on day six. Past performance gets assembled the night before submission. The proposal might be fine. The system that produced it isn't.

Contractors who scale past a few million treat losses as data. They debrief, log the findings, and look for patterns. The one who lost three proposals to the same competitor on different agencies isn't asking what went wrong with proposal three. They're asking what their competitor figured out about positioning that they haven't.

That's not talent. That's an operating rhythm.

Note: this post is written from the perspective of competitive services contracting. Product-based contractors operate differently and the rhythm looks different when you're working NSNs and historical pricing rather than proposal cycles.

Anyone have experience with this system I have a few invoices that are pending approval

Company I work for is a sub with SAIC for a large defense contract. I am considering switching to SAIC in order to have potentially better job security. But curious about their benefits, more specifically health and education assistance. Could someone who works/worked at SAIC shed the light? What health insurance companies (BCBS? Aetna? UHC?) and how much is education budget per year? I can't ask them directly unless I am ready to make a move, because of the team politics. Also please share you overall thoughts on the company and culture. TYIA!

I'm less interested in futuristic use cases and more interested in things teams are using right now. Have you seen AI help with proposal reviews, compliance checks, opportunity tracking, or something else?

I think AI is about to create a really weird problem in GovCon.

People are going to start sounding like experts long before they actually understand FAR, compliance, capture, or proposal strategy.

The scary part isn’t AI replacing people… it’s people using AI confidently without enough real experience behind it.

Anybody else seeing this already?

Getting the run around with contacts and contracts at CBRE getting invoices paid for jobs that were completed in November 25 and January 26. We are a small contractor at WPAFB. Anyone else have a good phone number or person to reach out to?