Security is a small part of the overall tech industry. I live near Bethesda and I would hardly call the region a tech hub on par with any of the ones in the West coast.
While I agree that DC is not on the standard with SF or Seattle (what are the other West Coast tech hubs), DC is definitely a tech hub in it's own right.
The problem with DC is that the talent pool is extremely diluted by disillusioned, rent-seeking government contractors who get a certification, claim a bunch of stuff on their resume, and get bid as part of a 20-person team on a contract that really only requires 5-6 committed (for the sake of argument, "SV caliber") people.
The problem is, hardly anyone that is "SV caliber" wants to work on pokey gov't contracts, but enough people on that team care enough about the mission, the project, or their company to allow the freeloaders to get away with it.
There's no incentive to firing them because a) the client understands that govt work is extremely inefficient so they tolerate it b) the freeloaders are very good at not pissing anyone off (they are very friendly and dress well, etc) and c) their employer literally loses money if they are removed.
So the cycle continues.
Having said all that, in amongst the chaff there is a significant kernel of wheat in the DC area, both in the contracting as well as private sector space.
Capital One has a really good engineering culture and hires a lot of very smart kids straight out of school and trains them very well. Many of them don't stay in DC, however, and go on to work at GOOG, MSFT, AMZN, etc for big salaries after their 2-year stint at COF is over.
NoVa definitely has some strong talent and you're correct in highlighting Capital One specifically (they recruit heavily at my alma mater and I know a number of talented people who work there). You're also correct about talent dilution - I worked for a brief stint at a government agency doing tech work and I would say the majority of contractors are unfortunately, quite untalented and love to hide behind buzzwords.
> what are the other West Coast tech hubs
I would say the Bay is several different tech hubs rolled into one, Portland has a fair bit of tech work, and LA is overlooked but increasingly becoming a big one.
In terms of getting work, I would say there are fewer security research jobs available in the Bay Area than scattered around the beltway. My last search, there were a ton of jobs asking how to authenticate servers to each other when what I want to talk about is how to fuzz or instrument code.
