I would argue that US intelligence, especially on the technical side of things has put emphasis on privatization of these sectors.

US intelligence knows they can't go to policy makers and get funding for billion dollar domestic spy programs. So they stand up private companies and give them smallish grants at the beginning to get them on their feet, i.e Flock, Palantir, Signal Foundation, EFF, cloudflare, oracle. I could go on and on about orgs that their start off the back of US intelligence, whether through direct funding or through their alumni network.

The US Department of Defense has a long tradition of private public partnerships, but the privatization of intelligence has been accelerated in the last decade.

So while the NSA might not be able to attract talented SWEs for gov salaries to work on defense, their vendors that owe them their existence can.