The key point here seems to be the desire to get more engineers scattered into the bottom rungs of the Executive Branch. The argument seems to be that, when Fed

The key point here seems to be the desire to get more engineers scattered into the bottom rungs of the Executive Branch. The argument seems to be that, when Federal middle-management gets access to engineering talent, they'll be able to make use of in-house talent to solve their problems instead of depending on government contracting. It's an important and necessary step, but the challenges their "Fellows" are going to face are predictable. Locked-down development environments, IT policy dictated by faraway admins who may not even be in the same state let alone the same building, no access to production or production-like environments. Then, when the crop graduates in two years, throw out the institutional knowledge they gained when they walk out the door. If the government really wants decent talent, then tie employment to college loan forgiveness (on top of high GS salaries) and ensure that there is a possibility of "up" to go with up-or-out HR policy.