[jjguy]

USG employees vs. contractor is an important distinction. Your ranges imply your friends are contractors. See techjuice's post for USG ranges.

[nataz]

GS12 w/ DC metro COLA and no engineering band bonus gets just across the line into 6 figures (103K).

Most senior technical folks (not just out of school/military, and not supervisor/team lead level) are going to be GS12-13.

Still, (almost) no one is making 200K as a federal employee.