Fair enough. If you're in an area where market forces are immediate enough to force you to stay current/effective, or you just prioritize being competitive, the

Fair enough. If you're in an area where market forces are immediate enough to force you to stay current/effective, or you just prioritize being competitive, then I suppose simply being in it for the money can work. You're a rare breed though in my experience. And arguably your desire to remain competitive is an extra motivator outside of the money. Most people I'd describe as being in it for the money are just looking for a bland, suburban middle class existence and are happy to plateau once they start making enough to be comfortable. As for job stability, oh believe me it exists. One thing I've discovered is defense contractor work (at least at the large contractors) is only one step removed from government work in terms of non-firability. Security clearances take a minimum of 6 months, often a year or more to process, it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars per investigation, and there's no guarantee a prospective hire will pass. As a result the large contractors hoard cleared engineers, almost regardless of ability. Even if your program ends it's an unwritten rule that some other program will pick you up. We haven't had layoffs since sequestration/the financial crisis, and relative to the size of the company those were minimal.