IT SPECIALIST (DATAMGT)

Duties

This IT SPECIALIST (DATAMGT) position is located Data Engineering branch, Transportation Security Administration, Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Duties include but are not limited to:

• Drives innovations, efficiencies, and new capabilities into Secure Flight and other Transportation Security Administration (TSA) vetting, credentialing and risk assessment systems, and leverages technical and domain expertise to identify and solve complex problems. Conveys answers to questions requiring a comprehensive and sophisticated understanding of relevant security information and data sets, serves as a subject matter expert (SME), and acts as principle technical specialist or as project manager or team leader for large work activities.
• Provides advice, critical insight, and delivers support to system users, developers, and other stakeholders regarding the technical and operational impacts of proposed system and process changes. Develops and facilitates data-gathering methods, strategic insights from large data sets, presents technical information to technical and nontechnical audiences, and applies experience and comprehensive technical knowledge including an understanding of new technologies and methodologies to solve complex problems and develop improved technical processes or systems.
• Supports operations to ensure, protect, and restore IT systems, services, and capabilities; assists with conducting system security vulnerability assessments; and provides guidance to lower-level staff on difficult technical issues. Assists in monitoring, evaluating, and ensuring data and system compliance with IT security requirements. Performs data analysis and supports data-processing workflows using SQL, Python, R, Java, Scala, or similar languages with industry-leading relational database management systems, such as Oracle, MSSQL, or DB2, and cloud platforms, such as AWS or Azure.
• Develops and administers data standards, policies, and procedures, and performs code reviews to ensure industry standards and best practices are met. Performs technical reviews of standard operating procedures (SOPs) and knowledge base articles before they are introduced into the production environment.
• Examines data from multiple disparate sources with the goal of providing security and privacy insight. Designs and implements custom algorithms, workflow processes, and layouts for complex, enterprise-scale data sets used for modeling, data mining, and research purposes.

Note: The duties are listed at the full performance level of SV-J band.

Requirements

Conditions of employment

1. You must possess U.S. Citizenship or be a U.S. National.
2. You must have reached the minimum age (18) at the time of application.
3. You must complete a favorable Background Investigation (BI).
4. Selective Service registration is required.
5. Must obtain and maintain a Secret Clearance.
6. Financial Disclosure requirement position.

If you fail to meet the conditions of employment or any other pre-employment requirements, such as missing any of the scheduled appointments, the hiring agency may rescind their tentative offer of employment.

Applying to this announcement certifies that you give permission for TSA to share your application with others in DHS for similar positions.

Any offers of employment made pursuant to this announcement will be consistent with all applicable authorities, including Presidential Memoranda, Executive Orders, interpretive U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) guidance, and Office of Management and Budget plans and policies concerning hiring. These authorities are subject to change.

Qualifications

FOR ALL IT POSITIONS: To qualify, you must have IT-related experience demonstrating each of the four competencies listed below.

1. Attention to Detail - Is thorough when performing work and conscientious about attending to detail.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. Problem Solving - Identifies problems; determines accuracy and relevance of information; uses sound judgment to generate and evaluate alternatives, and to make recommendations.
5. Technical Competence - Uses knowledge that is acquired through formal training or on-the-job experience to perform one's job; works with, understands, and evaluates technical information related to the job; advises others on technical issues.
6. Information Management - Identifies a need for and knows where or how to gather information; organizes and maintains information or information management systems.

In addition to the minimum qualifications described above, you must meet the following requirement(s) to be considered qualified for the position:

To qualify for the SV-I band (equivalent to GS-13), you must have one year of specialized experience at the SV-H band or GS-12 in the Federal service or equivalent experience in the private sector. Specialized experience is defined as experience that has equipped you with the knowledge, skills and abilities to successfully perform the duties of the position. Specialized experience is defined as:

• Experience utilizing Agile methods (i.e., SAFe or Scrum) to support complex data-management, analytics, and application-development environments. Applies data mining, data-warehousing, data-storage, exploratory data-analysis, and statistical methods to assess customer requirements; gather and validate data; develop custom tools, scripts, and queries using SQL, Python, R, Java, Scala, or similar languages; optimize data-processing performance; and aggregate, categorize, summarize, and present data for operational and management use.
• Experience investigating application issues, system outages, web-service problems, and data anomalies by applying structured problem-solving, statistical analysis, and root-cause-analysis techniques to make recommendations for improvement.
• Experience troubleshooting and optimizing SQL queries and data-processing code written in Python, R, Java, Scala, or similar languages; reviewing execution or optimization plans; debugging stored procedures and scripts; and analyzing database tables, indexes, and data structures in on-premises or AWS/Azure cloud environments.

To qualify for the SV-J band (equivalent to GS-14), you must have one year of specialized experience at the SV-I band or GS-13 in the Federal service or equivalent experience in the private sector. Specialized experience is defined as experience that has equipped you with the knowledge, skills and abilities to successfully perform the duties of the position. Specialized experience is defined as:

• Experience serving as a technical advisor for complex data-management, analytics, database, application-development, and data-science activities. This includes using SQL, Python, R, Java, Scala, or similar languages and applying data mining, data warehousing, exploratory analysis, predictive modeling, and statistical methods to define requirements, develop technical approaches, optimize data processes, resolve complex system issues, and deliver reliable operational reporting and decision-support capabilities across on-premises or AWS/Azure cloud environments.
• Experience leading or providing technical guidance on the development and enhancement of complex reports, dashboards, and data visualizations.
• Experience applying cybersecurity, vulnerability-management, and configuration-management requirements throughout the system lifecycle; assessing system security requirements and impacts; reviewed vulnerability assessment results from tools such as Nessus, AppScan, Burp, or similar tools.
• Experience creating reports and dashboards by gathering requirements, identifying business rules and reporting criteria to deliver data visualizations and written products to management and stakeholders.

Credit for experience is given based on a 40-hour workweek. Part-time experience is credited on a part-time ratio, i.e., working 20 hours per week for two months equals one month of experience. No additional credit is given for overtime.

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.

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.

You must meet the qualification requirements for this position no later than the closing date of the vacancy announcement.

Additional information

Eligibility to apply for other Federal positions: TSA is an Excepted Service agency exempt from most of Title 5 United States Code, including regulations which apply to displaced Federal employees (CTAP/ICTAP) of other agencies, and employment with TSA does not confer "Competitive Status" that generally results from selection and service in Competitive Service agencies. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has established an Interchange Agreement, which allows most permanent TSA employees to apply and be considered for vacancies in Competitive Service agencies. Information from OPM on this or other Interchange Agreements is available at: www.opm.gov/

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 as a condition of placement into this position.

DHS uses E-Verify, an Internet-based system, to confirm the eligibility of all newly hired employees to work in the United States. Learn more about E-Verify , including your rights and responsibilities.

If you receive a conditional offer of employment for this position, you will be required to complete an Optional Form 306, Declaration for Federal Employment , and to sign and certify the accuracy of all information in your application, prior to entry on duty. False statements on any part of the application may result in withdrawal of offer of employment, dismissal after beginning work, fine, or imprisonment.

TSA employees who are absent for the purpose of performing military duty may apply for any vacancies announced in their absence.

More than one position may be filled from this announcement.

If you are entering TSA employment on an appointment without time limitations, you must serve a basic trial period unless you have already met the requirement.

Reasonable Accommodation (RA) Requests: If you believe you have a disability (i.e., physical or mental), covered by the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as amended that would interfere with completing the USA Hire Competency Based Assessments, you will be granted the opportunity to request a RA in your online application. Requests for RA for the USA Hire Competency Based Assessments and appropriate supporting documentation for RA must be received prior to starting the USA Hire Competency Based Assessments. Decisions on requests for RA are made on a case-by-case basis. If you meet the minimum qualifications of the position, after notification of the adjudication of your request, you will receive an email invitation to complete the USA Hire Competency Based Assessments, based on your adjudication decision. You must complete all assessments within 48 hours of receiving the URL to access the USA Hire Competency Based Assessments if you received the link after the close of the announcement. To determine if you need a RA, please review the Procedures for Requesting a Reasonable Accommodation for Online Assessments . ( https://appsupport.usastaffing.gov/hc/en-us/sections/28980686389652-Reasonable-Accommodation-Information )

Client-provided location(s): Annapolis Junction, MD

Job ID: TSA-888749000

Employment Type: FULL_TIME

Posted: 2026-10-15T20:55:40