Also, not all engineers have a risk-taking mentality. The Bay Area attracts mostly the "hacker" types, but there are plenty of more conservative – yet equally technically capable – individuals who prefer working for the government or a Fortune 500 company, where IT is just one of the many departments. Essentially, these are the people who might as well have chosen a career in banking or any other well-paying science-based field. To them, having a stable job is the highest priority.

Against which you have to balance the risk of taking the NASA job, but not getting paid for a few weeks or months every year.

If you really want a 'NASA' job, your best bet is one of their subcontractors that do most of the actual engineering.

JPL is still at work during the current shutdown...

They also get backpay so they are not really losing money.