> How are we not funding competitive salaries in this field when it's absolutely crucial to the safety of the nation?

The same could be asked about soldiers, teachers, and many others. Funding doesn't correlate well at all with to importance to society.

Football coaches are the highest paid employees of very many universities in the U.S., more than Nobel prize winning scientists, world-changing artists and social scientists, and life-saving doctors. Bench-riding professional athletes usually make more than the general commanding all U.S. forces in the Mideast.

If you believe those "tech salary" HN threads, there are top engineers at top tech companies making $400K. That's how much the president of the US makes. Good luck.

Exactly. And then there is a long chain of dept. heads, managers and so on in there. There is no way they'll accept making less money than some developer, even if they happen to be very good.

Now if they wanted to be creative they could for example build more offices out in other parts of town, make them more accessible, more moderen, allow a lot more vacation time, say start at 6 weeks, allow sabaticals and so on. But I just don't see FBI going that route.

I don't like that I'm paying the salary of people that spy on me, I'd really not like it if they were paid more than me. The USG dedicates very few resources to actual IT defense, the vast majority of the funding goes to attacking and intentionally crippling our own infrastructure.

Since when are we worried about safety of the citizens? It is more cost efficient to worry about safety of the corporations. And it is a great way for corporations to externalize their security costs. What's not to love? (sarcasm)

Because all the funds we earmark for public safety are gobbled up by lowlife middlefolk and their cronies, the snake oil salefolk. Look at our defense spend, and compare it with the pitiful recompense seen by the people we expose to risk.