No idea.
I'm thinking 'small team made up of our country’s brightest digital talent' suggests something that people would be recruited for and appointed to moreso than traditional positions to be filled. There's of the sort posted for OMB today at least.
>'As there's no chance I'd want to take on the risk of getting a regular government IT/developer job and being enmeshed in the nightmare that is my conception of government bureaucracy but I would like to contribute to make a difference.'
Your conception is pretty accurate.
I think the best shot most of us have at 'making a difference' would be to develop solutions to specific, self-contained (if possible) problems.
To look not at what central Government is doing, but at the community-level agencies/programs and what they need.
Clinics, libraries, rec centers, public schools and whatnot all have problems which can helped with technology, but you'll need to spend a lot of time, effort and a degree of sneakiness to get anything done.