I had the precisely the same experience as a developer there several years ago. Wasnt just the critical/free thinking skills though, developer jobs were disresp

I had the precisely the same experience as a developer there several years ago. Wasnt just the critical/free thinking skills though, developer jobs were disrespected and poorly paid and ambitious people would aim for better paid middle management, civil service, finance or even real estate jobs. Really good developers tended to emigrate to the US. The government had a bad case of silicon valley envy though and would throw money at things local tech CEOs told them would be a good idea.