"LANL Employees are a famously noble and successful group, with the exception of those hired after about 1955."
--LANL: The Real Story
http://lanl-the-real-story.blogspot.com


Much of the common knowledge about Los Alamos National Laboratory revolves around its intimate connection with the Manhattan Project. Richard P. Feynman and J. Robert Oppenheimer come to mind. However, that was the lab in the 1940s; it retains a strong connection to the United States' nuclear arsenal, but it has diversified. The LANL of today is not the same as it was back then.

It's larger than it looks...
LANL is big. It has at least 13,500 employees, most of whom are scientists and engineers. The lab's property covers around 43 square miles of mesas and canyons in and around Los Alamos, New Mexico. Employees reside either in Los Alamos or the nearby towns of White Rock, Espanola, and Santa Fe. The lab is geographically divided into at least 47 technical areas, of varying security level. All of these numbers are different depending on who you ask, and being that LANL is the primary weapons lab for the United States, there are likely secret areas, which award a 1000 point bonus to anyone who finds them. The bonus comes with a free helicopter ride out of the area, followed by a nasty interrogation.


Organization:
LANL is partitioned into divisions, represented by acronyms.
Examples:


Atmosphere:
Los Alamos, New Mexico is a company town. Nearly everyone in it is connected to the laboratory in some way. So, if you are a LANL employee, you will always be around others of your kind. This can be nice, as you will be able to talk about your work with other people, and it won't go over their heads. Trying to talk quantum physics at your hometown's coffee bar will likely get you some blank stares and possibly a wedgie. But in Los Alamos, the guys you go for coffee with are at least as geeky as you are. If your jibber-jabber is not in their field of expertise, they will listen and learn. If it is, they will make suggestions and intelligent discussion on the topic.
The downside of it being a company town, of course, is that you can't ever really escape your work. If you go out drinking in Los Alamos or a nearby town, you will see co-workers. You might run into your boss at the local supermarket, in the park, or at a strip club. For some, this enables them to do their best work; for others, it makes them a stressed-out mess. I heard it mentioned a few times that Los Alamos also has a very high proportion of their population on antidepressants as compared with the rest of the country, but I have no statistics on this.

Recent Politics:
The one name to know at Los Alamos is George "Pete" Nanos. Pete Nanos was LANL's director starting in 2003, and managed to make quite a mess of the place. He earned the ire of nearly all of the employees by shutting down the laboratory for a few months "in order to give staff time to rethink their behavior." This shutdown cost taxpayers $120-370 million. He impulsively fired people, and had quite the reign of terror going until he was replaced by Robert Kuckuck in May 2005. Kuckuck is more moderate and charismatic, and has begun to regain the faith of the remaining employees.
While Nanos is now gone, the damage he did was permanent. Many of the lab employees departed for greener pastures or early retirement. The lab, which had been run by the University of California for 62 years, was put up for bidding; it is now run by a partnership of UC and Bechtel Corporation, an engineering firm.

Working at Los Alamos:
Los Alamos offers summer internships for undergraduate and graduate students. Foreign students are accepted, but will never gain access to the higher security clearances. The application is a snap - you enter your resume into their database, and any division that needs you will do a keyword search. A phone interview and some background checks, and you're hired. LANL has lots of vacancies in its upper ranks, thanks to its recent political turmoil, so there is plenty of room for upward mobility. Still, even entry-level positions pay a good salary. LANL is also a good place to have references from, should you move to another job.
Your actual work experience depends on what division you end up in. Researching the division and subdivision first is a good idea, since each one is like its own company. LANL's official website will give you a good starting point, but the blog ("LANL: The Real Story") contains the best information you can get. If you are squeamish about supporting the United States' military objectives, you will likely have a bad time at LANL. I wasn't too comfortable about the fact that I was a microscopic cog in the weapon-building machine, so I'm not going to go back. My internship there was a great experience, though, and I have no regrets.