This vacancy is for a Computer Scientist in the National Telecommunications and Information Administration within the Department of Commerce.
Qualification requirements in the vacancy announcements are based on the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Qualification Standards Handbook, which contains federal qualification standards. This handbook is available on the Office of Personnel Management's website located at: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-standards/#url=Occupational-Series Applicants must possess one year of specialized experience equivalent in difficulty and responsibility to the next lower grade level in the Federal Service. 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. This experience need not have been in the federal government. 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. This position is being filled under the Department of Commerce Alternative Personnel System (CAPS). Under CAPS, positions are classified by career path and pay band. The ZP-3 is equivalent to the GS-11/12 grade levels. To qualify at the ZP-3 level, applicants must meet the below: BASIC REQUIREMENT: A 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. All academic and course work must be from accredited or pre-accredited institutions. AND SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE: You must possess one full year (52 weeks) of specialized experience equivalent to the GS-9 or ZP-2 (or equivalent band) in the Federal service. Specialized experience is defined as: (1) Collaborating with development teams to establish requirements, develop code, and validate and verify software solutions, (2) Creating and improving software solutions products using two or more of the following programming languages: Python, R, MATLAB, Mathematica, Julia, C, C++, Fortran, Java, Scala, Kotlin, IDL, SAS, Stata, C#, Go (Golang), SQL, Bash, PowerShell, Perl, PHP, TCL, or Rust AND (3) Designing and implementing software solutions that incorporate mathematical algorithms and statistical models (e.g., algorithms, data modeling, data mining, forecasting, optimization, simulations, statistical analysis, numerical analysis, numerical methods, machine learning, signal processing, or image processing). -OR- SUBSTITUTION OF EDUCATION: 3 years of progressively higher-level graduate education leading to a Ph.D. degree or equivalent doctoral degree in computer science or field directly related to the position. -OR- A COMBINATION OF EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE: A combination of education and experience may be used to qualify for this position as long as the computed percentage of the requirements is at least 100%.
As a Computer Scientist, you will perform the following duties: Implement complex mathematical telecom and propagation modeling algorithms; and develop, validate, verify test and document software solutions. Participate in team-based projects that include software development, algorithm implementations, numerical analysis and research, and computer science methods and techniques. Research problems arising from the use of digital computers. Perform research and analysis to verify, validate, debug, troubleshoot, and test software implementations. Give oral presentations to explain project development efforts. Reports project results to both technical and non-technical audiences using tact and persuasion, responding appropriately to questions. Generate written reports to explain research developments of digital computer systems. Evaluate results and prepare report findings of new methods and techniques to store, manipulate, transform or present information by means of digital computer systems. This Job Opportunity Announcement may be used to fill other Computer Scientist ZP-1550-3, FPL-4 positions within the Department of Commerce in the same geographical location with the same qualifications and specialized experience. This position is also being advertised under the following vacancies - For Band 3: NTIA-ITS-ST-25-12786568; For Band 4: NTIA-ITS-DE-25-12786579; NTIA-ITA-ST-25-12786573; For Band 3/4: NTIA-ITS-DHA-25-12786575, depending on the area of consideration (Delegated Examining and Merit Promotion eligible applicants). You must apply individually to be considered under these announcements.