Computer Scientist
Responsibilities
The Chief Information Officer (CIO) is the principal advisor to the Under Secretary and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on the application of information technology (IT) to support and improve the Agency’s business processes. The Office of Organizational Policy and Governance (OPG) provides the management and oversight of enterprise Information Technology (IT) strategies, guidance, policies, and agency-wide cybersecurity. This position is located in Software Quality Assurance Division that is responsible for monitoring and executing software development testing standards for OCIO’s coding, source code control, code reviews, testing, release management, and product integration within an established software development life cycle. The Process Performance and Planning Division is responsible for the establishment of Information Technology (IT) policies and standards, improvement of IT processes, measurement of OCIO performance, strategic IT planning; and provides other services including management of data calls.
As a computer scientist you will be responsible for the following duties:
- Conducting analyses to determine the feasibility of various advanced scientific approaches to evaluate application system performance.
- Conducting research on the feasibility of developing new products and/or theories pertaining to application performance analyses.
- Coordinating and providing technical software/hardware program guidance and direct technical support to the employees.
- Engaging in the development of system /subsystems to ensure application performance, reliability, integrity and compatibility with other support activities.
- Applying the principles, methods and techniques of software engineering to support the analysis, design and development of mission critical software applications.
- Determining adequacy of software, computer, infrastructure, and product/system design and capabilities.
- Designing, and writing code for performance testing programs to determine application and infrastructure viability with targeted application performance goals.
Requirements
Conditions of Employment
You must be a U.S. Citizen or National.
You must meet the definition of specialized experience.
Required to pass a background investigation and fingerprint check.
Must be registered for Selective Service, if applicable (www.sss.gov)
Suitable for Federal employment.
Your resume and question responses must demonstrate the job-related KSAs.
Qualifications
You must meet the following United States Office of Personnel Management's (OPM) qualification requirements for the advertised position. OPM's prescribed Group Coverage Qualification Standard for Professional and Scientific Series standard can be found at Qualification Standard. You must meet all qualification requirements by the closing date of the job announcement.
Specialized Experience: is experience that has equipped you with the particular knowledge, skills and abilities to perform successfully the duties of the position, and that is typically in or related to the position to be filled. To be creditable, specialized experience must have been equivalent to at least the next lower grade level in the federal service.
Candidates for the GS-13 grade level must have at least 52 weeks of specialized experience equivalent to the GS-12 grade level in the Federal service.
Specialized experience for this position includes: In order to be qualified for this position you must meet all the below skills:
Skill Set 1 –Developing code to conduct application performance testing.
Skill Set 2 – Conducting statistical analyses to determine that the product being tested meets performance SLA’s and reliability of the system during performance test engagements.
Skill Set 3 –Conducting analyses of failures in the application being performance tested. (This may include data from logs, system metrics, and application metrics, performance anomalies, failures and accompanying analysis logged as performance defects).
AND
Bachelor's degree in computer science or bachelor's degree with 30 semester hours in a combination of mathematics, statistics, and computer science. At least 15 of the 30 semester hours must have included any combination of statistics and mathematics that included differential and integral calculus.
TRANSCRIPTS MUST BE PROVIDED TO VERIFY POSITIVE EDUCATION REQUIREMENT. FOREIGN TRANSCRIPTS REQUIRE AN EVALUATION AS INDICATED IN THE EDUCATION SECTION OF THIS ANNOUNCEMENT.
Special Instructions for Foreign Education: Qualifying education from colleges and universities in foreign countries must be evaluated in terms of equivalency to that acquired in U.S. colleges and universities. Applicants educated in whole or in part in foreign countries must submit sufficient evidence, including transcripts, to an accredited private organization for an equivalency evaluation of course work and degree. A listing of these accredited organizations can be found on the Department of Education's website – US Department of Education. Another listing of services that can perform this evaluation is available at the National Association of Credential Evaluation Services (NACES) website. You must provide a copy of the letter containing the results of the equivalency evaluation with a course by course listing along with your application. Failure to provide such documentation when requested will result in lost consideration.
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
PLEASE SEE THE EDUCATION REQUIREMENTS LISTED IN THE QUALIFICATION SECTION
There is no educational substitution at this grade level.
Special Instructions for Foreign Education: Qualifying education from colleges and universities in foreign countries must be evaluated in terms of equivalency to that acquired in U.S. colleges and universities. Applicants educated in whole or in part in foreign countries must submit sufficient evidence, including transcripts, to an accredited private organization for an equivalency evaluation of course work and degree. A listing of these accredited organizations can be found on the Department of Education's website - US Department of Education. Another listing of services that an perform this evaluation is available at the National Association of Credential Evaluation Services (NACES). You must provide a copy of the letter containing the results of the equivalency evaluation with a course by course listing along with your application. Failure to provide such documentation when requested will result in lost consideration.
NOTE: Only education and experience acquired before the filing deadline will be considered. Report only attendance and/or degrees from schools accredited by accrediting institutions recognized by the U.S. Department of Education.
Additional information
Applicants applying for this position must be a United States Citizen.