This story seems within the June 2026 difficulty of Utah Enterprise. Subscribe.
Most individuals, if challenged to call the most important employer of software program engineers in Utah, would visualize the journey via the Sandy to Provo tech hall, ticking off the acquainted names alongside the best way: Lucid, BambooHR, Entrata, Adobe, Weave, Domo, Qualtrics and lots of extra. Not solely would most individuals be incorrect, they wouldn’t even be in the suitable county.
That’s as a result of the most important employer of software program builders in Utah is Hill Air Drive Base, with roughly 1,650 coders assigned to the 309th Software program Engineering Group (SWEG).
It’s a Silicon Slopes story hiding in plain sight.
When the F-16 Preventing Falcon entered service in January 1979, its designers measured superiority in miles per hour. The jet’s high velocity was Mach 2.0 — about 1,500 mph — and the philosophy was easy: make the airframe gentle, the engine monumental and the consequence could be a weapon that flew and turned so quick that physics itself was its primary defense.
The plane changing the F-16 at Hill Air Drive Base, the F-35 Lightning II, maxes out at Mach 1.6. By the outdated definition, it’s slower. However now that it’s in manufacturing, the engineers who make sure the F-35 maintains its benefit don’t work in a wind tunnel. They work within the 20 buildings that make up Hill’s software program campus.
When code turns into the weapon
Chad Harper, the 309th SWEG group director, and Enos Cummings, the group’s engineering department director, have spent their careers watching this contemporary velocity paradigm shift unfold. When the 2 began at Hill, army software program improvement seemed the best way most individuals would anticipate it to — inflexible and gradual. Their groups adhered to the antiquated waterfall venture administration philosophy, methodically shifting via the strictly enforced sequence of design, code, check, repeat.
“A software program replace for the F-16 would take a number of years. When the warfighters lastly acquired the brand new capabilities, by then issues had modified and it was nearly too late,” Harper says. “So we requested: How can we design, code and iterate quicker?”
The turning level got here eight years in the past, when the 309th made the pivot to Agile software program improvement. That transfer meant extra than simply adopting a buzzword.
“We couldn’t do it in a silo. We needed to contain the flight check neighborhood so they might ingest our software program adjustments quicker. We needed to contain this system workplaces to vary the best way they did enterprise. We did that transformation proper, in order that didn’t occur in a single day. However now we are able to do yearly software program releases with quarterly updates,” Harper says. “We led the best way within the improvement of some Air Drive functions, and we acquired a number of recognition for the best way we lean into areas like that. Now we’re updating some techniques each two weeks.”
“The F-35 is a drive multiplier. While you’re within the battle house, this jet’s the quarterback of the combat. It has phenomenal sensors that each one get built-in into one display screen in order that the pilot can look down rapidly, sift via the knowledge and make selections very quickly.”
— Maj. Sean “Rambo” Loughlin
Harper says the aim is to interchange Agile with one thing even quicker: automated construct pipelines powered by steady integration and improvement. That’s a cadence a lot of personal trade can’t match, to not point out the a lot better penalties if one thing goes incorrect.
To lift the stakes even greater, on fifth-generation fighters just like the F-35 and F-22, software program is much less a assist perform than a weapons system, as a result of the weapon is information.
When the fourth-generation F-16 rolled off the road, roughly 45% of its features had been managed by about 200,000 strains of code. The F-35 is nearer to 90% software program managed, working on 9 million strains of code. The jet’s actual benefit is what that software program does with the knowledge gathered by its sensors and shared throughout the battlespace over Link 16, the army’s high-speed, jam-resistant information community typically known as the “fighter-jet web.”
Maj. Sean “Rambo” Loughlin, an F-35 pilot stationed at Hill, explains it this fashion: “The F-35 is a drive multiplier. While you’re within the battle house, this jet’s the quarterback of the combat. It has phenomenal sensors that each one get built-in into one display screen in order that the pilot can look down rapidly, sift via the knowledge and make selections very quickly. It’s in a position to soak up a number of issues that an F-16 can’t, however we are able to move it out to them and different airframes on Hyperlink 16.”
Higher information delivered on the fly
The software program updating course of begins with the folks closest to the {hardware}. Pilots and maintainers floor issues and alternatives, and small groups of builders reply with modular software program that may be examined, security-reviewed and deployed with out taking the underlying system offline. To make certain the builders have an ideal understanding of how their updates will likely be used, the 309th has groups of retired pilots on workers as subject-matter consultants.
So, how briskly do these replace cycles get? Fairly quick.
To show the idea, in 2021, a software update was transmitted to a coaching jet, mid-supersonic flight, mediated by the open-source Kubernetes framework. On the time, Capt. Trevor Breau stated, “Kubernetes allows fast software program improvement on the order of weeks as a substitute of years. The quicker turnaround time permits software program builders to quickly reply to consumer suggestions and dynamic threats.”
In a world the place updates require most individuals to reboot their laptop, the Air Drive has discovered a means for a jet to land with extra superior software program than it had at takeoff — no Ctrl+Alt+Delete wanted.
“Our crew was integral to creating that success. By proving that on a [T-38] legacy system, it’s one thing we are able to now combine into others,” Cummings says.
The group later ran an analogous proof of idea on the F-16, updating a mission information file in-flight so the plane may acknowledge a menace it beforehand couldn’t.
After all, AI has the chance to speed up updates and improve capabilities, however with cybersecurity threats looming round each nook, the 309th should proceed with critical warning. Whereas the software program groups are leveraging AI now, management is set to search out safe options that maintain the 309th’s tech aggressive internationally.
Three bases, one software program machine
The 309th is certainly one of three main legs of the Air Drive Sustainment Heart (AFSC) Software program Directorate, a distributed system that features because the U.S. Air Drive’s in-house software program manufacturing unit for a few of its most advanced platforms, serving packages all through the nation. The 76th Software program Engineering Group at Tinker Air Drive Base in Oklahoma and the 402nd Software program Engineering Group at Robins Air Drive Base in Georgia make up the opposite two legs as sister organizations.
Collectively, the three teams — with further smaller engineering teams supporting particular missions — make use of about 5,500 software program engineers nationwide.
“Right here at Hill, we [create software] for the fighters. At Tinker, they do extra of the software program assist for bombers,” Harper says. “At Robins, they do it for the heavies — C-5, C-17, C-130.”
As soon as siloed, the software program teams had been linked collectively extra tightly via the directorate in 2023 to additional prioritize the Air Drive’s software program wants.
Air Drive accounting doesn’t view the 309th as a conventional value heart. As an alternative, it’s seen as certainly one of a number of inside enterprises paid by the models it develops software program for. In that sense, the 309th is alleged to generate income. One benefit of this method is having a price range freed from congressional oversight. Seems, the 309th generates a number of income. Through the 2025 fiscal yr alone, Hill’s crew generated roughly $500 million of the software program directorate’s $1.4 billion.
Mission vs. market
Over the previous 15 years, there was no scarcity of software program jobs in Utah, which makes staffing a big government-led software program crew a problem. In keeping with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, software program jobs are projected to develop 15% via 2034, which suggests AI’s influence on software program engineering is probably not as grim as anticipated, which implies the demand on base will solely develop.
Interns flock to the bottom yearly, because of the 309th’s tight relationships with Utah State College, Weber State College, Brigham Younger College and the College of Utah. However retaining engineers past the seven- to nine-year mark is a tall hurdle, particularly in Utah’s aggressive SaaS panorama.
“We do very nicely recruiting, however … working for the federal government [is] not as aggressive with pay, so [with interns], we do a number of seeding for the native economic system when it comes to Silicon Slopes and these tech industries,” Harper says, “ … however as soon as [journeymen] have a number of years underneath their belts, they’re in search of extra wage alternatives.”
The 309th’s academic partnerships have been fruitful for each the bottom’s packages and the scholars, with many collaborations culminating in capstone and senior initiatives that give college students hands-on expertise fixing actual army challenges. The rigor required to execute these initiatives provides a sturdy profession basis that may be utilized at any firm.
“This is perhaps a protracted leash, however I’m going to say it anyway. Perhaps we’ve contributed to the tech increase that’s occurred inside Utah. … I imply, we’re not saying we’re the rationale … however we helped seed in a few of the [talent]. I feel we’ve aided … and it has benefitted us as nicely.”
So what has saved Harper on base for 20 years? Or Cummings for 35 years? One phrase: mission. They take immense pleasure in interacting with pilots and supporting warfighters, realizing their work is crucial to mission readiness and nationwide protection.
That’s what retains lots of Hill’s software program engineers, and Air Drive engineers throughout the nation, in place — not simply the techniques they construct, however the folks these techniques are constructed to guard. They know that outcomes in contested airspace might hinge, partially, on strains of code written hundreds of miles away by groups of builders straddling Davis and Weber counties.
In an period when army benefit is more and more outlined by info, connectivity and decision-making velocity, software program has grow to be as crucial to air superiority as engines, wings or weapons. The evolution from the F-16 to the F-35 displays that actuality. The F-16 dominated a technology of warfare as a result of it was constructed for an age when victory belonged to the fastest-moving. The F-35 was constructed for an age when victory belongs to the fastest-thinking.