Clarification from the agency

This vacancy announcement is open to the public. This position allows for situational and recurring telework, but does not qualify for full-time or remote telework.

The API Lead Architect position is responsible for the technical strategy of standardizing API design, versioning, and service contracts for cross-service integration. This role will design the API library for the case management application, enabling integration of core case management components across third-party systems. This is a hands-on architectural design role.

Key Responsibilities

1. Defining and maintaining program-wide API standards, including contract conventions, versioning, and deprecation policies.
2. Overseeing cross-service integration decisions, ensuring architectural alignment across multiple pods, and managing technical escalations.
3. Collaborating with the development leads to institutionalizing API guardrails, CI/CD expectations, and quality review checkpoints.
4. Coordinating with the Chief Architect and other workstream leads to ensure API patterns support enterprise non-functional targets and roadmap delivery.
5. Identifying and implementing an API catalog capability for the maintenance and discovery of APIs for third-party system integrations
6. Balancing team capacity against program demands, ensuring the team is allocated effectively to support high-priority integration efforts.
7. Providing design-time API reviews for pod teams and documenting approved patterns and decisions to reduce rework and integration defects.
8. Driving cross-pod adoption of API standards by identifying gaps, escalating necessary noncompliance, and enabling teams to implement immediate solutions.
9. Running an API functional chapter to synchronize embedded engineers on API decisions, upcoming changes, and external API integration needs.
10. Maintaining API playbooks and review checklists aligned to Development Chapter engineering guardrails and publishing reusable guidance for pod team.

Conditions of employment

CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT

1. All information is subject to verification. Applicants are advised that false answers or omissions of information on application materials or inability to meet the following conditions may be grounds for non-selection, withdrawal of an offer of employment, or dismissal after being employed.
2. Selection for this position is contingent upon completion of OF-306, Declaration of Federal Employment during the pre-employment process and proof of U.S. citizenship for competitive status positions or conversion to a competitive status position with the AO. If non-citizens are considered for hire into a temporary or any other position with non-competitive status or when it is confirmed by the AO Human Resources Office there are no qualified U.S. citizens for a competitive status position (unless prohibited by a law or statue), non-citizens must provide proof of authorization to work in the U.S. and proof of entitlement to receive compensation. Additional information on the employment of non-citizens can be found at USAJOBS Help Center | Employment of non-citizens/. For a list of documents that may be used to provide proof of citizenship or authorization to work in the United States, please refer to Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification.
3. All new AO employees will be required to complete an FBI fingerprint-based national criminal database and records check and pass a public trust suitability check.
4. New employees to the AO will be required to successfully pass the E-Verify employment verification check. To learn more about E-Verify, including your rights/responsibilities, visit https://www.e-verify.gov/.
5. All new AO employees are required to identify a financial institution for direct deposit of pay before appointment.
6. You will be required to serve a trial period if selected for a first-time appointment to the Federal government, transferring from another Federal agency, or serving as a first-time supervisor. Failure to successfully complete the trial period may result in termination of employment.
7. If appointed to a temporary position, management may have the discretion of converting the position to permanent depending upon funding and staffing allocation.

Qualifications

Applicants must have demonstrated experience as listed below. This requirement is according to the AO Classification, Compensation, and Recruitment Systems which include interpretive guidance and reference to the OPM Operating Manual for Qualification Standards for General Schedule Positions.

Specialized Experience: Applicants must have at least one full year (52 weeks) of specialized experience which is in or directly related to the line of work of this position. Specialized experience is demonstrated experience demonstrated experience leading the enterprise API strategy and cross-service integration.

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 resume and supporting documentation and compare this information to your responses on the occupational questionnaire to determine if you meet the minimum qualifications for this job. If you meet the minimum qualifications for this job, we will evaluate your application package, to assess the quality, depth, and complexity of your accomplishments, experience, and education as they relate to the requirements listed in this vacancy announcement.

You should be aware that your ratings are subject to evaluation and verification. If a determination is made that you have rated yourself higher than is supported by your resume and/or narrative responses, you will be assigned a rating commensurate to your described experience. Failure to submit the mandatory narrative responses will result in not receiving full consideration and/or rating credit. Deliberate attempts to falsify information may be grounds for not selecting you, withdrawing an offer of employment, or dismissal after being employed.