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I worked, as a civilian, for part of the R&D arm of the Navy, but it has a very similar feel to what you have posted. I would 100% agree with everything you have said, except the pay.

One thing I will add is getting tools and resources to do the work you want to do can be a challenge. There can be times when getting through the process to buy a $75 multimeter can be more difficult then the $16,000 signal generator.

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I also worked as a civilian for the Navy as an EE (b.s.). I think my pay was ~50k (in the mid 2000s). I don't know about the national labs, but my experience working for the navy was that funding was a fight, especially everything being siphoned off for the Afghanistan war. The equipment was pretty up to date (the computers were not the latest, but decent), the furniture was a mismatch collection of liquated stuff, lab reports were published to a confidential library, and we were on flex time, which made the hours great.

The greatest secret of government work is the hours. With the federal holidays, work celebrations at restaurants or bars, long lunches, you already work 30 hours a week.

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