These guys seem to be pretty good hackers. Anyone know how much they make? Or is that classified? If so, anybody have any idea? For the NSA, they list salary ranges on the job postings. Examples: Cryptographic Vuln.
They also adjust the pay for living in Hawaii, since it's more expensive. The CIA pays a little better, but it's more expensive to live near there. Of course if you work as an infiltration plant at a 3rd party I would assume you can add a second salary on top of that.
Or a third salary if you're a triple agent :. It's not a job you go into for the money. They're making like twice the median income for the US, that's more than enough to live comfortably. Frankly, you don't get involved in that line of work without some serious patriotism. I live in the DC area and I live very comfortably on a similar salary. If you're single k in DC is amazing. If you have a family, you will have everything you NEED, but you won't be living by most peoples' definitions of "very comfortably".
A lot of those positions aren't in high cost areas, especially if you don't have kids. The area near Fort Meade, MD isn't too bad. San Antonio, TX is reasonable. Fort Meade, Maryland? On top of all of that, you have neighboring PG County, Maryland where corruption and crime are out of control, as well as terrible traffic around the entire DC metro area.
Of all places you mentioned, Fort Meade does not belong in the same lot. Where are you looking? I've priced stuff out in that area. It's not as bad as you're making it out to be. There's a number of decent areas with reasonable housing, it only gets more expensive if you're concerned about also having a shorter drive into DC.
