IT Specialist

Summary

This position is located in the Veteran Affairs Enterprise Command Operations (ECO), End User Services (EUS), Office of Information and Technology (OIT) serving as an IT Specialist responsible for the full range of duties within their assigned roles in Major Incident and Event Management Directorate to provide event management services for addressing IT operational events in order to maintain the interoperability of production systems and services.

Duties

Major Duties: Support, implement, and recommend improvement to national policies and procedures. Utilize experience, discretion, judgment and knowledge in the planning, execution, operation and maintenance of IT systems and infrastructure. Participates as a team member with others in a virtual environment accountable to the division chief. Assists in creating documentation on IT systems and infrastructure. Assists in implementing new technologies at the direction of the division chief to enhance health systems operation in support of critical applications and business processes. Conducts 24/7 shift operations to monitor the national IT environment. (Division has access to all national/district monitoring systems but is not physically together at a physical facility. Monitoring operations are conducted from local sites across the nation.) Monitor IT systems and applications Analyze incident data for emerging trends. Maintain incident tracking and solution database. Diagnose and resolve customer reported system incidents, problems, and events. Make recommendations based on trend analysis for enhancements to system and application monitoring. Monitor and report client-level computer system performance. Develop a trend analysis and impact report. Additional duties required, within scope of the position description. This position is primarily aligned to the following NICE Cybersecurity Workforce Framework work roles of Cybersecurity Code: 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 Bargaining Unit: Yes Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized. Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized. Financial Disclosure Report: Not Required. Travel Required: Up to 25%. Occasional travel may be required as needed for this position. Work Schedule: Sunday-Thursday; 800AM to 4:30PM EST. (Requires Weekend and/or Holiday work.) Compressed/Flexible: Not Authorized Telework: (AdHoc) Authorized at Manager's discretion. Virtual/Remote: This is NOT a virtual NOR a remote position. Physical Demands: The work is sedentary, but may involve intermediate periods of walking, bending, stooping, lifting, carrying, moving (up to 50 pounds) computer components and supplies, reaching, pulling, and working at a keyboard and monitor. This division provides 24/7 coverage throughout the calendar year. Working Conditions: The work area is adequately lighted, heated, and ventilated. The work environment involves everyday risks or discomforts that require normal safety precautions. Incumbent is subject to shift work, rotating shifts and shifts covering weekends and/or holidays. Subject to call back outside tour of duty. Tour of duty may be subject to change based on organizational needs. Requirements

You must be a U.S. Citizen to apply for this job. Selective Service Registration is required for males born after 12/31/1959. Selectee is subject to background/suitability investigation. Selected applicant will be required to complete an online onboarding process. This position is subject to pre-employment and random drug testing. Complete the initial online assessment and USAHire Assessment, if required. To be considered for this position, applicants must complete all required steps in the process. Selected applicants will be required to complete an online onboarding process. Acceptable form(s) of identification will be required to complete pre-employment requirements (https://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central/form-i-9-acceptable-documents). Effective May 7, 2025, driver's licenses or state-issued identification cards that are not REAL ID compliant cannot be utilized as an acceptable form of identification for employment. As a condition of employment for accepting this position, you will be required to serve a 1-year probationary 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, your employment will be terminated unless you receive certification, in writing, that your continued employment advances the public interest. This job opportunity announcement may be used to fill additional vacancies. Qualifications

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 09/18/2026. You must meet the Minimum Qualification Requirements AND Specialized Experience to qualify for this series as described below.* 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-12 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-11. 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. If the most recent SF-50 has an effective date within the past year, it may not clearly demonstrate you possess one-year time-in-grade, as required by the announcement. In this instance, you must provide an additional SF-50 that clearly demonstrates one-year time-in-grade. Note: Time-In-Grade requirements also apply to former Federal employees applying for reinstatement. Minimum Qualifications Requirements EXPERIENCE: To qualify for this position, you must have information technology-related experience demonstrating all of the four competencies listed below. Ensure that this experience is clearly described in your resume: Attention to Detail - Is thorough when performing work and conscientious about attending to detail. 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. 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. Problem Solving - Identifies problems; determines accuracy and relevance of information; uses sound judgment to generate and evaluate alternatives, and to make recommendations. -AND- Specialized Experience for GS-2210-12: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Specialized experience is experience that has equipped the applicant with the particular competencies/knowledge, skills, and abilities to successfully perform the duties of the position and is typically in or related to the work of the position to be filled. Such experience is typically gained in the IT field or through the performance of work where the primary concern is IT. Specialized Experience is defined as: Required and documented experience conducting alert analysis on information technology systems, infrastructure, and software using application performance monitoring tools (some VA monitoring tools are SolarWinds, ServiceNow, Dynatrace, DataDog, Logic Monitor, ELK - Elastic, and others). Demonstrated experience working directly with customers to identify and resolve alerts and errors critical to normal business functions. 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. 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 the United States Office of Personnel Management's website at https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-standards/.

Education

EDUCATIONAL SUBSTITUTION: There is no educational substitution for this position at this grade level. How You Will Be Evaluated

You will be evaluated based on how well you meet the qualifications listed in this vacancy announcement. Your qualifications will be evaluated based on your application materials (e.g., resume, supporting documents), your responses on the application questionnaire, and your responses to all assessments required for this position. You will be assessed on the following competencies (knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics): The USA Hire Assessment includes a cut score based on the minimum level of required proficiency in these critical general competencies. You must meet or exceed the cut score to be considered. You will not be considered for the position if you score below the cut score or fail to complete the assessment. IN DESCRIBING YOUR EXPERIENCE, PLEASE BE CLEAR AND SPECIFIC. WE WILL NOT MAKE ASSUMPTIONS REGARDING YOUR EXPERIENCE. Overstating your qualifications and/or experience in your application materials or application questionnaire may result in your removal from consideration. Cheating on an assessment may also result in your removal from consideration. In order to be considered for this position, you must complete all required steps in the process. Resumes must be legible so they can be reviewed for eligibility, minimum qualifications and other position requirements listed in the job announcement. Your resume must include your name, contact phone number and contact email address, and must be 5MB or less. We recommend saving and uploading your resume as a PDF to maintain formatting and number of pages. We also accept GIF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, RTF, TXT, PDF, ODT or Word (DOC or DOCX). We do not accept PDF portfolio files. We recommend using a sans-serif font size like Lato, if available. Other widely available options are Calibri, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, Open San Source Sans Pro, Roboto or Noro Sans. Make your page margins 0.5 inches. Consider using 14-point size font for titles and 10-point for the main text in your resume. The resume builder can help you create a resume using these recommendations and uses the information in your USAJOBS profile to help you get started. During the application process you may have an option to opt-in to make your resume available to hiring managers in the agency who have similar positions. Opting in does not impact your application for this announcement, nor does it guarantee further consideration for additional positions. Placement Policy: The posting of this announcement does not obligate management to fill a vacancy or vacancies by promotion. The position may be filled by reassignment, change to lower grade, transfer, appointment, or reinstatement. Management may use any one or any combination of these methods to fill the position. It is the policy of the VA to not deny employment to those that have faced financial hardships or periods of unemployment. Other Information

This job opportunity announcement may be used to fill additional vacancies. This is not a remote position. OIT has multiple worksites at various duty locations, and the individual(s) selected may be assigned to any federal government work site. This announcement will NOT be used for changing duty locations. If selected, and you are a current VA employee, and not on an approved exemption, you will continue to report to your current duty location. Current OIT or VA employees with competitive status and CTAP/RPL eligible. This announcement will NOT be used for changing duty locations. If selected, and not on an approved exemption, you will continue to report to your current duty location. If selected you will be required to report to one of the following locations: Albany, NY Arlington, TX Atlanta, GA Austin, TX Baltimore, MD Bedford, MA Boston, MA Chicago, IL Cleveland, OH Dallas, TX Denver, CO Detroit, MI Eatontown, NJ Hines, IL Houston, TX Little Rock, AR Long Beach, CA Los Angeles, CA Martinsburg, WV Miami, FL Minneapolis, MN Nashville, TN Oakland, CA Orlando, FL Philadelphia, PA Phoenix, AZ Pittsburgh, PA Salt Lake City, UT San Antonio, TX San Francisco, CA Seattle, WA Shepherdstown, WV St. Louis, MO St. Petersburg, FL Tampa, FL Washington, DC If space is not immediately available a temporary exception to telework may be granted. If/when workspace is identified, the employee is expected to report to their assigned duty location. A selectee receiving a first appointment to the Federal Government (Civil Service) is entitled only to the lowest step of the grade for which selected. The display of a salary range on this vacancy shall not be construed as granting an entitlement to a higher rate of pay. Receiving Service Credit or Earning Annual (Vacation) Leave: Federal Employees earn annual leave at a rate (4, 6 or 8 hours per pay period) which is based on the number of years they have served as a Federal employee. VA may offer newly-appointed Federal employee's credit for their job-related non-federal experience or active duty uniformed military service. This credited service can be used in determining the rate at which they earn annual leave. Such credit must be requested and approved prior to the appointment date and is not guaranteed. Under the Fair Chance to Compete Act, the Department of Veterans Affairs prohibits requesting an applicant's criminal history prior to accepting a tentative job offer. For more information about the Act and the complaint process, visit Human Resources and Administration/Operations, Security, and Preparedness (HRA/OSP) at The Fair Chance Act.