Growing Air Force personnel into skilled technology practitioners

Summary

The challenge

BESPIN product teams need designers, product managers, and engineers to ship software — but the military personnel assigned to those roles often arrive without the skills the work demands. An airman might join a delivery team with no prior exposure to agile development, user research, or modern engineering practices — some have never written a line of code. The gap between what the role demands and what the person arrives with is steep — and for the airman sitting in their first standup surrounded by experienced engineers, it can feel insurmountable. Traditional training programs designed for general IT skills don’t close it.

Short-term rotations compound the problem. Airmen cycle through product teams on assignments that last months, not years, alongside civilians and contractors who may also be transitory. Every rotation takes institutional knowledge with it. A team that spent six months building delivery rhythm and shared context could lose half its members in a single cycle, forcing the next group to rebuild from scratch.

The solution

We embedded BESPIN personnel on our delivery teams as designers, product managers, and engineers. Rather than courseware or classroom workshops, airmen learned by building real products — fitness management tools, equipment feedback platforms, aviation resource systems, and mobile applications — alongside experienced practitioners. They picked up stories, joined standups and retros, and shipped features to production. The learning was inseparable from the delivery.

Daily engineering syncs gave airmen a consistent space to troubleshoot and build confidence. During these sessions, airmen brought blockers to our engineers, who worked through issues collaboratively — often resolving problems within minutes. The syncs kept delivery moving while doubling as the most effective learning mechanism on the team. Airmen could ask questions without slowing a sprint, and our engineers could spot skill gaps early enough to address them through pairing.

Growth couldn’t stay confined to individual project teams. Communities of practice (CoP) extended the culture across BESPIN: a messaging channel launched by our engineers became a hub for asynchronous collaboration on technical challenges, while regular events hosted by our product managers provided training in advanced techniques. Because these communities cut across teams, learning survived even when team composition changed. Coaching executives alongside practitioners reinforced the model further — when leadership saw what modern product development looked like at the team level, they invested more in the approach, giving teams the runway to keep growing.

The Skylight team’s willingness to help guide, mentor, and teach was super helpful. They really took me under their wing and I learned a lot. In just one year as a developer on GearFit I went from zero — on my way — to hero.

Technical Sergeant Joseph 'Joey' Mills, Enterprise Services Noncommissioned Officer In Charge (NCOIC)

Technical Sergeant Joseph “Joey” Mills joined BESPIN as a developer on GearFit with no JavaScript or React experience. Through pairing, engineering syncs, and CoP participation, TSgt Mills went from needing help on every story to delivering independently — then moved into a product manager role and ultimately advanced to delivery manager for his own BESPIN team. His trajectory wasn’t an outlier; it was the model working as designed. And when trained airmen eventually rotate out, they carry those skills to their next assignment — while the communities of practice, shared processes, and documentation they helped build remain for the next group coming in.

The results

• Grew dozens of personnel into skilled practitioners across design, product management, delivery management, and engineering roles
• Enabled airmen with no technology background to ship production features within six months of joining a delivery team — through pairing, engineering syncs, and hands-on project work
• Three airmen advanced to more senior roles within BESPIN, including transitions from developer to product manager to delivery manager — demonstrating a career pathway that didn’t exist before the program
• Earned the highest rating in the Program Executive Officer’s annual agile assessment for the GearFit project, based on the team’s processes, ceremonies, and user-centered practices
• Sustained institutional knowledge across team rotations through communities of practice, shared documentation, and delivery processes that persisted as military and civilian members cycled on and off projects