Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar’s US Army job: Finding coders the Army doesn’t know it has

Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar, a lieutenant colonel in the US Army Reserve, told CBS News his main job is helping the Army find soldiers who can code. Working with the Army’s personnel department, he says skilled programmers in junior ranks have no clear career path. Sankar joined Detachment 201, the Army’s Executive Innovation Corps, in 2025 alongside Meta’s Andrew Bosworth and OpenAI veterans Kevin Weil and Bob McGrew. Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar, a lieutenant colonel in the US Army Reserve, told CBS News his main job is helping the Army find soldiers who can code. Working with the Army’s personnel department, he says skilled programmers in junior ranks have no clear career path. Sankar joined Detachment 201, the Army’s Executive Innovation Corps, in 2025 alongside Meta’s Andrew Bosworth and OpenAI veterans Kevin Weil and Bob McGrew.