Nowadays we almost daily see news regarding the spying done on the large Internet, PCs, networking companies by NSA, which obviously puts a big question before the public, and it’s whether the engineers at NSA are better than the engineers at other top tech companies like Google and facebook.
Ian Webster, an engineer interviewed by both Facebook and the NSA (before he founded a company known as Asterank) replied to the question- Does the NSA have better engineers than Facebook or Google?– on Quora.
“I was recruited by the NSA and received an offer without a challenging technical interview (I did go through polygraphs, psych exams, and some quizzing on my resume and interests). On the other hand, I felt challenged at my Facebook interview.”
“The NSA recruiters I spoke with are not really directly affiliated with the organization, but more like government bureaucrats. They are slow to respond and have no power or discretion, and show no real interest in you or the future of their organization. They probably lose many good candidates this way.”
“My takeaway was that the NSA mostly evaluates talent on the basis of academic record and pedigree rather than actual technical ability, and they are not as focused on recruiting.”
The co-founder of Collage.com, Kevin Borders who has worked for both NSA and Microsoft, says that the engineers at NSA are hard working and appreciate the many opportunities to travel and serve their country. But he admits that the NSA engineers can’t compete with the ones at Microsoft. He also explained that the engineers want to work in Valley companies because they don’t want a salary cut.