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The Pentagon and Office of Personnel Management announced a sweeping recruiting effort Tuesday that officials are calling "War Force" — a targeted push to hire AI experts and software engineers to embed directly with military units.
The initiative doesn't seek to hire trigger-pullers but rather AI experts and other software engineers that could "embed down to the unit level across the department" to support operational needs and "ensure a more lethal United States military," according to an OPM press release.
Per a job posting on USAJOBS, personnel hired for the "forward deployed engineer" roles could make up to nearly $200,000 in annual salary if they come to work for the Pentagon for a two-year stint.
The department seeks experts in designing, building, integrating and maintaining capabilities like frontier AI, machine learning, automation and data systems.
The new hiring effort is in line with the Trump administration's broader Tech Force program, which is intended to bring more tech specialists into federal government service. War Force specifically targets the Department of Defense.
"War Force is a call to action for patriotic forward-deployed engineers who want to serve their country and the warfighter," Pentagon CTO Emil Michael said in a statement. "Executing the key tenets of the War Department's AI Acceleration Strategy and modernizing our enterprise demand the nation's best talent to ensure American military technological dominance for generations to come."
The War Force initiative reflects a growing recognition within DOD that America's tech advantage depends not just on R&D spending but on having the right people embedded where decisions are made. The Pentagon has long struggled to compete with Silicon Valley salaries, and the $200K ceiling represents an attempt to close that gap — at least temporarily.
Whether War Force can actually attract top talent remains an open question. The defense tech sector has seen significant turnover as companies pivot toward commercial AI, and convincing engineers to take a two-year government stint requires more than a competitive salary.