Supervisory Contract Specialist

Summary

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

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Duties

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You will serve as a Supervisory Contracting Officer managing a branch of Contracting Officers and Contract Specialists overseeing the cradle-to-grave contracting and procurement process, including but not limited to developing contracting strategies of various complexities with complete responsibility to plan and execute all contractual actions and phases as assigned. Being a Coast Guard civilian makes you a valuable member of the Coast Guard team. This position is responsible for the procurement of US Coast Guard's Enterprise IT and Cybersecurity requirements. Typical duties and work assignments include:

• Supervises contracting staff and oversees all contracting activities within the assigned area of responsibility, including pre-award and post-award phases for a variety of acquisition types primarily for services and supplies.
• Plans, directs, coordinates, and manages day-to-day operations of their branch, establishing workload priorities, formulating goals and long-range planning activities, and implementing policies and procedures.
• Assigns work to subordinates based on organizational priorities, assignment difficulty, and employee capabilities; sets and adjusts short-term priorities and monitors schedules for completion of work.
• Evaluates work performance of subordinates, provides direction, leadership, counseling, and guidance, and oversees staff training and development.
• Initiates and/or recommends personnel actions such as recruitment, promotion, awards, disciplinary actions, performance appraisals, and reassignment; ensures compliance with applicable laws, regulations, policies, and procedures.
• Provides advice and assistance to senior management on organizational planning, staff development, and management issues; compiles and drafts reports for higher-level review to include ensuring that data calls are addressed timely.
• Performs procurement 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, and making decisions on non-routine, costly, or controversial matters, including training needs and requests.
• Provides meaningful and timely performance reviews and evaluations of subordinate employees.
• May serve as lead Contracting Officer/Senior Contract Specialist for cradle-to-grave contracting and procurement activities, analyzing team members' workload, assigning/reassigning procurement actions based on priorities, skill levels, and individual abilities, articulating and communicating to team members the assignment, project, problem to be solved, actionable events, milestone expectations, and/or program issues under review, and deadlines/timeframes for completion.

• Serve as a coach and mentor, providing developmental guidance to staff as needed, engaging in activities that influence a mindset of continual learning and personal/professional development.

• 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 (SSSEB) 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.

Requirements

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Conditions of employment

• Perform proactive and collaborative procurement planning through program and stakeholder partnerships. Develop, execute, and oversee procurement objectives; coordinate contractual actions involving multiple complex, multi-million to billion dollar contracts and relevant schedules.
• Perform Contracting Officer and contract administration activities for significant, highly specialized procurements; administering the contract for a complete state-of-the-art system; and directing the full range of contract administration actions required of the system acquisition, including the issuance of contract modification, exercise of options, investigation and resolution of contractor related issues, concerns, and delays.

• Maintain the knowledge, skills, abilities and qualifications to obtain and retain Contracting Officer authority at the unlimited warrant level.

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

Federal Acquisition Certification in Contracting Professional (FAC-C) or DAWIA Level III equivalent is required for this position.

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
• 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 negotiation techniques to serve as the lead negotiator in developing pre-negotiation strategies, negotiation the acquisition of applicable supplies and services and directing or performing post-award negotiation involving contract changes or modifications.
• Experience in cost and price analysis techniques
• Ability to perform proactive and collaborative procurement planning through program and stakeholder partnerships. Develop, execute, and oversee procurement objectives; coordinate contractual actions involving multiple complex, multi-million to billion dollar contracts and relevant schedules.
• Ability to perform Contracting Officer and contract administration activities for significant, highly specialized procurements; administering the contract for a complete state-of-the-art system; and directing the full range of contract administration actions required of the system acquisition, including the issuance of contract modification, exercise of options, investigation and resolution of contractor related issues, concerns, and delays.
• Ability to maintain the knowledge, skills, abilities and qualifications to obtain and retain Contracting Officer authority at the unlimited warrant level.

Mandatory Specialized experience must include: GS-14 Supervisory Contract Specialists are required to sit for a warrant board for a limited and unlimited warrant authority unless the warrant board is waived by the Head of Contracting Activity.

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

E-Verify

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.

Fair Chance Act

The Fair Chance to Compete for Jobs Act prohibits the Department of Homeland Security and its Components from requesting an applicant's criminal history record before that individual receives a conditional offer of employment. In accordance with 5 U.S. Code § 9202(c) and 5 C.F.R § 920.201 certain positions are exempt from the provisions of the Fair Chance to Compete Act. Applicants who believe they have been subjected to a violation of the Fair Chance to Compete for Jobs Act, may submit a written complaint to View email address on click.appcast.io.

Suitability Statement

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.

Shared Certificates Statement

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

Special Employment Consideration

The Department of Homeland Security encourages persons with disabilities to apply, to include persons with intellectual, severe physical or psychiatric disabilities, as defined by 5 CFR 213.3102(u), and or Disabled Veterans with a compensable service-connected disability of 30 percent or more as defined by 5 CFR 315.707. Veterans, Peace Corps, VISTA volunteers, and persons with disabilities possess a wealth of unique talents, experiences, and competencies that can be invaluable to the DHS mission. If you are a member of one of these groups, you may not have to compete with the public for federal jobs. To determine your eligibility for non-competitive appointment and to understand the required documentation, click on the links above or contact the servicing Human Resources Office listed at the bottom of this announcement.

If you need a reasonable accommodation for the application and hiring process, please contact View email address on click.appcast.io. Decisions on granting reasonable accommodation will be made on a case-by-case basis. Visit Reasonable Accommodation

More than 1 selection may be made from this announcement if additional identical vacancies in the same title, series, grade, and unit occur within 45 days from the date the certificate was issued.

Candidates should be committed to improving the efficiency of the Federal government, passionate about the ideals of our American republic, and committed to upholding the rule of law and the United States Constitution.

Help

A career with the U.S. government provides employees with a comprehensive benefits package. As a federal employee, you and your family will have access to a range of benefits that are designed to make your federal career very rewarding. Opens in a new windowLearn more about federal benefits.

DHS offers competitive salaries and an attractive benefits package, including health, dental, vision, life, and long-term care insurance; retirement plan; Thrift Savings Plan [similar to a 401(k)]; Flexible Spending Account; Employee Assistance Program; personal leave days; and paid federal holidays.

Other benefits may include flexible work schedules; tuition reimbursement; transportation subsidies; uniform allowance; health and wellness programs; and fitness centers. DHS is committed to employee development and offers a variety of employee training and developmental opportunities. For more information, go to the DHS Careers website and select "Benefits." Disabled veteran leave will be available to any federal employee hired on or after November 5, 2016, who is a veteran with a service- connected disability rating of 30 percent or more.

Eligibility for benefits depends on the type of position you hold and whether your position is full-time, part-time or intermittent. Contact the hiring agency for more information on the specific benefits offered.