Cloud.gov - Cloud Operations Site Reliability Engineer

TTS is hiring for GS-15 - Cloud Operations Site Reliability 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: Virtual (100% Remote); Washington, DC; New York, NY; San Francisco, CA; Chicago, IL

Salary Range: The base salary range for this position is: GS-15 Step 1 - $109,366 to GS-15 Step 10 $142,180

The base salary range does not include any adjustment for locality. Your locality will 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 2020 General Schedule (GS) Salary Calculator.

Please note the maximum salary available for the GS pay system is $170,800

Note: You may not be eligible for the maximum salary as it is locality dependent. Please refer to the maximum pay for your locality.

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:

Cloud Operations Site Reliability Engineer - GS-15

cloud.gov is looking for talented site reliability engineers to help us deliver better digital services to the public. As an engineer, you will be a builder, contributor, and a catalyst. With the support of the team, you will solve large complex problems while spreading user-centered, open, and transparent culture. Cloud.gov is an open source team, so most of what you work on will be open source.

Site reliability engineers on our team are:

• Comfortable working with cloud computing platforms and/or infrastructure
• Interested in building systems and processes that meet federal requirements in effective and modern ways, to help other teams in government meet requirements with less work
• Excited to tackle challenging problems in order to improve the lives of others

This role is perfect for you if you care deeply about building great public-facing digital products and services. You should be excited to apply your skills, share them with your colleagues, and learn from them in turn.

cloud.gov’s core programming languages are Go, Ruby, Python, Java, JavaScript, and POSIX shell in addition to YAML for configuration. You should have experience with at least two of those languages, and should be proficient in web development, relational databases, and using Unix-like operating systems. You should understand engineering best practices such as source control, automated testing, continuous integration and deployment, and peer review. The best candidates will have a background working on cross-functional, multidisciplinary teams that deliver digital products and services in an incremental, user-focused environment.

Key Objectives

Key objective #1: Operate Cloud Foundry, ensuring efficiency, reliability, and security

• Create processes and procedures that keep Cloud Foundry environments resilient, fault-tolerant, and consistent
• Work with internal and external groups to integrate, configure, manage, and support production systems, including monitoring platform and application uptime and maximizing platform reliability
• Work with the team in developing and maintaining robust problem handling, including responding to system alerts, troubleshooting system errors, and resolving incidents
• Ensure infrastructure is used efficiently

Key objective #2: Automate platform operations using modern software development techniques

• Deliver code that’s easy to deploy, update, and monitor by ensuring that the necessary tooling is present early in the project development cycle or by introducing tooling into an existing project, as needed
• Treat configuration as code: manage, design, deploy, and test platform operations
• Take an iterative approach to identifying and removing single points of failure
• Deploy software in a repeatable and documented way, reducing errors, tracking specifications, process, systems, and procedures
• Write and participate in code review, which can include Go, Ruby, Python, Java, JavaScript, POSIX shell, and YAML

Key objective #3: Practice an exceptional level of customer service, providing a unique, tailored experience.

• Be a credible technician in your area of expertise, deliver high-quality work, and accept responsibility for mistakes
• Participate in business development calls and work to identify and analyze problems in a constructive manner
• Act as primary point of contact, responding to questions as part of customer support rotation
• Explain the platform to people who have varying levels of technical knowledge, always meeting the customer where they are
• Integrate customer needs into the technical process, producing documentation and providing compliance support for auditors and FedRAMP technical reviewers

Key objective #4: Contribute to the culture and knowledge of the engineering team, practicing and enthusiastically sharing agile methodologies throughout all stages of the project lifecycle.

• Work within a distributed, multidisciplinary agile team by participating in constructive discussions, openly sharing knowledge, and demonstrating value for technical and non-technical contributions
• Support a safe, inclusive workplace and a positive team culture where all team members value diversity and individual differences
• Provide visibility into each project’s progress, communicate blockers and challenges, and ask for help when you need it
• Demonstrate a strong understanding of the elements of agile methodology (scrum, kanban, and so on)
• Practice human-centered design, user testing, feature prioritization, DevOps, and other relevant concepts

Key objective #5: In conjunction with team leadership, help establish and implement an organizational vision.

• Develop new insights into situations and question conventional approaches
• Develop, implement, and drive technical strategy in engineering-specific and organization-wide contexts
• Keep up-to-date on policies and trends that affect the organization and shape stakeholders’ views
• Adapt to change and quickly integrate new information
• Formulate and execute consistently against objectives and priorities
• Take a long-term view and build a shared vision with people across the Technology Transformation Services (TTS), GSA, and the U.S. government

Basic Information

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

Salary Range: Base salary GS-15 - $109,366 to $142,180

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 Service. The TTS 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 Solutions.

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: Communicate effectively with a variety of audiences, particularly in consulting scenarios, 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 grade level in the Federal service. Specialized experience is:

1. Experience being a part of a team to deliver digital products or services. This experience must include ALL of the following:
   • Providing technical support for clients
   • Using agile methodologies
   • Delivering tools or products with high uptime or availability requirements (i.e. SLAs of 99.9%+)
2. Experience providing technical expertise on projects or initiatives to deliver digital products or services. This experience must include ONE of the following:
   • Conducting technology evaluations
   • Making architectural decisions
   • Implementing new features
   • Reducing technical debt
3. Experience deploying, operating, maintaining, or running cloud infrastructure or platforms. This experience must include TWO OR MORE of the following:
   • Using a cloud computing platform
   • Using cloud computing infrastructure
   • Using continuous integration or continuous deployment tools
   • Using infrastructure automation tooling
   • Using infrastructure monitoring tooling

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)