Login.gov - Application Engineer

Login.gov is hiring for GS-15 - Application Engineer. This page contains information related to the role as well as a link to submit your application. Check out Join TTS Hiring Process to learn more about the application process.

Location: Washington, DC; San Francisco, CA; Chicago, IL; New York, NY; Virtual (100% remote)

Salary Range: The base salary range for this position is: GS-15 Step 1 - $106,595 to GS-15 Step 10 $138,572

Please note the maximum salary available for the GS pay system is $166,500

The base salary range does not include any adjustment for locality. Your locality is most likely going to be determined by where you live since most of our positions are remote. If the position isn’t remote, then your locality will be determined by the location of the office where the position is based.

You can find more information about this in the compensation and benefits section on our site.

For specific details on locality pay, please visit OPM’s Salaries & Wages page or for a salary calculator OPM’s 2019 General Schedule (GS) Salary Calculator.

Who May Apply: All United States citizens and nationals (residents of American Samoa and Swains Islands) and applicants must not be GSA employees or contractors

Role Summary:

Application Engineer - GS-15

Login.gov gives the public simple, secure access to multiple government services through one verified account. Login.gov has over 10 million users and is growing the team as we scale quickly.

Login.gov is looking for qualified engineers to join our product team. We care deeply about providing the best possible experience to anyone using government digital services. We are committed to making the process easy while combating fraud and abuse of government systems. A qualified candidate is ready to quickly jump in and help in a number of areas: using security best practices and encryption to protect user data, improving the performance of the application and its underlying infrastructure, using data and analytics to improve the platform and fight fraud, building in support for many multi-factor authentication options including Webauthn and PIV/CAC, providing the best possible identity verification experience, and generally improving the overall user experience.

The Login.gov team operates like a startup within the government, working in the open as a distributed, agile team. The core product is open source, hosted in modern cloud infrastructure, and built for scale. Tens of millions of people have Login.gov accounts, and we aim to be the preferred entrypoint for all government digital services. Our users today include people accessing benefits, applying for government jobs, serving in the military, and collecting funds awarded through grant programs.

As part of the Login.gov engineering team, you will play a key role in making government services more secure and accessible to the public.

Key Objectives

Objective #1: Write high-quality, well-tested, maintainable code for the Login.gov Ruby on Rails app and its peripheral applications using best practices for modern software development:

• Work to develop new features and functionality within the application
• Build tests for contributed code and assure appropriate test coverage using both unit and feature tests
• Collaborate with other developers in a codebase under active development
• Identify issues and bugs within the application and modify the code to fix them
• Write code that is readable and conforms to the Login.gov team standards for neatness and style
• Build and own functionality from development through production operations
• Be available to respond to production issues when necessary

Objective #2: Be an effective collaborator on a distributed, agile team:

• Thrive in a collaborative, cross-functional team building the product iteratively
• Peer review code submitted by team members in a fair and respectful manner
• Have your own code peer reviewed by team members
• Be a part of regular retrospectives and provide feedback to help improve the way the team works

Objective #3: Participate in decision-making that leads to a platform with the right balance of security and usability for end-users and integrating partners:

• Provide perspective and expertise to help make product decisions
• Contribute to building the product roadmap
• Develop creative approaches to solve difficult problems with many constraints and competing interests
• Interact with agency partners & lead partner engagements
• Prioritize available work and direct effort towards the highest value goals

Basic Information

Location: Washington, DC; San Francisco, CA; Chicago, IL; New York, NY; Virtual (100% remote)

Salary Range: Base salary GS-15 - $106,595 to $138,572

If you are a new federal employee, your starting salary will likely be set at the Step 1 of the grade for which you are selected. Total compensation may include locality pay based on the individual’s duty location. For more salary information including locality pay details, please visit OPM’s Salaries & Wages page.

Who May Apply: All United States citizens and nationals (residents of American Samoa and Swains Islands) and applicants must not be GSA employees or contractors

Job announcement number: tbd

Opening and closing period for this job application: tbd EDT to tbd EDT

Job Title: Innovation Specialist

Series & Grade: 0301 - 15

Promotion Potential: GS-15

Number of vacancies: 1 (Additional vacancies may be filled from this announcement as needed)

Supervisory status: No

Travel requirement: Occasional travel may be required up to 10%-20% per year

Security clearance: Public trust. Background investigation required.

Work Schedule: Full time

Appointment Type: Excepted Service: Not to exceed 24 months (2 years); may be extended for an additional 2 years for a maximum of 4 years total.

Job Summary

This is a Schedule A position under 5 CFR 213.3102(r) to hire unique technical skills to develop innovative digital tools and services in the Excepted Services, US Digital Service 18F Fellowship Program. The 18F office is charged with developing innovative digital tools and services and uses lean startup and agile development principles to collaborate with other agencies to fix technical problems, build products, and improve how government serves the public through technology.

As an Innovation Specialist, the team member serves the government and makes an impact on a massive scale. The position requires that fellows perform work of an exceptional degree of difficulty across a wide range of topics at the convergence of technology, policy, and delivery. The incumbent leverages their experience deploying high quality, user centric platforms and services to lead major initiatives, consult on systems and policy proposal, and provide technical, policy, and programmatic guidance to government.

This position is located within the General Services Administration (GSA), Federal Acquisition Service (FAS), Technology Transformation Service (TTS), Office of 18F.

GSA has been repeatedly named as one of the ‘Best Places to Work’ in the federal government. You will have access to many benefits including:

• Health insurance (choose from a wide range of plans)
• Life insurance coverage with several options
• Sick leave and vacation time, including 10 paid holidays per year
• Thrift Savings Plan (similar to a 401(k) plan)
• Flexible work schedules and telework
• Transit and child care subsidies
• Training and development
• Flexible spending accounts
• Long-term care insurance
• Training and development

Key Requirements

1. You must be a U.S. Citizen or National (residents of American Samoa and Swains Islands)
2. Suitable for federal employment, determined by a background investigation
3. You may be required to serve a trial period
4. Direct Deposit of salary check to financial organization required
5. Register with Selective Service, if you are required by https://www.sss.gov/Registration-Info/Who-Registration

Employment Requirements

• Serve a one year trial period, if required
• Undergo and pass a background investigation. You must be granted this clearance before you can start the job
• Have your identity and work status eligibility verified if you are not a GSA employee. We will use the Department of Homeland Security’s e-Verify system for this
• Any discrepancies must be resolved as a condition of continued employment
• Complete a financial disclosure report to verify that no conflict, or an appearance of conflict, exists between your financial interest and this position

Duties

Typical duties for the fellow include but are not limited to: Conceiving/recommending projects/studies to advance the state of the art in the specialty area; applying forward­ thinking design and development principles to product or services development, delivery and program management, such as lean startup, user­centered design, and agile development; Analyzing and scoping the technical and policy requirements needed to implement complex digital solutions; Assessing the state of digital services provided by the Federal Government, and working to align strategies and practice; conferring with key government/private officials and top experts in the field, representing the agency at technical symposia and/or conferences; Developing authoritative papers/reports; developing and leading adoption of government­wide standards for digital services, leading to their adoption across citizen and business­facing government services; Demonstrating thought leadership and contributing best practices in a variety of technologies and principles; Contributing to a talent strategy that includes recruiting innovators and entrepreneurs to participate in solving complex and esoteric challenges.

Evaluation

We will use a method called Category Rating to assess your application.

Here’s how it will work:

You will be scored based on a review of your application materials, measuring your possession of each of the following competencies

• Maintainable Software Development: Knowledge and ability to develop software in a repeatable and documentable way, with emphasis on automation, testing, measuring, and scaling infrastructure
• Modern Technology and Practices: The ability to understand and apply modern technology and software development principles and practices
• Agile Orientation: Ability to apply agile and open source philosophies to deliver work in a frequent and iterative fashion to address user needs
• Communication: Ability to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences, particularly managing the relationship between leadership and an engineering team, to establish a shared vision and understanding of a project’s technical implementation, objectives and goals.
• TTS Core Values Alignment: Working with integrity, transparency and resiliency in civic minded or high impact environment If found to be eligible and at least minimally qualified for the position, your score will be used to place you in a category (Best Qualified, Well Qualified, or Qualified).

If your resume does not support your possession of the competencies listed above, we may lower your score, which could place you in a lower category.

Within each category, veterans will receive selection priority over non-veterans if supported by appropriate documentation.

Qualifications

All applications will be reviewed by a panel of subject matter experts against a scoring rubric created for this role. In order to properly be able to evaluate your previous experience, we recommend being as detailed as possible in your resume and following our general guidance on creating federal style resume.

To qualify for this role, you must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to the GS-14 in the Federal service. Specialized experience is:

1. Experience building a critical software application for a large organization. This experience must include ONE of the following:
   • Delivering public-facing products or features on public-facing products with a large number of users (i.e. 100,000+)
   • Delivering tools or products with high uptime or availability requirements (i.e. SLAs of 99.9%+)
   • Developing applications that manage sensitive personal data within highly regulated industries
2. Experience iteratively developing server side web applications using test-driven development. This experience must include ALL of the following:
   • Ruby on rails development
   • Using iterative software development methodologies
   • Developing digital applications using test-driven development or software testing tools
3. Experience providing technical leadership to a team developing and delivering digital products or services. This experience must include ALL of the following:
   • Leading teams through the adoption of new tools, technologies or methodologies
   • Mentoring, coaching, or training clients, partners, or team members.

Qualification determinations cannot be made when resumes do not include the required information, so failure to provide this information may result in disqualification.

For each job on your resume, provide:

• the exact dates you held each job (from month/year to month/year or “present”)
• number of hours per week you worked (if part time)