Who in Silicon Valley thinks that? I've never heard anyone say it in my 30+ years here (until now).

Very odd statement indeed. I have never heard anything even remotely corroborating this. In fact (highly anecdotally, take it as entertainment at best), I have read that public opinion holds NSA's technical capabilities in high esteem but in reality, the talent is vastly below that of the top consumer tech companies because most tech employees would never contribute to the type of work the government does.

I hear you, and appreciate your caveat ("highly anecdotally"). But consider a couple of data points:

-- KH-11 satellite, and presumed successors

-- Stuxnet

-- Utah data center (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center)

-- The rather enormous intelligence budget that allows all kinds of creativity

The above indicates that there must be some corners of these agencies that are extremely technically skilled, and able to do real stuff with breathtaking ambition. Given the budget, these "corners" might be pretty big, and attract some excellent talent.

Those that know, aren't talking, and those talking (ahem!), don't know.

KH-11 is Lockheed.

Stuxnet was probably mainly Mossad.

The Utah data center was a pretty run of the mill data center, but apparently plagued by technical issues.

And yeah, they have a huge budget which allows them to buy a lot of toys for a bit above normal price.

Their mathematicians are top notch though from what I've heard.

I can assure you that there are programs with insane skill requirements, many of which have fed the executives and senior Security and IT staff at FAANG. They're not likely being overt about their previous jobs, choosing to instead make them sound less sexy so to speak, but they're 100% there. I would also note that you're over estimating 2nd party contributions to all the above.

You're right on the money for math though, crazy smart mathematicians.

How does the fed pay these programmers more than the normal federal compensation schedule? Is the compensation uncapped if they work through a contractor? If they dont, why do these programmers choose to work there?

If you got a Ph.D. in some field and wanted to do R&D in it without trying to go tenure-track, then the national labs, and occasionally the contractors, used to be a decent compromise. Bell Labs was gone, Google wasn't yet running its moonshot factory, and Softbank had yet to open its pocketbook. Depending where in the country you want to be it still might make a little sense.

But if you're a programmer without a scientific speciality, then there's less reason.

The contractors have some freedom to pay as they see fit -- they pay more than the national labs in my experience -- but they still have to justify their rates to the government during contract negotiations, and the government can push back. The pay is "ok", but has been falling increasingly behind "Tech". So now there's brain drain, particularly among programmers.

I have limited first-hand experience, but yes, contractors can be paid independently of government pay scales as far as I know, and far more than you'd think (in terms of breadth of jobs) is done by contractors. I remember reading that the people who do security clearance investigations largely are, or were, contractors.

My impression is that if you do work directly for federal or state government, you also are likely to be alongside a substantial number of contractors.

Reality Winner was a contractor, by the way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_Winner

That was the common transition where I worked. Do gov stint, get into a great office, establish a name for yourself and get the right access. Then transition to contract, bounce between them as they contracts are merged / transfered etc. but still make multiples greater than as a Civilian. Some billets were GS 9-13. Only difference was education background, same work same tasks. Same contract could be making 135k base plus profit share or guaranteed bonuses. The sky was the limit for some specific people (though not everyone got these offers, just like most won't get a FAANG job).

Multiple programs were built to fix the compensation for military members whom were paid even less than civilian counterparts in the same offices. It's why the churn rate is so high. Even then, the majority of cleared jobs still aren't commensurate with external salaries.

Can't do anything but agree. The intelligence budget, as you said, is enormous so there will certainly be things that come out of it that would be shaky business decisions to even attempt in the private sector.

For one, GPS was created by the DoD and I am still blown away that it is so good, accessible, and free for consumer use.

If Facebook were allowed to stuxnet the hell out of Apple/google/Twitter etc, who knows what would happen:)

I’m not disparaging the nsa etc talent, but it’s very hard to arrive at fair comparisons in this area.

The sec teams at faang are just not tasked with stuff the nsa does.

You should have ended your post with "<mike drop>".

Pretty hard to argue with that list.

A friend of mine (who went to NMSU) worked for NASA. He wrote the code that determined what angle the solar panels need to be at to get the right amount of sun to power the ISS. Crazy number of edge cases, and people die if you have a bug.

Was pretty impressive to hear the things he had to do and the processes they had for minimizing the risk of someone dying. I'd put that on par with many things, too (although Stuxnet has its own place for genuflection).

> most tech employees would never contribute to the type of work the government does

I don't even think it's ideological. The reason the defense industry lacks top tier talent is because it's quite literally the most stifling and frustrating place to work possible. You're mired in endless bureaucracy, incompetent management, arcane rules and regulations surrounding secrecy, and some of the world's least flexible working arrangements. It ends up being a great place for people who want to punch a clock and get a reliable paycheck, but a deadend for anyone trying to make their mark.

Government service also pays substantially less than SV.

I thought the dominant public opinion is government agencies are staffed with mediocre engineers. Not even because of any moral concerns, just because of bureaucracy and low pay.

Agreed, but we still think of the CIA and NSA on a technical level as being capable of unparalleled surveillance, crypto cracking, and other general hackery and engineering to maintain its power. Perhaps that's part of the propaganda. With that said, I imagine much of that is possible with backdoors to mass consumer data like Facebook which is actually collected via ingenious (but unethical) talent in Silicon Valley.

I learned from Snowden's book that the real way to make money working for the government is to quit and become a contractor.

Silicon Valley really loves some formal education it seems. Both of my Si Valley interviews, where they were willing to fly me out and accommodate me, involved an older gentleman having a sit-down with me about university, and how I should have gone.

Allow me to rephrase, people believe the NSA has superior technology with mystical capabilities. Who do you think that develops that stuff, where do those people come from?

To be fair, I think the general opinion is they are created by private contractors with government oversight

contractors

who are also heavily consolidated in certain markets, who also recruit from the same state schools that Big Tech can't figure out even exist

I think the more accurate perception is they have relatively unlimited budget and interest in attacking computer security, along with special powers like doing basically secret illegal shit that make them difficult to beat in security matters.

Not that any specific set of their employees are super geniuses.

While SV still has to run a profitable business while trying to care about security.

Yes, that is the reality

Along with sovereign immunity to CFAA and other laws