Propsects in the DC area

I was talking to a company recently that does a lot of government contract work. They are based in the DC area.
They guy I was talking to told me it's a good area to be in, Virginia, that is. The government is one area of the economy that is less effected than others by the economic slow down. They may even be stepping up spending, in light of recent political events. Apparently the DC metro area doesn't have many programmers, and the ones they do have aren't top quality (generally speaking, I'm sure there are good programmers there, too, especially those in the DC area who read JavaRanch :-)
So keep an eye out for both DC area jobs as well as companies which do a lot of government contracts (and not just military contracts, but all types).

--Mark

Not just Virgina, Maryland is pretty much the same. However it should be noted that you must be a US citizen in many cases, even as a contractor, to do government work.

And a lot of the government jobs seem to require security clearances to boot.

(I know - I've been looking in the area.)
Just bear in mind that some of the government jobs that are advertised are also slow-going in being filled due to the current situation, since there's a lack of people to do background checks when they're required. But, on the flip side, government work is seen as fairly stable too...
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Theodore Jonathan Casser
SCPJ2 and SCWCD
IBM Certified Specialist - WebSphere Application Server, Std. Ed, V3.5