Clarification from the agency

Open to all U.S. Citizens. This position will be filled through Direct Hire Authority (DHA). All applicants who meet the basic qualification requirements will be forwarded to the Selecting Official for further consideration. The "Rule of Three", Category Rating, Veterans Preference, and traditional rating and ranking of applicants does not apply to this vacancy.

This position serves as a Supervisory IT Cybersecurity Specialist (SYSANALYSIS/INFOSEC), responsible for managing the C5ISC Communications Systems Product Line (COMPL) supervising personnel at Alexandria, VA, Portsmouth, VA, Oakland, CA, and Juneau, AK. The COMPL acts as the Service Owner and single point of accountability to provide service development, delivery, support and technical expertise for communications systems services. The product line oversees Service Level Agreements (SLAs) with COMPL customers and Operational Level Agreements (OLAs) with internal C5ISC entities and external delivery partners.

Being a Coast Guard civilian makes you a valuable member of the Coast Guard Team. Typical work assignments include:

• Analyze design constraints, analyze trade-offs and detailed system and security design, and consider life cycle support.
• Identify and direct the remediation of technical problems encountered during testing and implementation of new systems (e.g., identify and find workarounds for communication protocols that are not interoperable).
• Analyze user needs and requirements to plan and conduct system development.
• Design hardware, operating systems, and software applications to adequately address requirements.
• Develop architectures or system components consistent with technical specifications.
• Monitor and audit the schedule, cost, design, analysis, operational performance and/or internal security procedures of national security systems (NSS) and respective classified information, critical infrastructure, mission essential systems (MES), high value assets (HVA) or other USCG information systems.
• Assign work to subordinates based on priorities, selective consideration of the difficulty and requirements of assignments and the capabilities of employees and make decisions on work and/or administrative problems presented by subordinate supervisors.

Mandatory training is required which must be successfully completed and other training may occur as necessary for success in the position.

A. Federal Acquisition Certification for Program and Project Managers Level I (FAC P/PM-I) or management determined equivalent within two years of entry into the position.

Recruitment Incentive - Selectee(s) for this position who are newly appointed to a permanent position are authorized to receive a one-time recruitment incentive of 10% of the salary, including locality for this position. Receipt of the bonus will require a 12-month service agreement. "Newly appointed" refers to the first appointment (regardless of tenure) as an employee of the Federal Government, an appointment following a break in service of at least 90 days from a previous appointment as an employee of the Federal Government, or, in certain cases, an appointment following a break in service of less than 90 days from a previous appointment as an employee of the Federal Government.

Relocation Incentive - Selectee(s) for this position who are current federal employees on permanent appointments and will be moving outside of the current commuting area of their current position to accept this position are authorized to receive a one-time relocation incentive of 10% of the salary including locality for this position. Receipt of the bonus will require a 12 month service agreement. The employee must establish a residence in the new geographic area prior to payment.

Student Loan – Selectee(s) for this position who are newly appointed to a permanent or term position may be eligible for student loan repayment up to $10,000 (pre-tax) for one calendar year. More than one loan may be repaid if the combined repayments do not exceed $10,000. Receipt of this incentive will require a three-year service agreement.

Conditions of employment

• U.S. Citizenship is required.
• Males born after 12/31/1959 must be registered for Selective Service.
• A one-year probationary period may be required.
• This position requires a Secret/SCI clearance.
• A one-year supervisory probationary period may be required.
• This is not a Bargaining Unit Position.

All qualification requirements must be met by the closing date of the announcement.

Qualifications

To qualify for the GS-14 level, applicants should have at least one (1) year of specialized experience at or equivalent to the GS-13 level in the Federal service.  Specialized experience is experience that has equipped you with the particular ability, skill, and knowledge to successfully perform the duties of this position and is typically in or related to the line of work.  

Specialized experience must include the following and your resume must demonstrate that you have met the specialized experience.   

• Analyzes system design trade-offs considering IT life cycle support;
• Planning, evaluating or leading projects or teams such as assigning work, setting priorities, and providing feedback on work assignments;
• Identifying need for changes based on new security technologies or threats, review and evaluates security assessment policies; and
• Advising management officials of cybersecurity and data management issues. 

In addition to meeting the specialized experience requirement, you must also 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.

Education cannot be substituted at this grade level.

National Service Experience (i.e., volunteer experience): 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 can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience.

The Office of Personnel management (OPM) must authorize employment offers made to current or former political appointees. If you are currently, or have been within the last 5 years, a political Schedule A, Schedule, C, Non-career SES or Presidential Appointee employee in the Executive Branch, you must disclose this information to the Human Resources Office.

How you will be evaluated

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

Your resume, optional cover letter and supporting documentation will be reviewed to determine if you meet the minimum qualification requirements for the position. Under the provisions of expedited hiring authority, rating, ranking and veterans' preference does not apply; therefore, your responses to the questionnaire will not be used to determine a scored rating. All applicants who meet the minimum qualifications in the job opportunity announcement, will be referred for selection consideration. While veterans' preference does not apply in EHA, preference eligible are encouraged to submit their supporting documentation (DD-214 stating disposition of discharge or character of service, VA letter, SF-15, etc.).

Applicants applying as CTAP or ICTAP candidates, and are determined CTAP or ICTAP eligible, must exceed the minimum qualification requirements to be referred under this selection priority placement program by attaining at least a rating of 85 out of 100. For those deemed eligible and who meet the minimum qualifications, we will compare your resume, optional cover letter and supporting documentation to your responses on the scored occupational questionnaire (True/False, Yes/No, Multiple Choice questions). Your resume and/or optional cover letter must support your responses to the scored occupational questionnaire. CTAP/ICTAP eligibles who are not determined well-qualified by scoring at least 85 will not be referred under the CTAP/ICTAP selection priority placement program; however, will be referred for selection consideration with other minimally qualified applicants. The scored occupational questionnaire will evaluate you on the following competencies, please do not provide a separate written response.

The scored occupational questionnaire will evaluate you on the following competencies; please do not provide a separate written response: 

• Knowledge of risk management processes.
• Knowledge of organization's enterprise information security architecture.
• Knowledge of cybersecurity and privacy principles and organizational requirements (relevant to confidentiality, integrity, availability, authentication, non-repudiation).
• Knowledge of information security systems engineering principles.
• Knowledge of system life cycle management principles, including software security and usability.
• Knowledge of the systems engineering process.
• Skill in designing the integration of hardware and software solutions.
• Skill in conducting audits or reviews of technical systems.

We recommend that you preview the online questions for this announcement before you start the application process.