Comment by pc86
2 days ago
People in the military have normal jobs, not everyone is out in the field sending rounds downrange all the time.
There is no reason that one of those jobs can't be "software engineer." There is nothing intrinsic about the military that would make them "amateur coders."
I'm well aware that not everyone is a trigger-puller; I had a twenty-year active and reserve career. Sure, you could technically have a software development MOS/NEC/AFSC. The Navy recently stood up a "robotics warfare specialist" rating.
My point is that, having spent a full career in, the "buy vs. build" calculus for military software tends to fall on the side of "buy" for any number of reasons. Those people who aren't "out in the field sending rounds downrange" are still doing plenty of other things in their assigned fields other than writing software. If you think there needs to be a software development career track in uniform, you need to be able to justify it outside the obvious places like CYBERCOM or the NSA.