IT Program Manager
What you'd do
The position is in Office of Information and Technology (OIT), Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The incumbent serves as senior Operations Manager (OM) providing oversight for Information Technology (IT) products within the Department. The primary purpose of the position is to manage the day-to-day operational support of products including operations processes, planning, design, and operations strategy.
Major duties
OIT Mission: The mission of the Office of Information and Technology (OIT) is to collaborate with our business partners to create the best experience for all Veterans. OIT Vision: To become a world-class organization that provides a seamless, unified Veteran experience through the delivery of state-of-the-art technology. Major Duties: Manages the sustainment budget ensuring continual funding for all areas of product sustainment and coordinates with IT Resource Management (ITRM) and IT Service Management (ITSM) ensuring budget sustainment for out years; ensures upgrades are planned and performed; ensures hardware refreshes and handles disaster procedures by determining when to declare a disaster and invoking disaster procedures. The OM duties encompass but are not limited to: coordination of product sustainment efforts, comprehensive knowledge of the product suite and functionality, coordination of all entities involved in product sustainment, contract management for hardware, software, maintenance, etc; ensures Contracting Officer Representatives are assigned, timely approval of invoices, and service level agreements (SLA) are met. Responsible for: driving down technical debt; injecting new requirements to drive down sustainment costs; preventative work to reduce production support issues; being responsive to production support issues and being efficient at resolving them. Validate product roadmaps and assist with the creation of visualization strategies. Provides input to enterprise technical strategy and makes recommendations for new tools, technologies, and platforms to be included. Maintains Technical Architecture Standards for enterprise-wide implementation. Organizes and leads acquisition activities working with the TAC, Business Services, technical teams, and Business Owners. Incumbent serves as Certified Contracting Officer's Representative (COR) or Program Manager for a Contract. Duties include but are not limited to developing Statements of Work (SOW), understanding of contract clauses based on laws; policy, and procedures contained in Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR), and other directives. Interfaces with product managers and stakeholders to determine whether additional enterprise requirements (e.g., security, privacy, Section 508, Enterprise Architecture [EA]. etc.) are applicable to various projects. Performs Risk Management for the assigned application(s) / product portfolio. Identify risks and execute mitigation strategies. Creates and maintains documentation on interfaces and critical device technology to include configuration standards, as-built diagrams, and historical and trending information. Work Schedule: Monday-Friday, 8:00am-4:30pm Compressed/Flexible: Not authorized Telework: Adhoc telework may be authorized at management discretion Virtual: This is not a virtual position Position Description/PD#: IT Program Manager/PD 19401A Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized Physical Demands: The work may require some physical effort, such as standing, walking, bending, or sitting. The work often requires long hours to meet project deadlines and to devise corrective action and solutions to unexpected technical and/or management crises resulting in sometimes highly stressful work situations. The work requires almost constant use of a video display terminal. Working Conditions: The work area is adequately lighted, heated and ventilated. The work environment involves everyday risk or discomforts that require normal safety precautions. Designated Drug Testing Position: Not applicable This is a non-bargaining unit eligible position.
What you need to qualify
To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 07/14/2026. You must meet the Basic Requirements Experience, Specialized Experience and Selective Placement Factors to qualify for this series as described below: Basic Requirements Experience: Experience must be IT related; the experience may be demonstrated by paid or unpaid experience and/or completion of specific, intensive training (for example, IT certification), as appropriate. For all positions individuals must have IT-related experience demonstrating each of the five competencies listed below. The employing agency is responsible for identifying the specific level of proficiency required for each competency at each grade level based on the requirements of the position being filled. 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 Selective Placement Factor: In addition to the minimum qualifications described above, you must meet the following requirement(s) to be considered qualified for the position: the applicant has served as the senior technical authority for a high availability, enterprise cloud platform (AWS or Azure) delivering Java microservices or a complex custom data platform, with direct ownership of: incident response, observability tooling, and production change control for critical enterprise systems. AND Specialized Experience: 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. To be creditable, you must possess a minimum of one (1) year of experience equivalent to at least the GS-13 level. Specialized experience for this position is defined as: experience managing day to day operations for enterprise IT products/platforms in a cloud environment (AWS and/or Azure). Experience must include: operations leadership and incident response for complex, custom enterprise applications with critical interfaces to multiple systems, including serving as technical lead during major incidents; leading/coordinating issue remediation; observability and full stack monitoring (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, PagerDuty or equivalent) and ChatOps practices for real time triage and on call coordination; application security posture management including responding to vulnerability scans, coordinating patching, and change control; cloud engineering fluency, system modernization planning, performance diagnosis, and communicating system level architecture to technical staff and management; product sustainment management including budgeting, upgrade planning, lifecycle operations, disaster procedures, and cross functional coordination. 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; religions; 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/.
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