Contract Specialist

Summary

This vacancy is for a GS-1102-14, Contract Specialist located in the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Coast Guard, C5I in ALEXANDRIA, Virginia.

Duties

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The incumbent serves as a senior advisor, consultant and liaison to top management officials, policy makers, and non-governmental organizations and institutions on challenging, new developments in contracting/ procurement initiatives which are Coast Guard-wide. As a leading expert in the field of acquisition, the incumbent plans, manages and oversees the USCG's C5I Program Executive Officer's (PEO) most important contracting programs; evaluates critical and complex proposals; and administers, through contract close-out or termination, many interdependent contracts.

Being a Coast Guard civilian makes you a valuable member of the Coast Guard team. Typical work assignments include:

• Performs cradle-to-grave contract oversight for complex, high-dollar value solicitations and contractual actions; serves as Contracting Officer with signatory authority up to an unlimited warrant.
• Exercises significant responsibilities in advising management officials of higher rank on contracting issues, ensuring standards are maintained and equity in contractor assessments
• Build collaborative cross-boundary and cross-functional partnerships with a focus on fostering a culture of collaboration, knowledge sharing, and innovation.
• Serve as a senior business advisor, consultant, and liaison to top management officials, policy makers, and non-governmental organizations and instructions on challenging, new developments in contracting/procurement initiatives.
• Communicate and articulate timely and effectively, at the appropriate levels, issues, concerns, and potential impacts of high visibility actions requiring senior and executive leadership knowledge, engagement, and/or insight.
• Represents the organization at functional and administrative meetings and conferences; establishes and maintains effective working relationships with internal stakeholders, senior officials, and external representatives of government agencies and private industry.
• Act as the chairperson or as a participant on formal Source Solution Evaluation Board (SSEB) for competitively negotiated procurements subject to relevant Federal Action Regulations Parts.
• Possess active knowledge, understanding, and proactive learning of the Revolutionary Federal Acquisition Regulation Overhaul (RFO) and the associated supplemental regulation, policy, procedures, and guidance.
• Conduct in-depth compliance and evaluation of complex, unusual, or unprecedented contract activities with awareness and consideration of potential political implications.
• Maintain complete authority for all contractual actions and phases; using automated systems to research sources; collecting data on contractors' past performance and documenting contractors' performance on current contracts; prepare solicitation instructions, and direct the efforts of technical, cost, and business management evaluation teams.

Mandatory training is required which must be successfully completed and other training may occur as necessary for success in the position.

The incumbent must be able to obtain and maintain an unlimited contracting officer's warrant.

A. Federal Acquisition Certification for Program and Project Managers Level I (FAC P/PM-I) or management determined equivalent within two years of entry into the position.

Requirements

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Conditions of employment

All qualification requirements must be met by the closing date of the announcement.

Do NOT include the following types of information in your resume:

• Social Security Number (SSN)
• Date of Birth (DOB)
• Photos of yourself (if included on your resume you will not be considered for this position)
• Personal information: such as age, gender, religious affiliation, etc.

Key Requirements:

• Must be a U.S. Citizen.
• Must be registered or exempt from the Selective Service. See www.sss.gov
• A one-year probationary period may be required.
• To ensure the accomplishment of our mission, DHS requires every employee to be reliable and trustworthy. To meet those standards, all selected applicants must undergo and successfully pass a background investigation.
• All Federal employees are required to have Federal salary payments made by direct deposit.

The Office of Personnel management (OPM) must authorize employment offers made to current or former political appointees. If you are currently, or have been within the last 5 years, a political Schedule A, Schedule, C, Non-career SES or Presidential Appointee employee in the Executive Branch, you must disclose this information to the Human Resources Office.

Qualifications

Basic Requirements: This position has a positive Education Requirement in addition to at least one year of Specialized Experience or substitution of education for experience or combination (if applicable) in order to be found minimally qualified. Transcripts must be submitted with your application package. You MUST meet the following requirements:

EDUCATION:

Basic Requirements for GS-13 and Above

1. Completion of all mandatory training prescribed by the head of the agency for progression to GS-13 or higher-level contracting positions, including at least 4-years' experience in contracting or related positions. At least 1 year of that experience must have been specialized experience at or equivalent to work at the next lower level of the position, and must have provided the knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform successfully the work of the position.
   and
2. A 4-year course of study leading to a bachelor's degree, that included or was supplemented by at least 24 semester hours in any combination of the following fields: accounting, business, finance, law, contracts, purchasing, economics, industrial management, marketing, quantitative methods, or organization and management.
3. Exceptions: Employees in GS-1102 positions will be considered to have met the standard for positions they occupy on January 1, 2000. This also applies to positions at the same grade in the same agency or other agencies if the specialized experience requirements are met. However, they will have to meet the basic requirements and specialized experience requirements in order to qualify for promotion to a higher grade, unless granted a waiver under Paragraph D.
4. Waiver: When filling a specific vacant position, the senior procurement executive of the selecting agency, at his or her discretion, may waive any or all of the requirements of Paragraphs A and B above if the senior procurement executive certifies that the applicant possesses significant potential for advancement to levels of greater responsibility and authority, based on demonstrated analytical and decision making capabilities, job performance, and qualifying experience. With respect to each waiver granted under this Paragraph D, the senior procurement executive must document for the record the basis of the waiver. If an individual is placed in a position in an agency on the basis of a waiver, the agency may later reassign that individual to another position at the same grade within that agency without additional waiver action.

AND

To qualify at the GS-14 grade level, applicants must have at least one (1) full year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the GS-13 grade level in the federal or private sector. Specialized experience is experience that has equipped you with the particular ability, skill, and knowledge to successfully perform the duties of this position and is typically in or related to this line of work.

NOTE: All experience statements (i.e., duties, specialized experience, or occupational assessment questionnaire) copied from this announcement and pasted into your resume will not be considered as a demonstration of your qualifications for this position.

Specialized experience may include the following:

• Knowledge of contracting methods, types and principles, laws, statutes, Executive Orders, regulations and procedures applicable to pre-award and post-award actions.
• Knowledge of negotiations techniques to serve as the lead negotiator in developing pre-negotiations strategies, negotiation the acquisition of applicable service and system and directing or performing post-award negotiation involving contract changes or modifications.
• Experience in cost and price analysis techniques such as learning curve analysis and cost estimating relationships and cost accounting methods techniques.
• Knowledge in contracts to support the United States Coast Guard in all facets of IT.

Mandatory Specialized experience must include:

• GS-14 Contract Specialists are required to sit for a warrant board for an unlimited warrant authority.
• Maintaining FAC-C certification

NOTE: Education cannot be substituted for experience at this grade level.

National Service Experience (i.e., volunteer experience): 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.

Education

This position does have a positive education requirement. If you are including education on your resume, report only attendance and/or degrees from schools accredited by accrediting institutions recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. See Required Documents section for detail.

Are you qualifying based on education? Submit a copy of your college transcript (unofficial is acceptable) from an accredited institution. Once selected & prior to appointment, applicants must provide an official college transcript. Education completed in foreign colleges or universities may be used to meet Federal qualification requirements if you can show that your foreign education is comparable to education received in accredited educational institutions in the U.S. (see FOREIGN EDUCATION below).

College Transcript: If this position requires specific educational course work to qualify, or you are qualifying based in whole or part on education, you are required to provide all unofficial transcripts (undergraduate, graduate, etc.) by the closing date of this announcement or you will be disqualified from further consideration. Transcripts should be legible and detailed, showing course number and department (i.e., bio 101, math 210, etc.), course title, number of credit hours, and grade earned. If course content cannot be easily identified from the title of the course as listed on your transcript, you must submit an official course description from the college/university that reflects the content at the time the course was taken.

FOREIGN EDUCATION: Education completed in foreign colleges or universities may be used to meet Federal qualification requirements if you can show that your foreign education is comparable to education received in accredited educational institutions in the United States. It is your responsibility to provide such evidence with your application. See Recognition of Foreign Qualifications click here

Only experience and education obtained by the closing date of this announcement will be considered.

Additional information