Napolitano's new job - The Washington Post But Janet Napolitano may have found an even tougher gig - she announced Friday that she's leaving the Department of Homeland Security to be president of the University of California system. Heading the DHS is considered the hardest, least-appreciated Cabinet job. It's the newest position in that elite club - the department was created in 2002 - so there's a sense that you're the new kid on the block. And seating at Cabinet meetings is based on how long the agencies have been around, so you're practically at the children's table. The job is a management nightmare: The agency was created from dozens of smaller agencies, and it consistently ranks as one of the worst places in the federal government to work. "It's almost easier to say what you don't worry about than what you need to be worried about at any given time," Napolitano said in a 2011 forum marking the department's eighth birthday. Ten campuses, nearly 200,000 employees and a shaky financial picture make it the kind of challenge that only someone who seems to relish stress the way Napolitano does would love. "The size and scope speaks for itself, but what is really challenging there is the diversity," said John Thornburgh , managing partner of the higher-education practice for executive search firm Witt/Kieffer. Ambassador-in-waiting Word is that the administration has formally asked - and Japan is expected to agree - to accept her as the U.S. envoy - a move that comes in the last stages of the lengthy nomination process.