US Tech Force: Why It Faces Major Challenges—and How It Can Succeed Anyway

On December 15, OPM announced a new program called the US Tech Force. The Tech Force is billed as a “cross-government program to recruit top technologists to modernize the federal government.” It intends to take on “the most complex and large-scale civic and defense challenges of our era,” running the gamut from “administering critical financial infrastructure at the Treasury Department to advancing cutting-edge programs at the Department of Defense.” 

Through the program, the government plans to hire approximately 1,000 fellows each year who are highly skilled in software engineering, AI, cybersecurity, data analytics, or technical project management, to serve for one- to two-year terms. The Tech Force aims to foster early-career talent in particular, a demographic that the federal government has long struggled to recruit in sufficient numbers. To support the program, the government is partnering with private-sector companies, which will provide technical training and recruitment. 

The sheer scale envisioned for the Tech Force makes it noteworthy. Compare it to the previous administration’s AI Talent Surge initiative, which hired around 250 people between October 2023-24. The U.S. Digital Corps, another similar program, had only 70 fellows in its most recent cohort in 2024. The timeline that OPM outlines for the Tech Force launch is also very ambitious: an initial pilot wave of fellows by Spring 2026, followed by the start of the first on-cycle cohort by September 2026. 

While the Tech Force has huge potential, it will need to overcome the challenges inherent to rapid, large-scale talent acquisition in the federal government—and make sure that the government recoups the value of this significant investment.

Using a streamlined process and private partnership to meet the ambitious goals

Per a memo from OPM to agency heads sent the same day as the Tech Force announcement, Tech Force fellows will be hired as “Schedule A” federal employees. Schedule A is an “excepted-service” hiring authority. That means that fellows can be hired using streamlined procedures that generally shorten the hiring timeline, which otherwise runs about 100 days for the default “competitive-service” hiring used to fill most rank-and-file government positions. The difference is significant given that the Tech Force application only just closed on February 2, and at least one report says that the program is targeting start dates in March.

Notwithstanding the expedited Schedule A hiring process, OPM Director Scott Kupor has said that Tech Force fellows will still go through the normal channels for obtaining security clearances, though he noted that agencies have assured him that they will process fellows’ clearances—which typically take months or more—as efficiently as possible.

The Tech Force also involves public-private collaboration. So far, roughly thirty companies have agreed to partner with the government to support the program, including Amazon Web Services, Apple, Google Public Sector, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, OpenAI, Oracle, Palantir, and xAI. Per the Tech Force website, these companies can provide support in various ways, such as offering technical training resources and mentorship, nominating employees for participation in the program, and committing to considering Tech Force alums for employment after their government service has ended. 

While it’s not apparent what form “technical training resources” will take, they could be quite valuable, coming from companies at the bleeding edge of AI and other critical technology. The government might therefore consider working with companies to extend such resources to other technical employees within the federal government, beyond just the Tech Force teams. This could help diffuse the knowledge and experience gains of the Tech Force program to more federal employees, magnifying the program’s overall impact.

OPM’s complicated role leading the initiative

OPM appears to have primary responsibility for the Tech Force, at least in terms of overall program administration and coordination. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the General Services Administration (GSA)—which, like OPM, focus on governmentwide operations and resources—are also listed in OPM’s announcement as key players. The Tech Force’s website emphasizes that the program has the White House’s backing, with the OPM announcement specifying the involvement of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). OSTP has had a prominent role in shaping the Administration’s AI policy, most notably the AI Action Plan released last July.

In the memo sent to agency heads, OPM explained that it will provide centralized oversight and administration for the program, including managing outreach, recruitment, and assessment of the fellows. However, individual agencies will be responsible for hiring, onboarding, and funding Tech Force fellows, with projects and assignments set by agency leadership. OPM also instructs that Tech Force teams will report directly to agency heads (or their designees).

Beyond such statements, OPM has yet to publicly outline how exactly its centralized recruitment and assessment of applicants will intersect with agencies’ responsibility for hiring fellows. Looking to other initiatives helps to show the different structures that are possible for these sorts of programs, as well as their advantages and disadvantages. 

First, there’s the U.S. Digital Corps, similarly centered on short-term tech-focused appointments for early-career talent, though much smaller than the Tech Force in terms of size. In that program, the GSA served a coordinating role by pairing candidates with partnering agencies, with input from both applicants and agencies to gauge preferences and fit. While participants were formally hired by GSA, they were “detailed,” i.e., sent on assignment, to their partnering agencies for the duration of the fellowship. Contrast that with the much-larger Presidential Management Fellows (PMF) program, focused on early-career talent across a variety of disciplines. There, OPM provided centralized vetting and selected a slate of finalists, though agencies ultimately decided which if any finalists to interview and hire. For context, OPM selected 825 finalists for the PMF class of 2024.

Based on the OPM memo and other materials, the Tech Force seems closer in its intended structure and scale to the PMF program than the U.S. Digital Corps. But if that’s indeed the case, it’s worth noting some potential pitfalls of that model of which Tech Force leadership should remain aware. Notably, in the ten years before it was discontinued in 2025, on average 50% of PMF finalists did not obtain federal positions. Among other things, the fact that agencies had to pay an $8,000 premium to OPM for every PMF finalist they hired seems to have functioned as a disincentive, and the uncertainty caused by agencies’ long hiring timelines may have prompted finalists to pursue other career opportunities. 

As the Federation of American Scientists suggested in the context of potential PMF reform, OPM should focus on creating a strong support ecosystem for the Tech Force to counteract these issues, including by strengthening key partnerships in agencies. Specifically, establishing dedicated and high-ranking “Tech Force Director” positions within agencies could foster a closer fit between agencies’ needs and the benefits the program can offer while continuing to share the administrative load of the program more broadly.

The goal: accelerating the government’s adoption of AI and attracting early-career talent

According to OPM, the purposes of the Tech Force are numerous. First and foremost, it aims to accelerate the government’s adoption of AI and other emerging technologies, including by deploying teams of technologists to various agencies to work on high-impact projects. That strong focus on AI is consistent with the involvement of OSTP, which has led on AI policy.

Judging from its website and other publicly available materials, the Tech Force appears to be focused to a considerable degree on modernizing the federal government’s aging digital systems, perhaps more so than the work on evaluating the capabilities and risks of frontier AI models that offices like the Commerce Department’s Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI) do. Among the types of projects participants will work on, the Tech Force lists AI implementation, application development, data modernization, and digital service delivery.

Even though AI evaluation and monitoring work isn’t explicitly on the list, it fits well within the Tech Force’s large anticipated scale and its broad aim to build “the future of American government technology.” Such work improves the security of AI systems, both for commercial uses and when deployed throughout the federal government. Moreover, expressly including AI evaluation and monitoring work within the scope of the program might bolster recruitment of top talent given its intersection with high-profile national security work—interesting and valuable experience that tech experts typically can’t get outside of the government.

On the subject of recruitment, publicly available materials like the Tech Force website and OPM memo convey a focus on early-career talent, to “[h]elp address the early-stage career gaps in government.” As OPM Director Kupor noted on the heels of the Tech Force announcement, the federal government has long trailed the private sector in attracting and hiring junior talent, with only 7% of the federal workforce under the age of thirty. Kupor frames the Tech Force as part of OPM’s broader effort to “Make Government Cool Again,” infusing it with “newer ideas and newer experiences” to keep pace with rapid technological change.

The Tech Force also plans to employ “experienced engineering managers.” Those managers will lead and mentor teams comprised largely of early-career talent. While the Tech Force will primarily seek early-career talent via traditional recruiting channels, it appears that managers will be drawn mostly or perhaps even exclusively from the program’s partnering companies. OPM thus notes that the program will serve the purpose of providing mid-career technology specialists with an opportunity to gain government experience without necessitating a permanent transition.

Two major challenges for the Tech Force—and how to tackle them

1. Getting the Tech Force set up quickly

OPM is aiming for an initial pilot wave of fellows by the spring (with one report specifying that it’s targeting start dates by March), and for the first full cohort of 1,000 fellows by September. That schedule is possible, though it means that agencies will have to significantly improve upon the government’s average hiring and clearance timelines, which generally take several months, if not longer. There are several ways to do that.

For context, the special “Schedule A” authority that will be used to hire Tech Force fellows can theoretically be deployed very quickly, because it doesn’t require time-consuming procedures like rating and ranking of applicants that regular hiring entails. Though OPM plans to have applicants undergo a technical assessment and potentially interviews with agency leadership, those steps might conceivably add only a few weeks, or even less time if well-staffed. 

As for security clearances, there’s similarly no legal barrier to them moving quickly—for example, they have sometimes been issued in a matter of weeks or even days for political appointees, such as those needed for crisis-response efforts and other urgent matters. However, the clearance timeline for the average new hire runs anywhere from two to six months or more, depending on the level of clearance needed and whether the case presents any complications, like foreign business ties, necessitating further investigation.

OPM Director Kupor has said that agencies have promised to process Tech Force fellows’ security clearances as quickly as possible. Indeed, timelines for clearances can shrink from months to days when personnel know that a particular matter is a top priority for the head of their agency or the White House, as documented by Raj Shah and Christopher Kirchhoff in their 2024 book Unit X, about the Pentagon’s elite Defense Innovation Unit.

To this end, agencies could make use of “interim” security clearances for fellows, which would allow them to begin work pending a final clearance decision in cases that don’t raise concerns upon initial review. Interim clearances can shave months off the timeline, yet agencies appear to use them unevenly, perhaps overestimating the risk of a negative final clearance decision. But if agencies are to meet the Tech Force’s ambitious goals (especially for a pilot wave of fellows as early as March), then they need to consider utilizing this tool—and personnel within the organization need to know that they have cover from their leadership in using it.

Still, other operational challenges and questions loom. While pressure from the top can accelerate hiring and clearance timelines, the agency teams tasked with fulfilling such mandates may find it difficult to maintain the pace over longer periods if they’re inadequately resourced and staffed. Furthermore, OPM has made it clear that agencies will fund Tech Force fellows and projects themselves, leaving the overall financial footing of the program unclear, and potentially delaying its actual launch at any agencies that might struggle to find available funds on relatively short notice.

Congress could bolster the Tech Force by appropriating funds to specifically support it, to include project budgets, fellows’ salaries, and the other costs associated with hiring and clearing fellows rapidly and at scale. Without dedicated appropriations, agencies may vary widely in the amount of discretionary funding that they’re able or willing to devote to the program, especially at the outset of this new and previously unaccounted-for expenditure. Congress could also pass measures aimed at increasing the ability of federal hiring teams to assess AI talent, like those in the bipartisan “AI Talent” bill introduced on December 10. Building up this type of AI-enabling talent would help agencies work efficiently in selecting and hiring the right technical expertise, for both the Tech Force and other similar hiring efforts.

Additionally, given OPM’s statements that hiring of Tech Force fellows will be conducted directly by agencies, it remains to be seen how exactly OPM will ensure that agencies don’t waste resources—including valuable time—competing over the same candidates. Within the private sector, competition for AI talent is fierce, and that dynamic seems likely to affect the Tech Force as well. The Tech Force job vacancies posted so far note that they’re “shared announcements” from which various agencies may hire, and suggest that it’ll be up to the agencies to decide which candidates to interview and make offers to. OPM should play a robust coordinating role here so that smaller or less well-known agencies aren’t disadvantaged in attracting and securing sufficient qualified hires. Based on the scale of the program, OPM might even consider a model like the “medical match” system used to pair medical students with residency programs, to help both applicants and agencies weigh their options and needs in a more efficient and organized manner.

Finally, the public-private structure of the program could present some challenges. As full-time federal employees, Tech Force fellows will be subject to the generally applicable conflict of interest rules, which prohibit government employees from receiving outside compensation, or from accessing information or taking action that could unduly benefit themselves or closely related parties financially. Given such rules, the Tech Force website notes that participants nominated by partner companies are expected to take unpaid leave or to separate from their private-sector employers while working for the government. Even still, conflict of interest rules can complicate federal service for tech-company employees, who often have deferred compensation packages (e.g., restricted stock units, options) that vest over time, perhaps several years in the future. 

The Tech Force website says that it “expect[s]” that fellows, including those nominated for the program by partnering companies, will be able to retain any deferred compensation packages, though it mentions that companies will need to review details on a case-by-case basis to determine whether any such compensation must be suspended while an individual remains in the program. It bears noting that agencies’ ethics offices may also have to review potential conflicts on a case-by-case basis as they arise, with an eye to the details of the particular financial interest and government matter at issue. Because of the fact-specific nature of that analysis, it’s hard to generalize the result, and the answers could morph over time as projects and financial situations change during the course of government service.

Without greater clarity on whether and how the government can consistently address the challenges raised by conflict of interest rules, the Tech Force may struggle to recruit and retain some promising candidates. This issue is perhaps most significant for the senior engineering managers (with the most compensation on the line) that the program plans to draw from private partners.

2. Ensuring the Tech Force provides long-term benefits for the government

As OPM Director Kupor acknowledges, the federal government has a problem with its early-career talent pipeline, particularly as it relates to the need for greater adoption of AI and other emerging technology. He has cast the Tech Force as part of the solution, a way to infuse the government with a new crop of tech-savvy employees who will lend their expertise to projects of national scope and, in the process, discover that federal service can indeed provide interesting and valuable experience. But it’s unclear at this point how the Tech Force—with its standard two-year service term—will translate to enduring change in the makeup of the federal workforce, or raise the overall level of technological uptake across government. To do so, program leadership could pursue two additional steps.

First, the White House could consider issuing an executive order granting “non-competitive eligibility” (NCE) to Tech Force fellows who successfully complete the program. NCE status allows individuals to be hired for competitive-service positions (which comprise the majority of federal civilian hiring) without having to compete against applicants from the general public. Thus, an individual with NCE status can be hired much more quickly than would otherwise be the case, assuming of course that they meet the qualifications of the position. For any Tech Force fellows interested in continuing their government service after they complete the program, NCE status would likely significantly streamline the process of obtaining another federal position, and ensure that the government doesn’t lose proven talent that’s eager to stay on. The Tech Force website in fact recognizes that some fellows may apply for continued federal service following the end of the program, and so granting NCE status to successful participants is in sync with its goals.

NCE is commonly granted to the alumni of federal programs like the Peace Corps, Fulbright Scholarship, and AmeriCorps VISTA, making it a natural fit for the Tech Force, not least because of its emphasis on early-career talent. NCE is typically valid for between one and three years following successful service completion, though the timeframe specified is entirely up to the White House’s discretion. Establishing a three-year NCE period for Tech Force alumni (versus one or two years) would give individuals the option of pursuing meaningful professional experiences outside of government before potentially returning for another stint. Likewise, it would give the government a broader window in which it might recoup its investment in training previous Tech Force talent.

Second, Tech Force leadership might consider expanding the program to include some opportunities for existing government employees to serve one- to two-year terms in the private sector. The Tech Force’s private-sector partners provide a potential ready-made source of such opportunities, and companies might be amenable given that they will lose some of their own employees and managers to the program for similar periods. For the federal government, making the Tech Force a two-way exchange (even in numbers much more modest than the Tech Force’s 1,000 fellows) would amplify the government’s access to knowledge and experience regarding AI and other emerging tech, beyond the Tech Force teams and projects themselves. That might be valuable insofar as the Tech Force teams could end up being quite insular given their direct reporting line to agency heads.

This sort of science-and-technology exchange program already has some precedent at federal agencies, and would increase diffusion of the Tech Force’s capacity-building benefits throughout the federal workforce. Upon their return to federal service, government employees might disseminate lessons and approaches from the private sector among their colleagues and teams. Furthermore, because the Tech Force’s team leaders will be drawn (perhaps exclusively) from private-sector partners, a two-way exchange could be a way to give existing government tech managers important experience, ultimately providing agencies with a deeper bench of mid- and senior-career talent.