OpenBSD out of the box is an extremely minimal setup compared to the default install of most Linux distros.
A lot of the security of the default install comes from minimizing the attack surface by having very few services running. So you do not need to be tech-savvy to make it secure, but you might need to be tech-savvy to turn it into a usable system for your use case.
This will not affect your laptop, all of the models affected by this are enterprise SAS SSDs.
Of course your SSD might have some other firmware bug that would eat your data, all you can do is search for the model number and see if the manufacturer has issued any notices/firmware updates.
Only one data point but the local Amazon warehouse I worked at for a while has a Target warehouse about a mile away that pays ~20% more for similar work. People were leaving for them in droves, including management.
I'm sure the competitiveness varies wildly in different areas though.