Overview

18F is hiring for GS-15 – Consulting Software Engineer (IT Specialist). This page contains information related to the role as well as a link to submit your application. Check out Join TTS Hiring Process to learn more about the application process. We will be reviewing applications on a rolling basis so we encourage candidates to apply as soon as possible for consideration.

Location: Virtual (100% Remote); Washington, DC; San Francisco, CA; Chicago, IL; New York, NY

Salary Range: The salary range for this position is: GS-15 Step 1 – $128,078 to GS-15 Step 10 $172,500

Salary to be determined upon selection, depending on duty location.

You can find more information about this in the compensation and benefits section on our site.

For specific details on locality pay, please visit OPM’s Salaries & Wages page or for a calculator OPM’s 2021 General Schedule (GS) Salary Calculator.

Please note the maximum salary available for the GS pay system is $172,500

Note: You may not be eligible for the maximum salary as it is locality dependent. Please refer to the maximum pay for your locality.

Who May Apply: All United States citizens and nationals (residents of American Samoa and Swains Islands).

Role Summary:
Consulting Software Engineer (IT Specialist) – GS-15
18F is looking for talented software developers who will help our partner agencies deliver better digital services to the public. As a Consulting Engineer at 18F, you will be a builder, contributor, and catalyst. Working with folks across the organization, you will solve large, complex problems while promoting user-centered, open, and transparent culture. The role involves diverse responsibilities — you might be writing code one day, meeting with members from partner agencies another day, and launching a new product that will impact the lives of Americans across the country the next week. 18F is an open-source team, so most of what you work on will be open source.

This role may be perfect for you if you have the technical skills to tackle engineering problems, the social skills to face human-factors problems, and the judgment to differentiate between the two. Our ideal candidate will be equally excited about sticky technical issues and intricate human ones. Impact in this role can’t be measured on a GitHub contribution graph; ideal candidates should be equally comfortable solving technical problems by writing code, explaining technical design architecture to technical and less technical folks alike, and leading organizational strategy and change.

18F’s core languages are Ruby, Python, JavaScript, and Go. You should have strong, demonstrable experience with at least one of these languages and should be proficient in web development, relational databases, and using Unix-like operating systems. You should understand engineering best practices such as source control, automated testing, continuous integration and deployment, and peer review. The strongest candidates will have a background working on cross-functional, multidisciplinary teams that deliver digital products and services in an incremental, user-focused environment.

Key Objectives
Key objective #1: You’ll contribute high-quality, well-tested, maintainable code across an entire project lifecycle, using best practices for modern software development.
Practice and enthusiastically share engineering methodologies and tools throughout all stages of the project lifecycle
Influence project planning and design using usability research, analytics, and other metrics
Participate in code review, architecture discussions, and feature prioritization
Take pride of ownership in all projects you touch; leave code better than you found it
Contribute to documentation, tests, style fixes, accessibility, performance, security, and more
Deliver code that’s easy to deploy, update, and monitor by ensuring that the necessary tooling is present early in the project development cycle or by introducing tooling into an existing project, as needed
Key objective #2: You’ll positively contribute to the culture and knowledge of the engineering team, practicing and enthusiastically sharing agile methodologies throughout all stages of the project lifecycle.
Work within a distributed, multidisciplinary agile team by participating in constructive discussions, openly sharing knowledge, and demonstrating value for technical and non-technical contributions
Support a safe, inclusive workplace and a positive team culture where all team members value diversity and individual differences
Provide visibility into each project’s progress, communicate blockers and challenges, and ask for help when you need it
Demonstrate a strong understanding of the elements of agile methodology (scrum, kanban, and so on)
Practice human-centered design, user testing, feature prioritization, DevOps, and other relevant concepts
Key objective #3: You’ll meet customer expectations, along with personal and organizational goals. You’ll produce high-quality results by applying technical knowledge, analyzing problems, and calculating risk.
Hold yourself and your team accountable for measurable, high-quality, timely, and cost-effective results
Demonstrate your credibility in your area of expertise, deliver high-quality work, and accept responsibility for mistakes
Meet the needs of internal and external customers
Make well-informed, effective, and timely decisions
Identify and analyze problems in a constructive manner
Explain technical issues and concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences
Key objective #4: You’ll lead change, both within and outside the organization, to meet organizational goals. You’ll help establish an organizational vision and implement it in a continuously changing environment.
Develop new insights into situations and question conventional approaches
Develop, implement, and drive technical strategy in engineering-specific and organization-wide contexts
Keep up-to-date on policies and trends that affect the organization and shape stakeholders’ views
Adapt to change and quickly integrate new information
Formulate and execute consistently against objectives and priorities
Take a long-term view and build a shared vision with people across TTS, GSA, and across the US Government
Basic Information
Location: Virtual (100% Remote); Washington, DC; San Francisco, CA; Chicago, IL; New York, NY

Salary Range: Base salary GS-15 – $128,078 to $172,500

If you are a new federal employee, your starting salary will likely be set at the Step 1 of the grade for which you are selected. Total compensation may include locality pay based on the individual’s duty location. For more salary information including locality pay details, please visit OPM’s Salaries & Wages page.

Who May Apply: All United States citizens and nationals (residents of American Samoa and Swains Islands)

Job announcement number: 21FASC052LUOTR

Opening and closing period for this job application: 9:00am on Wednesday, November 11, 2020 EDT to 11:59pm on Monday, May 31, 2021 EDT

Job Title: IT Specialist (APPSW)

Series & Grade: 2210 – 15

Promotion Potential: GS-15

Number of vacancies: 1 (Additional vacancies may be filled from this announcement as needed)

Supervisory status: No

Travel requirement: Occasional travel may be required up to 10%-20% per year

Security clearance: Public trust. Background investigation required.

Work Schedule: Full time

Appointment Type: Initial appointments to last longer than 1 year, but NTE 4 years. GSA, may extend appt up to 4 additional years. No individual hired under this DHA can serve in excess of 8 years with GSA.

Job Summary
This Notice is issued under direct-hire authority to recruit new talent to occupations for which there is a severe shortage of candidates. We have a severe shortage of qualified applicants for our Information Technology Specialist positions. To help us fill these jobs, we have been granted “Direct Hire Authority” or DHA for IT Specialist by Executive Order 13833. This means that when we have a vacant job, we can hire any qualified candidate, either from this notice or from any source. The benefit of applying to this notice is that your application may be shared with a hiring manager if they request resumes from this notice.

Initial appointments are made lasting longer than 1 year, but not to exceed 4 years. GSA, may extend an appointment up to 4 additional years. No individual hired under this DHA can serve in excess of 8 years with GSA, and cannot be transferred to positions that are not IT positions.

Key facts about this DHA notice:

TTS is seeking to fill multiple TERM appointments at the GS15 level.
Positions may be located in Washington, DC; San Francisco, CA; Chicago, IL; New York, NY or Full-time Telework.
Salary to be determined upon selection, depending on duty location.
Full Time telework is negotiable after the selection (i.e., official worksite/duty location is the residence of the selectee).
Current civil service employees will receive new appointments if selected under this Direct Hire Authority.
Current GSA employees on competitive service appointments will not be considered.
GSA has been repeatedly named as one of the ‘Best Places to Work’ in the federal government. You will have access to many benefits including:

Health insurance (choose from a wide range of plans)
Life insurance coverage with several options
Sick leave and vacation time, including 10 paid holidays per year
Thrift Savings Plan (similar to a 401(k) plan)
Flexible work schedules and telework
Transit and child care subsidies
Training and development
Flexible spending accounts
Long-term care insurance
Training and development
Key Requirements
You must be a U.S. Citizen or National (residents of American Samoa and Swains Islands)
Suitable for federal employment, determined by a background investigation
You may be required to serve a trial period
Direct Deposit of salary check to financial organization required
Register with Selective Service, if you are required by https://www.sss.gov/Registration-Info/Who-Registration
Employment Requirements
US Citizens and National (Residents of American Samoa and Swains Island)
Meet all eligibility criteria within 30 days of the closing date
Register with Selective Service, if you are a male born after 12/31/1959
Direct Deposit of salary check to financial organization required.
If selected, you must meet the following conditions:

Receive authorization from OPM on any job offer you receive, if you are or were (within the last 5 years) a political Schedule A, Schedule C or Non-Career SES employee in the Executive Branch. Serve a one year probationary period, if required. Undergo and pass a background investigation (Tier 2 investigation level). Have your identity and work status eligibility verified if you are not a GSA employee. We will use the Department of Homeland Security’s e-Verify system for this. Any discrepancies must be resolved as a condition of continued employment. Complete a financial disclosure report to verify that no conflict, or an appearance of conflict, exists between your financial interest and this position.

Evaluation
We will use a method called Category Rating to assess your application.

Here’s how it will work:

BASIC REQUIREMENTS: Have IT-related experience demonstrating EACH of the four competencies listed below:

You will be scored based on a review of your application materials, measuring your possession of each of the following competencies

Attention to Detail – This skill is generally demonstrated by assignments where the applicant keeps abreast of latest technology, information, research, etc., to maintain knowledge in field of expertise (for example, reads trade journals, participates in professional/technical associations, maintains credentials).
Customer Service – skill is generally demonstrated by assignments where the applicant promotes or develops and maintains good working relationships with key individuals or groups.
Oral Communication – This skill is generally demonstrated by assignments where the applicant serves on panels, committees, or task forces as a representative for the organization on technical or professional issues.
Problem Solving – This skill is generally demonstrated by assignments where the applicant monitors current trends or events (for example, technological, economic, political, social, educational, or employment trends or events) and applies the information as appropriate
Qualifications
All applications will be reviewed by a panel of subject matter experts against a scoring rubric created for this role. In order to properly be able to evaluate your previous experience, we recommend being as detailed as possible in your resume and following our general guidance on creating federal style resume.

To qualify for this role, you must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to the GS-14 in the Federal service. Specialized Experience is: Specialized experience for this role is defined as experience delivering projects, tools or products as part of an engineering team. This includes experience developing or architecting complex modern web applications or cloud infrastructure using approaches such as test-driven development, continuous integration & deployment, or distributed version control such as github. Candidates should demonstrate experience providing project leadership and experience with agile development methodologies.

Qualification determinations cannot be made when resumes do not include the required information, so failure to provide this information may result in disqualification.

For each job on your resume, provide:

the exact dates you held each job (from month/year to month/year or “present”)
number of hours per week you worked (if part time)