People who can do cleared government research are pushed into it because there's a huge shortage there. My grad school advisor wanted me to go down that path. He strongarmed me into an internship at a technology-focused government organization: he threw the internship on my lap, said he wasn't paying me that Summer, and he knew I needed money (I do not have parents who I can live with).

Someone at the organization talked about a certain technical problem, and he described it as "almost impossible." He had done this job for decades.

My current employer tasked me with this problem. I am the only image scientist at my company. So, the cost of failure was low and the potential gain was high.

The task is now nearly solved. It was incredibly easy. I am early/mid career. The hardest part of this "almost impossible task" was getting a bunch of niggers to click the trucks...which was hard, but apparently ol' CMD has patience rivaling Buddha.

What does this mean? It could mean:

1) My senior was incompetent and held a high ranking tech job in government for a decade.

2) Our government can't funnel $5,000 into procuring resources to solve the problem.

3) CMD's better at his job than he thinks he is.

4) My senior was lying in an attempt to try to get us excited to tackle hard problems.

2-4 are obviously ridiculous: $5,000 is chump change for research, I routinely fuck up image forensics on the TL, and the problem is only recently solved.

This suggests that the US government is failing very badly at recruitment in general - people who have other options usually take them, for various reasons.