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APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

Securities and Exchange Commission
Office of Information Technology

Summary

The Office of Information Technology is looking to fill the Application Development Assistant Director position in their newly formed applicant development branch. This position requires proactive vision and entrepreneurial leadership to build the organizational structure, processes, and culture of this new branch from the ground up.



Overview

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Accepting applications
Open & closing dates
01/28/2026 to 02/10/2026
Salary
$169,608 to - $289,400 per year
Pay scale & grade
SK 17
Locations
1 vacancy in the following locations:
Los Angeles, CA
San Francisco, CA
Denver, CO
Washington, DC
Remote job
No
Telework eligible
No
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
17
Supervisory status
Yes
Security clearance
Not Required
Drug test
No
Position sensitivity and risk
High Risk (HR)
Trust determination process
Financial disclosure
Yes
Bargaining unit status
No
Announcement number
26-IN-12872850-SMP
Control number
855591900

This job is open to

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Clarification from the agency

Well-qualified surplus/displaced Federal employees of the SEC (i.e. CTAP) in the local area and current SEC employees in permanent competitive service positions (i.e. status candidates).

Duties

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The Application Development Assistant Director serves as a critical technology leader responsible for establishing and leading a newly formed Application Development Branch that will oversee the design, development, implementation, and maintenance of application solutions across three distinct operational branches: Platform Development, Custom Coding, and Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) Software.

As a strategic leadership position, the role plays a vital part in advancing the mission by ensuring the delivery of secure, compliant, and innovative technology solutions that support the Commission. The successful candidate will be a proactive, visionary leader who can define the branch's strategic direction, establish governance frameworks, develop operational standards, and create a cohesive, high-performing organization from diverse development functions. This position requires a unique blend of technical expertise, strategic vision, organizational development acumen, and leadership capability to transform disparate development activities into a unified, efficient, and mission-focused application development branch.

Typical Duties Include:

  • Leading and overseeing three specialized application development teams: Platforms, Custom Coding, and Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) Software implementation.
  • Setting goals, performance metrics, and accountability standards for each team while ensuring collaboration across branches.
  • Managing workload distribution and prioritizing projects based on organizational needs and strategic objectives.
  • Serving as the primary decision-maker for application development initiatives, ensuring alignment with business priorities.
  • Developing and maintaining a comprehensive application development roadmap aligned with strategic objectives.
  • Collaborating with enterprise architects, business stakeholders, and senior leadership to define long-term application strategies and technology standards.
  • Championing a customer-centric approach by ensuring all application development initiatives prioritize user needs, deliver exceptional service experiences, and maintain strong stakeholder engagement throughout the project lifecycle.
  • Understanding the technology needs, challenges and opportunities of customers and key stakeholders to efficiently promote their business effectiveness through optimized solutions.
  • Defining and enforcing technical standards and best practices for application development.
  • Establishing governance mechanisms and success measures to ensure effective execution.
  • Monitoring emerging technologies and recommending solutions that align with business objectives.
  • Overseeing security, compliance, and risk management; ensuring interoperability and performance across platforms.
  • Interpreting and operationalizing federal IT policies, legislative mandates, and regulatory requirements into activities and technical guidelines.
  • Developing and maintaining compliance programs, audit frameworks, monitoring mechanisms, and accountability structures.
  • Recruiting, mentoring, and developing technical talent; fostering a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement.

Requirements

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Conditions of employment

  • You must be a US Citizen.
  • Application procedures are specific to this vacancy announcement. Please read all the instructions carefully. Failure to follow the instructions may result in you not being considered for this position.
  • Supplementary vacancies may be filled in addition to the number stated in this announcement and may be filled from any division or office within the agency.
  • This position has promotion potential to the SK-17.
  • PROBATIONARY PERIOD: This appointment may require completion of a two-year supervisory probationary period.
  • SECURITY CLEARANCE: Entrance on duty is contingent upon completion of a pre-employment security investigation. Favorable results on a Background Investigation may be a condition of employment or selection to another position.
  • PERMANENT CHANGE OF STATION (PCS): Moving/Relocation expenses are not authorized.
  • DIRECT DEPOSIT: All Federal employees are required to have Federal salary payments made by direct deposit to a financial institution of their choosing.
  • This position is not in the collective bargaining unit NTEU Chapter 293.
  • Selectee will remain in their current duty station.
  • Selectee wishing to relocate to HQ may be considered for a voluntary transfer. Relocation expenses are not authorized.

Qualifications

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

Time-in-grade for this announcement is one year at the GS/SK-14 level.

Qualifying experience may be obtained in the private or public sector. 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.

Applicants are responsible for confirming all required materials are submitted by the deadline. Please check the 'How You Will Be Evaluated' and 'Required Documents' sections carefully, as missing documents will render the application incomplete and ineligible for review.

BASIC REQUIREMENT: For all positions 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.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATION REQUIREMENT: In addition to meeting the basic requirement, applicants must also meet the minimum qualification requirement below.

SK-17: Applicant must have at least one year of specialized experience equivalent to the GS/SK-14 level:
  1. Leading development teams to deliver application solutions, including setting strategic goals, establishing performance metrics and ensuring cross-team collaboration; AND
  2. Developing and executing application development, including governance and release management, across at least two (2) of the following functional areas: 1) platforms, 2) custom development, and/or 3) commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) implementation; AND
  3. Applying DevSecOps principles.

Additional information

IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR SURPLUS OR DISPLACED FEDERAL EMPLOYEES: If you have never worked for the federal government, you are not I/CTAP eligible. To receive selection priority for this position, you must: (1) meet CTAP or ICTAP eligibility criteria; the questionnaire asks you to identify your ICTAP/CTAP eligibility (2) be rated well-qualified; and, (3) submit the appropriate documentation to support your CTAP or ICTAP eligibility. View information about I/CTAP eligibility on OPM's Career Transition Resources website.

Disability Employment: For information on disability appointments, please visit http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/disability-employment/

Reasonable Accommodation: If you are an applicant who needs a reasonable accommodation to participate in the SEC application process due to a medical disability, please contact reasonableaccommodation@sec.gov. For religious-based accommodations, please contact religiousaccommodation@sec.gov . Please be sure to submit your request at least 5 business days in advance of the date you need the requested accommodation.

Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Information for SEC Job Applicants: Federal EEO laws protect all applicants from discrimination on the following bases: race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy, national origin, political affiliation, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, genetic information, age, membership in an employee organization, retaliation, parental status, military service or other non-merit factor. Applicants who believe they have been discriminated against on any EEO basis can seek recourse through the SEC's administrative complaints process. To be timely, an individual must enter the EEO process within 45 days from when they know (or should have known) of the alleged discrimination. Click here for additional information.

The Fair Chance Act prohibits specific inquiries concerning an applicant's criminal or credit background unless the hiring agency has made a conditional offer of employment to the applicant. An applicant may submit a complaint, or any other information, to the agency within 30 calendar days of the date of alleged non-compliance by contacting the Legal and Policy Office in the Office of Human Resources at ElliottT@sec.gov.

Candidates should be committed to improving the efficiency of the Federal government, passionate about the ideals of our American republic, and committed to upholding the rule of law and the United States Constitution.

How you will be evaluated

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

Your resume and application package will be reviewed to determine whether you meet the qualification requirements outlined in this announcement.

If you are found minimally qualified, a rating panel will review your resume and Accomplishment Record narratives. Accomplishment Record narratives should clearly demonstrate your proficiency in the following competencies:

  1. Developing and Managing Others: Ability to recruit, develop and manage the workforce to meet organizational goals, with little or no guidance.
  2. Technology Awareness: Uses knowledge of technological developments, new requirements, and new applications of information technology to evaluate and implement their integration into business processes to meet organizational requirements.
  3. Strategic Execution: Understand and implement SEC's and Division/Office's policies and goals, with regard to personnel or programs in their purview anticipating, identifying, and addressing the impact of internal and external environmental factors, linking them to capabilities and potential of the organization.
  4. Technology Expertise: Knowledge of the principles and methods of specialized technologies, tools, and delivery systems, including security, risk management, governance, functionality, and user interface in area of expertise (e.g., programming languages, server, web, applications, network)
Your resume must provide evidence that supports the claims made in your Accomplishment Record narratives; both documents must effectively showcase your qualifications. Each competency narrative should detail one specific, relevant example from your training or experience. Please limit each response to a maximum of 300 words, as any text beyond this limit will not be considered during the evaluation. You will upload one pdf or Word document with your narrative responses to each of the four competencies. Your responses must be in the below format:

Competency Title
Position title and dates from your resume that this experience was obtained
  • Describe the situation (i.e., the challenged faced, the problem solved)
  • Describe the specific actions you took
  • State the outcome, results, or long-term impact of your accomplishment
  • Name and email address of someone who can verify this information
Basis for Rating: The rating panel will evaluate applicants' accomplishment records and resume, then place them into one of the following categories: Highly Qualified, Well Qualified and Qualified.
  • Highly Qualified - Meets the minimum qualification requirements and has extensive skills and experience in most of the job related competencies above.
  • Well Qualified - Meets the minimum qualification requirements and has a moderate amount of skills and experience in most of the job related competencies above.
  • Qualified - Meets the minimum qualification requirements, but may have a limited amount of experience in several of the job related competencies.
Top ranked applicants will be referred to the hiring office for further review and consideration. The hiring office may directly contact recommended candidates for interview(s). When the selection is made, applicants will be sent a referral status notification and a final disposition notification.

To preview the Occupational Questionnaire, click https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/12872850

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