Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think there’s an aspect of your question that deserves sincere engagement, but I also think there is a very overblown idea of “the best in their field” and a misconception that if you were “good enough” to get hired into top private sector jobs, it somehow means you are better than peers. For one thing, people grow & change. Out of some hypothetical cohort of peers in year X, some few may have been the “best” in sc…
> I feel they have talented people who are massively underpaid. They pay enough to get the talent they need * . Or in other words, if they're sufficiently staffed it's because people are willing to work there for less than market rate. Patriotism, a chance (in some roles) to work on cutting edge tech / scale, and making a difference in the world attract people. You can feel however you want about the agencies morally…
Working for the NSA doesn't necessarily entail working on mass civilian surveillance, which I think is where the moral and ethical concerns are concentrated. They still do military and diplomatic intelligence, and defensive security for US many government systems, which I think only the most pacifist would have a problem with.