IT Specialist (APPSW)

FEMA is seeking a senior software engineer to help develop and improve critical agency digital services. The ideal candidate for this position will be a Senior DevOps engineer/Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) who will build reliable, secure, scalable cloud-based infrastructure and work with technical teams across FEMA.

For specific salary information related to your location, please review the .

Overview

• Accepting applications

• Open & closing dates

  09/23/2024 to 09/30/2024

  
  

  This job will close when we have received 200 applications which may be sooner than the closing date.

• Salary

  $122,198 – $158,860 per year

  
  
• Pay scale & grade
  

  IC 14

• Location

  2 vacancies in the following location:

  
  
  • Anywhere in the U.S. (remote job)
  
  
• Remote job
  

  Yes

• Telework eligible

  Not applicable, this is a remote position.

  
  
• Travel Required

  Occasional travel – You may be expected to travel for this position.

• Relocation expenses reimbursed
  

  No

• Appointment type

  Term – not to exceed 2 years

• Work schedule
  

  Full-time

• Service
  

  Excepted

• Promotion potential
  

  None

• Job family (Series)
• Supervisory status
  

  No

• Security clearance
• Drug test
  

  No

• Position sensitivity and risk
• Trust determination process
• Financial disclosure
  

  No

• Bargaining unit status
• Announcement number

  805545-SJB-12547134-CORE

  
  
• Control number
  

  810644100

This job is open to

Clarification from the agency

Videos

Duties

What will I do in this position if hired?

In this IT Specialist (APPSW) position, you will build and maintain reliable, secure, scalable cloud-based infrastructure and help set and communicate cloud infrastructure best practices for the agency.

Typical assignments include:

• Helping define infrastructure roadmap and architecture based on tech and business needs; use core SRE principles of change management, monitoring, emergency response, capacity planning, and production readiness reviews to run FEMA infrastructure and systems.
• Building infrastructure that improve the robustness of production systems and assisting in cost engineering efforts.
• Maturing observability systems and practices including visibility into SLIs, SLOs, SLAs, dependency graphs, & past performance.
• Observing patterns and developing innovative tools and automation to maximize productivity and using those learnings to drive the best practices.
• Unblocking, supporting, and effectively communicating across teams to achieve results; building a culture of rigorously learning from incidents.

What else do I need to know?

At FEMA, our mission is to help people before, during and after disasters, and every employee at FEMA has a role in emergency management. Every FEMA employee has regular and recurring emergency management responsibilities, though not every position requires routine deployment to disaster sites. All positions are subject to recall around the clock for emergency management operations, which may require irregular work hours, work at locations other than the official duty station, and may include duties other than those specified in the employee’s official position description. Travel requirements in support of emergency operations may be extensive in nature (weeks to months), with little advance notice, and may require employees to relocate to emergency sites with physically austere and operationally challenging conditions.

This announcement is for a position as a CORE (Cadre of On-Call Response/Recovery Employee). CORE employees are full-time employees hired to directly support the response and recovery efforts related to disasters. Employees are hired under the and are excluded from the provisions of title 5, United States Code, governing jobs in the competitive service. They can be hired under a streamlined process instead of a competitive process. After three years of continuous service, Stafford Act employees may be granted competitive eligibility to apply for permanent full-time positions at FEMA.

This position will be hired into a temporary 2-year, excepted service appointment. Appointments may be renewed based on workload, funding, and supervisory approval.

FEMA is committed to ensuring that its workforce reflects the diversity of the nation. At FEMA, our workforce includes the many identities, races, ethnicities, backgrounds, abilities, ages, cultures, and beliefs of the people we serve. To learn about FEMA’s ongoing diversity and inclusion efforts, reasonable accommodation process, and the FEMA Core Values, please visit .

Requirements

Conditions of Employment

To ensure the accomplishment of our mission, DHS requires every employee to be reliable and trustworthy. To meet those standards, all selected applicants must undergo, successfully pass, and maintain a background investigation for Public Trust/High-Risk as a condition of placement into this position. This may include a credit check after initial job qualifications are determined, a review of financial issues, such as delinquency in the payment of debts, child support and/or tax obligations, as well as certain criminal offenses and illegal use or possession of drugs (please visit: for additional information). For more information on background investigations for Federal jobs, please visit .

Conditions of Employment:

• You must be a U.S. citizen to apply for this position.
• You must successfully pass a background investigation.
• Selective Service registration required.
• You must be able to obtain and maintain a Government credit card.
• You must be able to deploy with little or no advance notice to anywhere in the United States and its territories for an extended period of time.
• Please review the Additional Information section for additional key requirements.

Qualifications

All qualifications and eligibility requirements must be met by the closing date of the announcement.

To qualify for this IT Specialist (APPSW) position at the IC-14 level, you must possess one full year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the IC-13 level in the Federal government, which has equipped you with the skills needed to successfully perform the duties of the position. Experience may be obtained in the federal government, a state or local government, or private sector, and must demonstrate the following:

• Designing, implementing and operating customer-facing infrastructure; and
• Using high level programming languages (e.g. Python, Go, Java, etc.) and declarative languages (e.g. Terraform); and
• Working with public cloud platforms (e.g. AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform) and container orchestration (e.g. Kubernetes).

Individual Occupational Requirements: In addition to the above specialized experience, individuals must have IT-related experience demonstrating each of the four competencies listed below.

1. Attention to Detail – Is thorough when performing work and conscientious about attending to detail.
2. Customer Service – Works with clients and customers (that is, any individuals who use or receive the services or products that your work unit produces, including the general public, individuals who work in the agency, other agencies, or organizations outside the Government) to assess their needs, provide information or assistance, resolve their problems, or satisfy their expectations; knows about available products and services; is committed to providing quality products and services.
3. Oral Communication – Expresses information (for example, ideas or facts) to individuals or groups effectively, taking into account the audience and nature of the information (for example, technical, sensitive, controversial); makes clear and convincing oral presentations; listens to others, attends to nonverbal cues, and responds appropriately.
4. Problem Solving – Identifies problems; determines accuracy and relevance of information; uses sound judgment to generate and evaluate alternatives, and to make recommendations.

Please read the following important information to ensure we have everything we need to consider your application:

• Do not copy and paste the duties, specialized experience, or occupational assessment questionnaire from this announcement into your resume as that will not be considered a demonstration of your qualifications for this position.
• Please limit your resume to five pages. If more than five pages are submitted, only the first five pages will be reviewed to determine your eligibility and qualifications.
• Your resume serves as the basis for experience related qualification determinations, and you must highlight your most relevant and significant work experience and education (if applicable), as it relates to this job opportunity. Please use your own words, be clear, and specific when describing your work history. We cannot make assumptions regarding your experience.

Are you qualifying based on your work experience?

• Qualifications are based on your ability to demonstrate in your resume that you possess one year of the specialized experience for this announcement at a comparable scope and responsibility. To ensure all of the essential information is in your resume, we encourage you to use the . If you choose to use your own resume, it must contain the following information organized by experience/position: (1) job title, (2) name of employer, (3) start and end dates of each period of employment (from MM/DD/YY to MM/DD/YY), (4) detailed description of duties performed, accomplishments, and related skills, and (5) hours worked per week (part-time employment will be prorated in crediting experience). Federal experience/positions must also include the occupational series, grade level, and dates in which you held each grade level.
• Are you a current or former FEMA Reservist/Disaster Assistance Employee (DAE)? To accurately credit your experience from intermittent positions and Reservist Deployments, you must list the dates (from MM/DD/YY to MM/DD/YY) of deployments that are relevant to your qualifying experience, along with the job title and specific duties you were responsible for during each deployment.
• Determining length of General or Specialized Experience is dependent on the above information. Failure to provide the above information in your resume may result in your application being found “not qualified.”
• Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional, philanthropic, religious, spiritual, community, student, social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills, and provides valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience.
• For additional information on crediting experience and/or education, please reference the OPM

Education

No Educational Substitution: There is no educational substitution for this position, and you must meet the qualifications listed in the “requirements” section of this announcement.

Additional information

• STAFFORD ACT EXCEPTED SERVICE APPOINTMENTS: Cadre of On-Call Response/Recovery Employee (CORE) is an appointment type granted under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, Section 306 (b), which authorizes FEMA to appoint such temporary employees as necessary to accomplish work authorized under the Act. Appointments under this authority within FEMA are made to the excepted service and are nonpermanent in nature.
• If you receive a conditional offer of employment for this position, you will be required to complete an , and to sign and certify the accuracy of all information in your application, prior to entry on duty. False statements on any part of the application may result in withdrawal of offer of employment, dismissal after beginning work, fine, or imprisonment.
• The Fair Chance to Compete for Jobs Act prohibits the Department of Homeland Security and its Components from requesting an applicant’s criminal history record before that individual receives a conditional offer of employment. In accordance with and certain positions are exempt from the provisions of the Fair Chance to Compete Act. Applicants who believe they have been subjected to a violation of the Fair Chance to Compete for Jobs Act, may submit a written complaint to .
• DHS uses E-verify, an internet-based system, to confirm the eligibility of all newly hired employees to work in the United States. Learn more about , including your rights and responsibilities.
• Applying to this announcement certifies that you give permission for DHS to share your application with others in DHS for similar positions.
• During the application process you will have an option to opt-in to make your resume available to hiring managers in the agency who have similar positions. Opting in does not impact your application for this announcement, nor does it guarantee further consideration for additional positions.
• The salary range indicated in this announcement reflects the minimum locality pay up to maximum locality pay for all duty locations listed. The range will be adjusted for selected duty location. General Schedule locality pay tables may be found under . Please note: first time hires to the Federal Government are typically hired at the Step 01.
• Deployment travel may be required, based upon agency needs. Deployment expectations can vary and will be discussed with candidates during the selection process.
• Remote Work Eligibility: This position is eligible for remote work arrangements consistent with applicable FEMA policy. Remote work arrangements may be approved at the time of selection. For this position, remote work arrangements will be considered from Remote Worksites anywhere in the U.S., its territories, or in the District of Columbia.
• In addition to the salary listed in this vacancy announcement, the duty location of this position is considered a non-foreign location. If you are selected for this position, you may be eligible for an additional non-foreign area cost of living adjustment (COLA), in accordance with Office of Personnel Management (OPM) regulations (subject to change without notice). For additional information please visit:

• Benefits
  

  A career with the U.S. government provides employees with a comprehensive benefits package. As a federal employee, you and your family will have access to a range of benefits that are designed to make your federal career very rewarding. .

  Eligibility for benefits depends on the type of position you hold and whether your position is full-time, part-time or intermittent. Contact the hiring agency for more information on the specific benefits offered.

  
  
  

How You Will Be Evaluated

You will be evaluated for this job based on how well you meet the qualifications above.

We will review your , supporting documentation, and your responses to the occupational questionnaire to ensure you meet the minimum qualification requirements listed in the announcement. If you are qualified, you may be referred to a hiring manager for consideration.

Interview Requirement. Interviews may be required for this position. Failure to complete the interview may result in removal from further consideration.

We recommend that you preview the online questions for this announcement before you start the application process. To preview, please review: .

• Benefits
  

  A career with the U.S. government provides employees with a comprehensive benefits package. As a federal employee, you and your family will have access to a range of benefits that are designed to make your federal career very rewarding. .

  
  
  

  Eligibility for benefits depends on the type of position you hold and whether your position is full-time, part-time or intermittent. Contact the hiring agency for more information on the specific benefits offered.

• Required Documents

  As a new or existing federal employee, you and your family may have access to a range of benefits. Your benefits depend on the type of position you have – whether you’re a permanent, part-time, temporary or an intermittent employee. You may be eligible for the following benefits, however, check with your agency to make sure you’re eligible under their policies.

  
  
  

  Do not include photos, personally identifying information (PII) (including birthday and social security numbers), or personal information such as age, gender, medical history, etc. Resumes that include any of this information will be ineligible for further review.

  1. Your resume. Please limit your resume to five pages. If more than five pages are submitted, only the first five pages will be reviewed to determine your eligibility and qualifications. For resume writing guidance, please review the requirements section of this announcement or visit the
  2. Your responses to the job questionnaire. You will be directed to the online job questionnaire once you begin the application process for this position.
  3. Are you a current or former federal employee? This position does not have any competitive eligibility requirements. However, you will need to submit a Standard Form (SF)-50, Notification of Personnel Action , which demonstrates your current/highest grade level. Examples of appropriate SF-50s include promotions, within-grade increases and accessions. Award SF-50’s will not be accepted.
  
  

  It is your responsibility to verify that any information entered or uploaded is received and is accurate. Determining your eligibility and qualifications is dependent on the supporting documentation and information provided, which may impact your referral for further consideration. If a document is not legible, Human Resources will not be able to view it in your application. All application materials, including transcripts, must be in English.

  
  
  

  If you are relying on your education to meet qualification requirements:

  
  

  Education must be accredited by an accrediting institution recognized by the U.S. Department of Education in order for it to be credited towards qualifications. Therefore, provide only the attendance and/or degrees from .

  
  
  

  Failure to provide all of the required information as stated in this vacancy announcement may result in an ineligible rating or may affect the overall rating.

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