Clarification from the agency

This announcement is open to all U.S. Citizens. This position may be filled through the Direct Hire Authority for **IT Specialist** positions. All applicants who meet the qualification requirements will be forwarded to the selecting official for further consideration. Category Rating, Veterans Preference, Schedule A and traditional rating and ranking of applicants does not apply to this vacancy.

This is a term position with a Not to exceed 13 months which can be extended up to ten years with a possibility of being converted to permanent. Note: There is a full time permanent competitive position being announced at the same time for another position under FSA-26-13058136-DHA, if you would like to be considered for both. Applicants must apply for both announcements as they are two different appointment lengths.

APPLICATION LIMIT: This vacancy announcement is limited to the first 200 applications received and will close at 11:59PM Eastern Time on the day that we receive the 200th application, or at 11:59PM Eastern Time on the listed closing date, whichever occurs first.

This position is eligible for Remote/Virtual work. However, this position may fall under the Presidential Memorandum titled "Return to In-Person Work" which will require you to go into the office if you are located within 50 miles of a Department of Education facility in these locations: Washington, DC, Dallas, TX, San Francisco, CA, Seattle, WA, Kansas City, MO, Chicago, Il, Atlanta, GA, Philadelphia, PA, New York City, NY, and location is negotiable. Actual salary will be based on location of selectee. Locality pay tables available at www.opm.gov .

We encourage you to read this entire vacancy announcement prior to submitting your application.

As an IT Program Manager (Service Designer), GS-2210-15, you will be responsible for:

• Leading discovery and design efforts rooted in empathy for students, families, and financial aid administrators.
• Ensuring FSA services are intuitive and accessible to users of all backgrounds, and that every interaction builds trust and confidence in the program.
• Looking beyond the screen to understand and improve the end-to-end journey of applying for and receiving aid, mapping processes, policies, and touchpoints across agencies and partners, identifying pain points and opportunities for more seamless, equitable services.
• Designing solutions that account for the full ecosystem, not just individual transactions.
• Leading usability testing with diverse users, incorporating feedback into design iterations.
• Ensuring that final solutions can scale to millions of FSA users while maintaining clarity, accessibility, and reliability.
• Championing design to drive organizational change, challenging outdated processes and building alignment across stakeholders.
• Proactively pushing through barriers to user-focused innovation and modeling a bias for action to unlock better outcomes for students and families within a complex federal environment.
• Working hand-in-hand with product managers, engineers, policy experts, and contractors to ensure design decisions are fully integrated into development.
• Mentoring others in human-centered and service design practices, elevating the organization's overall design maturity and building a culture that values design as essential to delivering public services that work for everyone.

Conditions of employment

The U.S. Department of Education (ED) has interagency agreements (IAAs) with other agencies to ensure efficient delivery of funded programs and activities, and move closer to fulfilling the President's promise to return education to the states. Employees may receive detail assignments to these agencies in support of the IAAs).

Condition of Employment:
As a condition of employment for accepting this position, you may be required to serve a probationary period or trial period during which we will evaluate your fitness and whether your continued employment advances the public interest. In determining if your employment advances the public interest, we may consider:
- your performance and conduct;
- the needs and interests of the agency;
- whether your continued employment would advance organizational goals of the agency or the Government; and
- whether your continued employment would advance the efficiency of the Federal service.
Upon completion of your probationary period OR trial period your employment will be terminated unless you receive certification, in writing, that your continued employment advances the public interest.

Key Requirements:

1. Must be a US Citizen.
2. Males 18 and over must be registered with the Selective Service.
3. Must complete a Background Investigation and Fingerprint check.
4. Must be determined suitable for federal employment.
5. Relocation expenses will not be paid.
6. You may be subject to serve a one-year managerial probationary period.
7. You may be subject to serve a one-year probationary period.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualification Requirements

You may meet the minimum qualifications for the GS-15, if you possess the specialize experience.

Specialized Experience for the GS-15 One year of experience in either federal or non-federal service that is equivalent to at least a GS-14 performing two (2) out of three (3) of the following duties or work assignments:

1. Experience leading or serving in a senior role of a multi-disciplinary project involving the design, development, and implementation of a new system or a major enhancement to an existing IT system.
2. Experience serving as a design lead, overseeing adoption of new functionalities and/or technologies for users.
3. Experience communicating technical concepts to non-technical audiences and translating business requirements into technical user stories.

Basic Experience Requirements:Applicants may qualify by meeting or exceeding the minimum proficiency level established for each of the required competencies, in addition to meeting the specialized experience requirement as demonstrated through the assessment of skills. You must possess IT-related experience (paid or unpaid experience and/or completion of specific, intensive training (e.g., IT certification), as appropriate) demonstrating each of the nine 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 (i.e., 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. Decision Making - Makes sound, well-informed, and objective decisions; perceives the impact and implications of decisions; commits to action, even in uncertain situations, to accomplish organizational goals; causes change.
4. Information Management - Identifies a need for and knows where or how to gather information; organizes and maintains information or information management systems.
5. Interpersonal Skills- Shows understanding, friendliness, courtesy, tact, empathy, concern, and politeness to others; develops and maintains effective relationships with others; may include effectively dealing with individuals who are difficult, hostile, or distressed; relates well to people from varied backgrounds and different situations.
6. 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.
7. Problem Solving- Identifies problems; determines accuracy and relevance of information; uses sound judgment to generate and evaluate alternatives, and to make recommendations.
8. Teamwork- Encourages and facilitates cooperation, pride, trust, and group identity; fosters commitment and team spirit; works with others to achieve goals.
9. Technical Competence- Uses knowledge that is acquired through formal training or on-the-job experience to perform one's job; works with, understands, and evaluates technical information related to the job; advises others on technical issues.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSAs) The quality of your experience will be measured by the extent to which you possess the following knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs). You do not need to provide separate narrative responses to these KSAs, as they will be measured by your responses to the occupational questionnaire (you may preview the occupational questionnaire by clicking the link at the end of the Evaluations section of this vacancy announcement).

1. Skill human-centered design and user experience methods.
2. Skill in service design and systems thinking.
3. Skill in prototyping, testing, and iterating solutions at scale.
4. Skill in navigating bureaucracy and driving design-led change.
5. Ability to collaborate across disciplines and build a culture of design.

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 application and documentation submitted to ensure you meet the basic qualification requirements. You will be evaluated based on how well you meet the qualifications and competencies listed in this vacancy announcement. Your qualifications will be evaluated based on your application materials (e.g., resume, supporting documents), and the result of the USA Hires Assessment(s) required for this position. You will be assessed on the following competencies (knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics):

Non-Supervisory: Oral Communications, Writing, Interpersonal Skills, Problem Solving, Teamwork, Technology Orientation, Customer Service, Attention to Detail and Self-Management

You will be evaluated to determine if you meet qualifications required, and on the extent to which your application shows that you possess the knowledge, skills and abilities associated with this position as defined in the Qualifications section. Please be sure to give examples in your resume and explain how often you used these skills, the complexity of the knowledge you possessed, the level of people you interacted with, and the complexity and sensitivity of the issues you handled.

Based on the outcome of this evaluation, your application data may be further assessed by a Subject Matter Expert (SME) panel. If your qualifications are not substantiated by your submitted resume, you may be eliminated from receiving further consideration.

If you are found to be amongst the most highly qualified applicants, you will be referred to the selecting official. As part of the assessment and selection process, the selecting official may invite you to participate in a structured interview, check your references, and/or request that you submit a writing sample or complete a written assessment or exercise to further evaluate your qualifications for this position.