My experience has been the tech scene is connected to government funding (defense and otherwise), non-profits, advocacy groups, etc. Many of these would be smaller companies, but can be either grant driven or dependent on a govt contract. Also many govt contracts are through a prime (think Lockheed Martin) given the complexity of govt contracting.
On the plus side, some of the work can truly be for the public good. Especially if it’s connected to a cause you’re passionate about. On the downside, you can be at the whim of budgets, grant awards, donors, etc.
I'll second this, and add some more for OP. While most of my experience is in the defense space, there is a lot of public sector work. I've met people who work on projects for United States Geological Survey (HQed in Reston), National Park Service's "Recreation.gov", Small Business Administration, and others. There are a lot of non-profits in the area working various initiatives. Education is big here, and there are a lot of satellite campuses in the area as well.
As someone else mentioned, health sector is big as well, and NIH has some big initiatives underway, many using high performance compute. And take a look at HHMI's Janelia Research Campus. It flies under the radar here, but they do some impressive work.
Aerospace has a lot going on, and plenty with geospatial. Not all of it defense driven.
So yeah, seconding the post above. There's a lot of great public good work beyond defense, it should just be noted that it's public sector, so a lot of bureaucratic strings come with that money.
Yeah. It's been awhile since I checked in, but it seemed like most of the open source tech was hosted by or in relation to enterprise. Capital One either hosted or sponsored a lot of events. Amazon is another. Feels like Splunk is another name I see attached to things, but possibly just because I know people there.
On the plus side, some of the work can truly be for the public good. Especially if it’s connected to a cause you’re passionate about. On the downside, you can be at the whim of budgets, grant awards, donors, etc.