What is the company's gross profit margin for the 2021-Q2 quarter
 and Chief Executive Officer
Okay, great. Absolutely, you were breaking up a little bit. I think Lloyd is feeling a little lonely here in the Q&A section, but I'll get started. I think the answer is absolutely. I think 5G is emerging as an important set of technology. It's really a family of technology. It's not one thing. It's not just millimeter wave and that family of technologies is of increased importance, not just in the commercial market, but across the government, including DoD.
There's cyber implications of 5G. There's operational implications of 5G. There's the ability to move both processing and information to the edge in a way that it would advantage many missions. And I am proud of the fact that much like everything else in our innovation agenda, we saw this relatively early, we began to position for it and we have some really interesting work going on across the government that, in my mind, begins to define us as a thought leader in this area, much like we are a thought leader in AI.
And by the way, these two technologies ultimately do travel together. So, more to think about that, more to say about that. If you ask me, is that a big part of the portfolio? Though we're not scaling there like we have scaled in AI already, but I think the future is bright. And I think we're well positioned.
Matthew Sharpe -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst
Great, thank you.
Horacio Rozanski -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Sure.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Gavin Parsons from Goldman Sachs.
Gavin Parsons -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Hey, good morning.
Horacio Rozanski -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Good morning.
Lloyd Howell Jr. -- Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer
Good morning.
Gavin Parsons -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Horacio, maybe a higher-level question. In the past, you said your growth is not constrained by demand, but kind of more so by your ability to hire and then ramp up the work. So, I'm just curious, when you think about growth pacing or maybe planning for growth, do you say we want to grow 6% to 10% this year and then we'll hire to make that happen? Or is it -- we think we can hire and integrate enough people to grow 6% to 10%, so that's our target?
Horacio Rozanski -- President and Chief Executive Officer
That's a really good question. And I think the answer is yes. We've narrowed to 7% to 9%. We're proud of the fact that we're going to have a strong growth here in the middle of a pandemic with very strong profitability. But I think that sort of the broader answer to the question is, we still see very strong demand signals for the type of work that we're doing for the type of capability that we bring to our clients. We are being choosy, if you will, in terms of both the work that we choose to pursue and the people that we're hiring to make sure that they are consistent with this intersection of core mission issues and next generation technology because we believe that is both the most promising and the most resilient part of the market as the market experiences some turbulence.
And so, the numbers that we're putting out are not the very most we could possibly go if we were more sort of -- if we were less discriminant about the work that we're doing. These are the numbers that gave us both excellent financial performance in the near term, but we believe sustainability into the medium and long term.
Gavin Parsons -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Okay. And then maybe, following on that and just looking at backlog growth over the last few years and just a lot of that being driven by priced options, did those price options have a finite life that you need to execute on within a certain time frame or funding expires? And I'm just kind of thinking about that in the context of maybe a more challenged budget environment ahead where the contracting officers might have to make more difficult decisions on what to fund.
Lloyd Howell Jr. -- Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer
I'll jump in here. We see priced options as a leading indicator in a couple different ways. One, our client
 and Chief Executive Officer
Okay, great. Absolutely, you were breaking up a little bit. I think Lloyd is feeling a little lonely here in the Q&A section, but I'll get started. I think the answer is absolutely. I think 5G is emerging as an important set of technology. It's really a family of technology. It's not one thing. It's not just millimeter wave and that family of technologies is of increased importance, not just in the commercial market, but across the government, including DoD.
There's cyber implications of 5G. There's operational implications of 5G. There's the ability to move both processing and information to the edge in a way that it would advantage many missions. And I am proud of the fact that much like everything else in our innovation agenda, we saw this relatively early, we began to position for it and we have some really interesting work going on across the government that, in my mind, begins to define us as a thought leader in this area, much like we are a thought leader in AI.
And by the way, these two technologies ultimately do travel together. So, more to think about that, more to say about that. If you ask me, is that a big part of the portfolio? Though we're not scaling there like we have scaled in AI already, but I think the future is bright. And I think we're well positioned.
Matthew Sharpe -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst
Great, thank you.
Horacio Rozanski -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Sure.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Gavin Parsons from Goldman Sachs.
Gavin Parsons -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Hey, good morning.
Horacio Rozanski -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Good morning.
Lloyd Howell Jr. -- Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer
Good morning.
Gavin Parsons -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Horacio, maybe a higher-level question. In the past, you said your growth is not constrained by demand, but kind of more so by your ability to hire and then ramp up the work. So, I'm just curious, when you think about growth pacing or maybe planning for growth, do you say we want to grow 6% to 10% this year and then we'll hire to make that happen? Or is it -- we think we can hire and integrate enough people to grow 6% to 10%, so that's our target?
 Horacio Rozanski -- President and Chief Executive Officer
That's a really good question. And I think the answer is yes. We've narrowed to 7% to 9%. We're proud of the fact that we're going to have a strong growth here in the middle of a pandemic with very strong profitability. But I think that sort of the broader answer to the question is, we still see very strong demand signals for the type of work that we're doing for the type of capability that we bring to our clients. We are being choosy, if you will, in terms of both the work that we choose to pursue and the people that we're hiring to make sure that they are consistent with this intersection of core mission issues and next generation technology because we believe that is both the most promising and the most resilient part of the market as the market experiences some turbulence.
And so, the numbers that we're putting out are not the very most we could possibly go if we were more sort of -- if we were less discriminant about the work that we're doing. These are the numbers that gave us both excellent financial performance in the near term, but we believe sustainability into the medium and long term.
Gavin Parsons -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Okay. And then maybe, following on that and just looking at backlog growth over the last few years and just a lot of that being driven by priced options, did those price options have a finite life that you need to execute on within a certain time frame or funding expires? And I'm just kind of thinking about that in the context of maybe a more challenged budget environment ahead where the contracting officers might have to make more difficult decisions on what to fund.
Lloyd Howell Jr. -- Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer
I'll jump in here. We see priced options as a leading indicator in a couple different ways. One, our client