If you have ever wished the people building powerful AI tools were also the ones waiting on hold with the IRS or navigating clunky government sites, this story is worth your time. The US government is creating a new early career program called the US Tech Force to pull fresh AI and tech talent directly into federal agencies, with real projects and real pay, not just résumé fluff.
The Office of Personnel Management plans to hire an initial cohort of 1,000 early career software engineers, data scientists, project managers and AI experts and place them in agencies across government for a two year stint.
Think of it as a tech fellowship inside the federal system, where participants work on everything from smarter drones at the Department of Defense to AI that helps improve intelligence at the State Department and the Trump Accounts platform at the IRS.
What makes this news truly noteworthy is the way it reframes public sector tech work as a high impact, high growth career step rather than a detour from the private sector. Salaries in the program are expected to range from about 130,000 to 195,000 dollars.
This is clearly meant to compete with tech company offers while adding something those jobs cannot match as easily. Participants get a front row seat to some of the biggest and messiest problems in the country, the kind that affect families, small businesses and daily life in very practical ways.
Scott Kupor, who leads the Office of Personnel Management, sums up the appeal simply. “If you’re thinking about, long term, a career in technology, there is no bigger and more complex set of problems than we face in the federal government.” In other words, this is where you go if you want your skills to touch millions of people, not just app users.
There are real stakes here. The same AI tools that can speed up tax processing or reduce paperwork can also shape how military technology, surveillance and national security systems evolve. By creating a structured path for fresh talent into these decisions, the US Tech Force could influence whether future AI systems in government feel more human centered and transparent, or more distant and opaque.
Applications open Monday, and the first cohort is expected to be in place by early 2026. Graduates will leave with experience, connections to roughly 25 partner tech companies like Microsoft, Adobe, Amazon, Meta and xAI and a clearer sense of how to move between public and private roles without losing momentum.
To see how the program works, what kinds of projects are on the table and how it fits into the broader AI push in Washington, check out the full story on CNN:US government launches ‘Tech Force’ to hire AI talent.
