Information Technology Specialist (APPSW)

About the role

WHAT IS INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY? A description of the business units can be found at: https://www.jobs.irs.gov/about/who/business-divisions Position(s) are to be filled in following area(s): IT - Filing Season and Legislative Delivery - Filing Season and Legislative Delivery REVIEW THE ADDITIONAL INFORMATION BELOW FOR FURTHER DETAILS

What you'll do

The following are the duties of this position at the full working level. If this vacancy includes more than one grade and you are selected at a lower grade level, you will have the opportunity to learn to perform these duties and receive training to help you grow in this position. Design, develop, test, deploy, and maintain secure and scalable applications using modern engineering practices across one or more delivery domains. Analyze and refactor codebases to derive undocumented requirements, modernize architecture, and align systems with current frameworks, accessibility and security standards. Deliver cross-layer functionality, spanning user interfaces, Application Programming Interface (API) services, backend workflows, and cloud-based infrastructure. Implement advanced logging, monitoring, and observability strategies to ensure high availability, traceability, and diagnosability. Conduct performance testing and recommend architectural or infrastructure improvements based on system profiling and metrics. Leverage artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted development tools and prompt-engineering techniques to streamline delivery processes, enhance code quality, and automate documentation and defect detection.

Qualifications

Federal experience is not required. Experience may have been gained in the public sector, private sector or through Volunteer Service. One year of experience refers to full-time work; part-timework is considered on a prorated basis. To ensure full credit for your work experience, please indicate dates of employment by month/day/year, and indicate number of hours worked per week, on your resume. You must meet the following requirements by the closing date of this announcement. QUALIFICATION REQUIRMENTS: To qualify for this position, you must meet the qualification requirements outlined below: MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS FOR GRADE 12 LEVEL UP (GS or Equivalent) You must have Information Technology related experience demonstrating each of the following nine competencies: 1) Attention to Detail, 2) Customer Service, 3) Decision Making, 4) Information Management, 5) Interpersonal Skills, 6) Oral Communication, 7) Problem Solving, 8) Team Work and 9) Technical Competence. GS-14 SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE: You must have one year of specialized experience at a level of difficulty and responsibility equivalent to the GS-13 grade level in Federal service. Specialized experience for this position includes: Leading or coordinating IT projects, application-related efforts, operational initiatives, or system-related activities that affect multiple users, teams, programs, or business processes. Applying advanced IT principles, concepts, methods, and practices to evaluate requirements; resolve technical issues; guide system, application, or code testing and configuration decisions; and ensure technical documentation and federal cybersecurity, privacy, or regulatory requirements are addressed. Engaging customers, stakeholders, users, product or business owners, and technical teams to define business or technical requirements, communicate technical impacts, and guide delivery of secure, reliable, scalable IT solutions. Evaluating system, service, or application performance, availability, reliability, security controls, usability, and operational effectiveness; identifying risks, issues, defects, or gaps; and leading corrective actions or improvement efforts. Analyzing competing technical approaches and providing authoritative recommendations to management, stakeholders, or IT specialists on the selection, design, configuration, implementation, or improvement of IT solutions with organizational impact. Applying secure software development across full-stack architectures and cloud-native platforms and designing performant, scalable, and observable systems. Applying CI/CD, infrastructure-as-code, automated testing (including performance), and modern deployment pipelines leveraging AI-enhanced tools to improve development velocity, automated documentation, and increase overall engineering productivity. Applying architectural trade-offs and skill to select appropriate patterns aligned to IT strategy. Creating technical documentation such as Computer Operator Handbooks, system flow diagrams and System Design Documents. AND You must also meet the following requirement(s): PERFORMANCE RATING: Current federal employees must have at least a fully successful or equivalent performance rating to receive consideration. TIME AFTER COMPETITIVE APPOINTMENT (TACA): By the closing date (or if this is an open continuous announcement, by the cut-off date) specified in this job announcement, current civilian employees must have completed at least 90 days of federal civilian service sinc

Requirements

Probationary Period - All newly appointed employees to the competitive (or excepted) service are subject to a probationary (or trial) period. During this time, your performance, conduct, and suitability for continued employment will be evaluated. You will not automatically convert to permanent status at the end of the probationary (or trial) period. Your supervisor must affirmatively determine that continued employment is in the best interest of the Federal service. If no certification is made before the probationary (or trial) period ends, your appointment will be terminated. You are encouraged to actively engage with your supervisor, seek feedback, and understand role expectations. Additional guidance and support will be provided during onboarding. Probationary Period - A person who is required to go through a probationary period and then is transferred, promoted, demoted, or reassigned before he or she completes such period is required to complete the remainder of the probationary period in the new position. Government Credit Card - Obtain and use a Government-issued charge card for business-related travel. Key Eligibility Requirements: U.S Citizenship - Must be a U.S. Citizen or National and provide proof of U.S. Citizenship. Selective Service Registration - Males born after December 31, 1959 are required to be registered with the Selective Service System or prove they are exempt from having to do so. Personal Identity Verification (PIV) - Must provide 2 forms of identification from the Form I-9. Federal law requires verification of the identity and employment eligibility of all new hires in the U.S. These documents must be unexpired original or certified copies. ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS SHOWN IN QUALIFICATIONS OR ADDTIONAL INFORMATION SECTIONS

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