Clarification from the agency

Current Federal employees serving under career or career conditional competitive service appointments, former Federal employees with reinstatement eligibility, or persons eligible for non-competitive appointment under special appointment authorities. Veterans who are preference eligible or separated from the armed forces under honorable conditions after 3 or more years of continuous service may apply under the Veterans Employment Opportunity Act (VEOA).

Videos

The incumbent is an IT Specialist for HPS and provides national support to Veterans Affairs (VA) medical facilities and other Veterans Health Administration (VHA) and OI&T customers, as a member on a team under Administrative Product Support (APS) Division or Clinical Product Support (CPS) Division. You will serves as a resource for other team members within HPS and EPMD, ITOPS, VHA IT projects. You will be expected to provide oversight, direction, guidance, and technical expertise on assigned project components.

This position is primarily aligned to the following NICE Cybersecurity Workforce Framework work roles.
411 - Technical Support Specialist

For more information about these work roles, where they fit within the larger Cyber Workforce, and how they can support your unique career journey, please visit the Cyber Career Pathways tool on the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Careers and Studies website: https://niccs.us-cert.gov/workforce-development/cyber-career-pathways

This is a bargaining unit position.

Work Schedule: Monday - Friday, 8:00am - 4:30pm
Compressed/Flexible Schedule: Not Available.
Telework: May be available with supervisor approval.
Virtual: This is not a virtual position.
Position Description Title/PD#: Information Technology Specialist/ PD14297A and PD14297A
Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized
Financial Disclosure Report: Not Required
Physical Requirements: The work is predominantly sedentary and does not require any special physical effort. Some work may require walking and standing in conjunction with travel and attendance at meetings and conferences away from the work site. Employee may carry light items such as meeting materials and a portable computer, and may be required to drive a motor vehicle to meetings. Since the VA VistA and Enterprise applications are used at VA facilities throughout the nation,
considerable travel to facilities and national meetings is required. Incumbent will be required to work off-hours and weekends to ensure continuity of computer operations. The work requires almost constant use of a video display device.

• Serves as a resource for other team members within HPS and EPMD, ITOPS, VHA IT projects. The employee is expected to provide oversight, direction, guidance, and technical expertise on assigned project components.
• Develops or provides guidance for the solution of difficult and unprecedented problems resulting from new or modified operational management information concepts and requirements.
• Conducts applied and supporting research for information systems by meeting with project teams to determine information needs.
• Develops and delivers technical training to others.
• Supports VistA applications throughout the Veterans Health Administration for production accounts.

Conditions of employment

• You must be a U.S. Citizen to apply for this job
• Designated and/or random drug testing may be required
• Selective Service Registration is required for males born after 12/31/1959
• You may be required to serve a probationary period
• Subject to background/security investigation
• Selected applicants will be required to complete an online onboarding process

Qualifications

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 06/28/2021.

Time-In-Grade Requirement: Applicants who are current Federal employees and have held a GS grade any time in the past 52 weeks must also meet time-in-grade requirements by the closing date of this announcement. For a GS-13 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-12. The grade may have been in any occupation, but must have been held in the Federal service. An SF-50 that shows your time-in-grade eligibility must be submitted with your application materials.

Provide a copy of your last or most recent SF-50, "Notification of Personnel Action" to indicate your current federal status. You must also submit additional SF-50(s) to clearly demonstrate one year time-in-grade as required in the announcement. If the most recent SF-50 has an effective within the past year, it may not clearly demonstrate that you possess one year time-in-grade. In this instance, you must provide an additional SF-50 that clearly demonstrates one year time-in-grade.

Time-In-Grade requirements also apply to former Federal employees applying for reinstatement as well as current employees applying for Veterans Employment Opportunities Act of 1998 (VEOA) appointment.

Selective Placement Factor: This position includes a skill, knowledge, ability or other worker characteristic basic to -and essential for- satisfactory performance of the job. Selective Placement Factors are a prerequisite to appointment and represent minimum requirements for a position. Applicants who do not meet it are ineligible for further consideration. Evidence of the Selective Placement Factor must be reflected in your resume.

The Selective Placement Factor for this position is: Experience with health care and federal inter-agency applications and their relationship on the day-to-day activities associated with the delivery of health care using VistA or enterprise products.

You may qualify based on your experience, as described below:

Experience - Experience must be IT related; the experience may be demonstrated by paid or unpaid experience and/or completion of specific, intensive training (for example, IT certification), as appropriate.

For all positions individuals must have IT-related experience demonstrating each of the four competencies listed below. The employing agency is responsible for identifying the specific level of proficiency required for each competency at each grade level based on the requirements of the position being filled.

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.

In addition to meeting the experience requirement above, applicants must meet the specialized experience requirement listed below.

GS-13
Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-12 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Specialized experience includes provides technical authority, plans, coordinates, develops, improves and implements efficient and economical management of information systems in support of new or existing applications software. Accomplishes long and short-range projects in the modification of systems, software, hardware, and networks. Demonstrated experience with VistA and enterprise application software functionality, sustainment maintenance, patch review and release processes, and ticket troubleshooting for those VistA and enterprise applications for medical center customers. Analyzing of existing VistA or enterprise applications using Mumps or other programming languages to isolate problem areas, solving operational problems, identifying new requirements tests programs to ensure systems meet business expectations. Troubleshooting VistA and enterprise application errors using Mumps, Fileman, Graphical User Interface (GUI) and web error trap tools with programmer level skill, and consulting team members as needed to resolve VistA or enterprise application problems.

Such experience is typically gained in the IT field or through the performance of work where the primary concern is IT.

Per Office of Personnel Management policy, federal employees are assumed to have gained experience by performing duties and responsibilities appropriate for their official series and grade level as described in their position description. Experience that would not usually be part of the employee's position is creditable; however, the experience is considered creditable when documented by satisfactory evidence, such as a signed memorandum from the employee's supervisor or an SF-50 or SF-52 documenting an official detail or other official assignments. The documentation must indicate whether the employee performed the duties full time or, if part-time, the percentage of times the employee performed the additional duties. The employee should be able to locate this documentation in their official personnel record. To receive credit for experience in your resume that is not within the official series and grade level of your official position, you must provide a copy of the appropriate and official documentation of such experience as indicated above.

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; religions; spiritual; community; student; social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience.

Note: A full year of work is considered to be 35-40 hours of work per week. Part-time experience will be credited on the basis of time actually spent in appropriate activities. Applicants wishing to receive credit for such experience must indicate clearly the nature of their duties and responsibilities in each position and the number of hours a week spent in such employment. For more information on these qualification standards, please visit OPM's web site at http://www.opm.gov/qualifications/standards/indexes/alph-ndx.asp.

How you will be evaluated

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

IN DESCRIBING YOUR EXPERIENCE, PLEASE BE CLEAR AND SPECIFIC. WE WILL NOT MAKE ASSUMPTIONS REGARDING YOUR EXPERIENCE.

Narrative responses are not required at this time. If you are referred for consideration, you may be asked to submit additional job related information, which may include, but not limited to; responses to the knowledge, skills and abilities; completion of a work sample, and/or contact for an interview.Your resume and/or supporting documentation will be verified. Please follow all instructions carefully. Errors or omissions may affect your rating or consideration for employment.