Comment by michaelbarton

I have worked at a National Lab previously. For the computational field I worked in BigTech and most startups pay much more and have better access to resources.

If you’re a decent programmer at a National Lab now you can work on interesting problems at a startup for likely double your current salary. You can also immediately spin up and spend $500 in AWS without anyone batting an eye, at a National lab you’ll generally only have access to one type of compute (supercluster) and you have to wait days or weeks for your turn.

I think this is one major difference between the golden age of Bell Labs and now. I think if you want to recreate that you have to try and at least compete on the hiring playing field that BigTech is.