This is most acutely felt in acquisitions where those responsible for deciding what to build and buy have very limited understanding of software development. The failed rollout of healthcare.gov is the billboard for this problem.
There's an effort to train civilian acquisition professionals on how to buy and build better software, but they are pretty quickly hired by contractors or the commercial sector since their new skillset fetches a larger salary than what the government can pay (even with promotion).
I agree there needs to be a special schedule. I do think an overhaul of the civilian service is worth exploring.