At Booz Allen, a government and military contractor, a mission-oriented nature and ability to obtain security clearances are important on top of other technical capabilities. In fact, about 80% of the company’s contracts require clearances or a certain level of clearability. This is especially important for the company’s cybersecurity-focused jobs. Booz Allen is one of the largest cybersecurity service providers in North America.

Booz Allen has thousands of cyber professionals across the firm, holding more than 10,000 cyber certifications, says Aimee George Leary, executive vice president and global talent strategy officer at Booz Allen. Leary couldn’t confirm the firm’s exact employment of cybersecurity professionals, but the number of roles in cybersecurity, data science, artificial intelligence, and software development continues to grow.

Layoffs happening in Big Tech have totaled 263,000-plus jobs in 2022 and the early part of 2023, according to Layoffs.fyi. Despite that, hiring is “up significantly,” at Booz Allen, Leary tells Fortune, and the company sees between 40,000 to 50,000 applications per month for open positions—which totaled more than 1,000 as of mid-February. But Booz Allen is still being cautious about its hiring plans, not just taking in any and all candidates who were laid off. 

“Access to this additional talent is great, but we also have to make sure that all of those things align perfectly: focus on the mission, clearability,” Leary explains. “All of those things have to line up.”

Big Tech boomerangs

Software engineers are often inherently interested in new technology, meaning it’s not abnormal for them to want to change jobs, functions, projects, or even programming languages. As certain technologies grow older, some engineers lose interest in building or working with that technology, Saker explains, leaving them wanting more. 

These workers also align with a “grass is greener” philosophy, meaning that they’ll sometimes shift away from public sector jobs to a job with a Big Tech firm, attracted by high salaries and the ability to work on newer projects and technologies. “The tech companies hired like crazy,” Saker says. “Those giants hired some of my top engineers.”

However, job switching sometimes doesn’t always go as planned. Some of the engineers who moved over to Big Tech got placed in sales engineering roles, which pull engineers further away from programming and working directly with technologies. The longer the engineers are away from the keyboard, the more the “itch” starts to creep back in to code and build systems that “touch people’s lives,” Saker says. 

For example, on a recent flight, Saker observed two Navy sailors return home from a mission. He realized that he had played a part in their safe return home, as he had worked on the software for the Navy’s online learning management system. “I had tears in my eyes,” he recalls.

“The type of job matters,” he adds. “People who are stuck on a certain vertical and don’t learn the next technology coming out feel uncomfortable because they get out of tech. That’s why I think working in the public sector is a better deal for tech talent.”

Once engineers become bored or complacent with their Big Tech roles, their job performance can starts to decline, Leary says. In turn, these workers may become first on the chopping block when layoffs happen.

“The mission focus is the sustainable piece if you’re always focused on the client’s needs or the people’s needs—making things better,” Leary adds. “If we attract the talent that’s interested in doing that, that will be our lever for retention. That is special.”

Saker says he also makes a point to keep in touch with previous employees who may leave for Big Tech jobs, and hire them back when they realize that “the grass isn’t greener.” These workers come back with more tech skills, allowing them to make more of an impact at Booz Allen, he adds.

The problem with compensation packages at Big Tech firms

The average salary for a software engineer at Apple is nearly $200,000, and solutions architects can make almost $300,000. By comparison, software engineers at Booz Allencan make about $125,000, while solutions architects can bring home roughly $230,000.

While starting salaries at Big Tech firms are undoubtedly higher than those with companies that serve the public sector, Booz Allen officials argue that the Big Tech salaries will be difficult to sustain—as is evident in recent layoffs. 

Paying salaries that high isn’t sustainable—and “we’re seeing the result of that now,” Leary says. “You can’t carry that workforce paying that kind of price for someone who is two, three years out of college. It’s just not sustainable.”

Rather than hiring aggressively and paying more as a reaction to the current job market, Booz Allen is focused on “investing in the long haul” and taking a look at its compensation packages, Leary says. When hiring, the company is looking at a mix of years of experience and tech skills. To build its talent pipeline, the company is also focused on reskilling and upskilling current workers. This will allow workers to accelerate their careers when they want to, she says. 

“There’s no one silver bullet in all of this,” Leary says. “It’s all of the parts working together.”