Pentagon gets sweeping power to hire cyber workers outside federal rules
S. 2605 — A bill to amend title 10, United States Code, to improve recruitment and retention of the cyber workforce of the Department of Defense, and for other purposes. · Filed by Mike Rounds (R-SD) · Introduced Jul 31, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill allows the Department of Defense to hire and pay cyber experts outside normal federal civil service rules, creating special 'excepted service' positions where the SecDef can set pay up to 150% of the highest federal executive salary, offer bonuses and sabbaticals, and bypass standard hiring procedures. Existing competitive-service employees can refuse conversion to these new positions, and the SecDef must report annually to Congress on hiring, retention, and veteran preference compliance.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core function is to carve out cyber positions from standard federal civil service rules, allowing the DoD to hire and compensate outside normal constraints. While framed as a recruitment/retention measure, the mechanism is fundamentally a regulatory exemption for a specific workforce category.
What the text implies
- The phrase 'without regard to any other provision of law' in subsection (a)(3) is extremely broad and may allow the SecDef to bypass not only civil service rules but also equal employment opportunity, veterans' preference, and transparency requirements — the bill does not explicitly carve out those protections.
- Creating an 'excepted service' tier for cyber workers may establish a precedent for other DoD specialties (AI, space, etc.) to seek similar exemptions, fragmenting the federal workforce into multiple parallel hiring systems with different rules.
The full analysis lists 5 implications of this text.
Who stands to gain
Defense contractors specializing in cybersecurity; Consulting firms recruiting federal cyber talent; Technology companies competing for DoD cyber contracts