The creation of the U.S. Tech Force follows cutbacks made by the Trump administration of career federal employees in technology-related positions, both as part of general workforce reductions and through closing of tech offices at several agencies. Image: Jamo Images/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffOPM has launched fellowship-type programs for several occupations where the government has struggled for years to attract and keep employees, including creation of the “U.S. Tech Force” to bring private sector experts and managers in fields such as AI, cybersecurity, data science and software engineering into agencies for fellowships of one or two years.
That “will consist of annual cohorts of 1,000 fellows who will be hired into and funded by agencies. This scale will give the U.S. Tech Force program the critical mass and range of skills that previous initiatives lacked and ensure the program can deploy sufficiently large teams to participating agencies,” says a memo.
While OPM will provide central administration, “fellows will be hired by and onboarded directly into each agency, with teams of about 30-40 individuals at most large agencies,” it says, with a pilot cohort in the spring and full implementation by September. A separate announcement lists the initial participating agencies and private sector companies.
The memo does not address potential conversion of fellows into career positions, although it does cite the Trump administration’s hiring initiative to “build pipelines of high-skilled early career and technology talent.”
The creation of the U.S. Tech Force follows cutbacks made by the Trump administration of career federal employees in technology-related positions, both as part of general workforce reductions and through closing of tech offices at several agencies. That included shuttering the GSA’s 18F office—which similarly was designed to assist agencies in addressing challenges with technology and services—and transforming that agency’s U.S. Digital Service into the U.S. DOGE Service.
Also starting are new cross-agency Project Management Fellows and Data Science Fellows programs to “help to fill longstanding critical skills gaps” in those areas. Those two programs—in which agencies will select from among candidates on a shared certificate of eligibility—are to launch in the spring with an initial goal of 250 in each.
The memo does not address the length of those fellowships or policies on moving into career positions. The Trump administration earlier this year canceled the longstanding Presidential Management Fellows program for those with advanced degrees, mostly in public administration and related areas, who could be converted to competitive service status after one year of satisfactory performance.
The memo further announced a government-wide “Semester of Service” Student Volunteer Program in which agencies are to select candidates from a central pool, with an initial goal of 200 interns. OPM said it would provide “model agreements and documentation, clear roles for schools and supervisors, and baseline mentoring/training guidance, while leveraging existing agency channels and systems.”
The memo does not address whether the internships would be paid or unpaid.
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