Aren't there already people not on GS anyway? From researching, it seems like other areas have already figured out how to do this: NSA and "some parts of the Navy" are both called out as using non-GS pay scales.
I don't see why they can't have like "Advanced Science" wage table, to compete for the best engineers and scientists rather than hiring either bottom of barrel or end of career people.
I make much more right now with 8 YoE than my boss in the gov't did and he had a PhD with 20 YoE.
