My experience is that I’ve worked at a federal agency and at a national lab, but in the waning days of the Cold War, so things may be different now. For tippy-

My experience is that I’ve worked at a federal agency and at a national lab, but in the waning days of the Cold War, so things may be different now. For tippy-top talent, I imagine it’s kind of like the same way academia can compete with tech firms. You get freedom to work on interesting problems in a relatively low pressure environment. Additionally a lot of federal agencies (ironically it might seem) are no-bullshit places to work. There’s a published pay scale and promotion schedule. You show up do the work you move up. You never get laid off. One other thing is that certain national security important roles do get paid on a higher scale than the usual GS scale.