NEWS: First wave of contracts totalling $4.4M under the $118M IRS BPA were awarded to Fedstack, Gauntlet AI, Fearless, and Sokat. Codesmith with no reported contracts.

NEWS: First wave of contracts totalling $4.4M under the $118M IRS BPA were awarded to Fedstack, Gauntlet AI, Fearless, and Sokat. Codesmith with no reported contracts. Details below. Interesting to see Gauntlet AI take the 10-week training program. # 1. Fedstack (Smoothstack): $1,623,840.00 * **Task Order ID:** `2032L226F00064` * Fedstack secured the highest-value award to scale highly governed training pipelines that transition existing personnel into specialized AI engineering roles. * [https://orangeslices.ai/fedstack-secures-department-of-the-treasury-artificial-intelligence-engineer-workforce-development-task/](https://orangeslices.ai/fedstack-secures-department-of-the-treasury-artificial-intelligence-engineer-workforce-development-task/) # 2. Gauntlet AI (BloomTech): $1,420,654.80 * **Task Order ID:** `2032L226F00062` * Gauntlet AI received funding to deploy intensive 10-week fellowships and hybrid upskilling tracks aimed at teaching federal tech teams how to securely build and deploy production-grade Large Language Model (LLM) applications. * [https://orangeslices.ai/gauntlet-wins-department-of-the-treasury-artificial-intelligence-engineer-workforce-development-task/](https://orangeslices.ai/gauntlet-wins-department-of-the-treasury-artificial-intelligence-engineer-workforce-development-task/) # 3. Fearless Solutions: $756,000.00 * **Task Order ID:** `2032L226F00061` * Fearless Solutions was awarded this task order to train federal developers on seamlessly integrating AI utilities and automated testing into standard agile software workflows and continuous deployment pipelines. * [https://orangeslices.ai/fearless-wins-department-of-the-treasury-artificial-intelligence-engineer-workforce-development-task/](https://orangeslices.ai/fearless-wins-department-of-the-treasury-artificial-intelligence-engineer-workforce-development-task/) # 4. SoKat Consulting: $552,360.00 * **Task Order ID:** `2032L226F00063` * **Scope:** SoKat Consulting secured funding to deliver specialized training focused on advanced data stewardship, secure custom LLM assistants, and regulatory-compliant agentic workflows. * [https://orangeslices.ai/sokat-beats-out-3-to-win-department-of-the-treasury-artificial-intelligence-engineer-workforce-development-task/](https://orangeslices.ai/sokat-beats-out-3-to-win-department-of-the-treasury-artificial-intelligence-engineer-workforce-development-task/)

I worked on some of the most disturbing internal tools at Facebook you can imagine, the hardest of the hard, the infinite shades of grey. It re-programmed my brain to separate feelings from objective, provable facts. You are incapable of doing that. The fundamental facts are fully on my side. Whether you like me or not is a matter of taste and many brilliant people like me, and many don't. It's irrelevant. If you want to debate the facts, I'm down. If you can't accept the facts you will only cause your own downfall.

I think it comes down alignment. Codesmith has like no staff left and none of them have extensive AI experience. They hired random people on Upwork to manage this thing, from marketing to program management to working on the contracts. I don't see students in 2026. I don't see placements in 2026. The "CIRR Audited Outcomes" haven't been updated this year, and CIRR has not responded to why. Their website doesn't even have a privacy policy. A 2024-2025 lawsuit said that their financials required six months of forensic accounting to assemble and could not be provided on demand. Codesmith's AI curriculum is minimal and created by recent alumni. I'm not an expert but I would guess they would have trouble with the most basic government audit. Additionally, the AI "Lead Engineer" on the IRS stuff is a full time engineer at a top tier bank. I also suspect that's problematic to have them on confidential IRS stuff. TLDR: there is SO MUCH paperwork and overhead with these things and that has never been their strong suit. Gauntlet has funding, an entire executive team, dedicated people with experience working on the pitching, happy customers for recent testimonials, a modern and constantly evolving curriculum, evidence of running bespoke training engineers for companies on AI already, they have supplied a number of engineers to the government through Gauntlet For America, they have full time in house instruction. For the other three companies, all of them have done past government contracts and I just suspect they have their paperwork in place as well.

I think BloomTech shut down effectively, and Gauntlet has traction. It's entirely free and the jobs are very high paying. But it's not perfect either. The thing is when you have a problem and you pay $0, it's hard to have "damages", so their model absolutely lets them experiment and iterate at the pace Austen Allred wants but without having students as upset if they don't have a good experience.

I agree, and there is major cost if people leave their jobs to do it and expect a job at the end. But it's definitely better in many respects to the previous model.

What are the reasons people are getting fired? E.g \- they blame themselves or weren't good fits? \- the company was bias and hired them to maintain the outcomes and fired people quickly after? \- they weren't prepared for the job?

I agree if those numbers are correct that it's shady, I think the problem is that people aren't spending any money to attend. I fully agree that "time is money" but legally I doubt Gauntlet will get the same scrutiny that Lambda did. I think if that many people lost their jobs or didn't get one they would flood reviews to warn people and it will stop working?

That sounds pretty extreme. I don't think anyone can make you work 100 hours a week legally, no? Are people organizing and complaining? Is Gauntlet doing anything about it?

A BPA is a "blanket purchase agreement", which means the IRS budgeted/allocated $118M to a large umbrella of AI training/upskilling/hiring. There are 5 companies that received this BPA. When the IRS has a specific task/contract within this budget, e.g. "a 10 week AI bootcamp for 20 level 31 engineers" then they create a task with a price and the 5 companies can compete/propose solutions and one is chosen for that task.

Right, think of it like the IRS put $118M into a special bank account, and that account can be used to "buy things" over 5 years. Each time they want to buy something, the 5 recipients can offer their product. Like if they want 100 cars, each of the 5 can pitch the car they offer and the IRS chooses one. If there is money left in the bank at the end it goes back and the account is closed.

Not necessarily. They started with 2 companies and added 3 more recently. They could add more. Getting on that list means you meet a high level vetting process to be on the right page and qualified to make legit, real offers on each contract.