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Information Technology Specialist

Department of Agriculture
Farm Production and Conservation (FPAC) Business Center
Information Solutions Division
This job announcement has closed

Summary

This position is assigned to Farm Production and Conservation (FPAC) Business Center (BC), Information Solutions Division (ISD), IT Operations and Management Section (ITOMS). The incumbent serves as a Cloud Devops Engineer who will develop and implement automated deployment pipelines that provide self-service capabilities to meet delivery teams needs.

Overview

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Reviewing applications
Open & closing dates
09/20/2022 to 10/04/2022
Salary
$81,216 to - $105,579 per year

Pay range above is according to base pay scale, pay will be set dependent upon locality scale/location selected.

Pay scale & grade
GS 13
Locations
few vacancies in the following locations:
Fort Collins, CO
Washington, DC
Kansas City, MO
Salt Lake City, UT
Remote job
No
Telework eligible
Yes—as determined by the agency policy.
Travel Required
Occasional travel - You may be expected to travel for this position.
Relocation expenses reimbursed
No
Appointment type
Permanent
Work schedule
Full-time
Service
Competitive
Promotion potential
13
Supervisory status
No
Security clearance
Other
Drug test
No
Position sensitivity and risk
Non-sensitive (NS)/Low Risk
Trust determination process
Announcement number
FPAC-22-11621001-MP-RJ
Control number
678280400

Videos

Duties

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  • Build and maintain Continuous Integration Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipelines to enable rapid flow of new solutions through lower environments and into production.
  • Install, manage and administer DevOps tools to ensure they are meeting requirements of Development, Security, and Operations teams.
  • Provide support to pipelines as well as operational support of systems running in Cloud environment (such as AWS), SaaS based systems, or systems running in USDA on premise data centers.
  • Provide oversight to contract DevOps engineers supporting FPAC.
  • Initiate, participate and contribute to meetings w/ team members, business owners, app developers, field office personnel, database administrators, managers and other agency/department representatives in development to application software systems.
  • Collaborate with Security, Delivery teams and other operations staff to ensure proper gates and guard rails are implemented in CI/CD pipelines to support required compliance.
  • Ensure cloud environments support business continuity via elasticity and high availability to maximize reliability and scalability of FPAC systems based on requirements. This may include data replication and fail-over to secondary regions.

Requirements

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Conditions of employment

  • You must be a US Citizen or US National.
  • Males born after 12/31/1959 must be Selective Service registered or exempt.
  • Subject to satisfactory adjudication of background investigation and/or fingerprint check.
  • Successful completion of one year probationary period, unless previously served.
  • Direct Deposit: Per Public Law 104-134 all Federal employees are required to have federal payments made by direct deposit to their financial institution.
  • Successfully pass the E-Verify employment verification check. To learn more about E-Verify, including your rights and responsibilities, visit https://www.e-verify.gov/.
  • Current FPAC employees who have held a General Schedule (GS) position within the last 52 weeks must have 52 weeks of Federal service at the next lower grade or equivalent (GS-12).

Qualifications

Applicants must meet all qualifications and eligibility requirements by the closing date of the announcement including specialized experience and/or education, as defined below

Specialized Experience: One or more years of Information Technology (IT) experience equivalent to the GS-12 level in the Federal service or private sector equivalent that demonstrates experience provisioning, installation/configuration, operation and maintenance of Amazon Web Services (AWS) as well as, building and managing Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) Pipelines, Infrastructure as code (IAC), automated configuration management tools such as Puppet, Terraform, CloudFormation, etc. -AND-

For this position, 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.

Time In Grade: Current FPAC employees who have held a General Schedule (GS) position within the last 52 weeks must have 52 weeks of Federal service at the next lower grade or equivalent (GS-12).

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 and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience.

Education

Education substitution is not applicable at the GS-13 grade level.

Additional information

  • Career Transition Assistance Plan (CTAP), Reemployment Priority List (RPL), or Interagency Career Transition Assistance Plan (ICTAP): Visit the OPM website for information on how to apply as a CTAP, RPL, or ICTAP eligible. To exercise selection priority for this vacancy, CTAP/RPL/ICTAP candidates must meet the basic eligibility requirements and all selective factors. CTAP/ICTAP candidates must be rated and determined to be well qualified (or above) based on an evaluation of the competencies listed in the How You Will Be Evaluated section. When assessed through a score-based category rating method, CTAP/ICTAP applicants must receive a rating of at least 85 out of a possible 100.
  • Farm Service Agency (FSA) County Employees: Permanent County employees without prior Federal tenure who are selected for a Civil Service position under Public Law 105-277 will be given a career-conditional appointment and must serve a 1-year probationary period.
  • This position is being concurrently announced under Delegated Examining Announcement Number FPAC-22-11631000-DE-RJ. This announcement is open to all qualified candidates. Applying to both announcements may expand the possibilities of consideration since different referral criteria apply to each type of announcement. See the above announcement for more information.
  • This position is eligible for telework within the local commuting area of the position and other flexible work arrangements. Current USDA policy includes telework for an 8 hour work day, 4 days per week; other flexibilities are possible dependent upon availability and/or the position and its associated duties. Employee participation is at the discretion of the supervisor. Remote work/ telework and other flexibilities are possible dependent upon availability and/or the position and its associated duties.
  • Location negotiable upon selection per agency telework and remote work policy.
    • Kansas City, MO
    • Washington, DC
    • Fort Collins, CO
    • Salt Lake City, UT
  • For Washington, DC, this is a AFSCME Bargaining Unit position.
  • For Kansas City, MO, this is a NTEU Bargaining Unit position.
  • For St. Louis, MO and Ft Worth, TX this is a AFGE Bargaining Unit position.
  • Recruitment incentives may be authorized. Relocation reimbursement is not included.

How you will be evaluated

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

You will be evaluated based on your qualifications for this position as evidenced by the experience, education, and training you described in your application package, as well as the responses to the Assessment Questionnaire to determine the degree to which you possess the knowledge, skills, abilities and competencies listed below:

    • Oral Communication
    • Problem Solving
    • Systems Integration
    • Technical Competence
Your application, including the online Assessment Questionnaire, will be reviewed to determine if you meet (a) minimum qualification requirements and (b) the resume supports the answers provided to the job-specific questions. Your resume must clearly support your responses to all the questions addressing experience and education relevant to this position. Applicants who meet the minimum qualification requirements and are determined to be among the best qualified candidates will be referred to the hiring manager for consideration. Noncompetitive candidates and applicants under some special hiring authorities need only meet minimum qualifications to be referred.

Note: If after reviewing your resume and/or supporting documentation, a determination is made that you have inflated your qualifications and or experience, your score may be adjusted to more accurately reflect your abilities, or you may be found ineligible. Please follow all instructions carefully. Errors or omissions may affect your rating. Providing inaccurate information on Federal documents could be grounds for non-selection or disciplinary action up to including removal from the Federal service.

Clicking the link below will present a preview of the application form; i.e. the online questionnaire. The application form link below will only provide a preview and does not initiate the application process. To initiate the online application process, click the "Apply" button to the right.

To view the application form, visit: https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/11631001

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