The question in that WashingtonExec headline is the right one, even if the page didn’t load for me. The technologies reshaping delivery teams and mission systems in our sector aren’t the ones getting keynote slots—they’re the ones already running in production at a handful of forward-leaning programs.
I see this in every search we run for engineering and product leaders with TS/SCI. The passive candidates who move are the ones who’ve built or secured something real using tools that weren’t blessed by the acquisition process two years ago. They know the gap between what’s possible and what’s funded, and they’re tired of it. That’s the signal I map for: people who’ve actually deployed the next thing, not the ones still writing white papers about it.
If you’re hiring or considering a move, the filter isn’t whether someone can talk about modern DevSecOps or zero-trust or platform engineering. It’s whether they’ve done it under an ATO, with a poly, on a budget. That’s a short list.