IT Specialist (Policy and Planning)

This IT Specialist (Policy and Planning) position is with Deputy Assistant Secretary for Information and Technology (Department of Veterans Affairs) in Phoenix, AZ. Join VA's Infrastructure Operations (IO) team and help deliver secure, high-availability IT and cloud solutions that power essential services for Veterans. As an Enterprise Storage Engineer, you'll support and modernize mission-critical systems in a dynamic, innovative environment within Data Center and Cloud Engineering, Infrastructure Engineering and Operations in the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Information and Technology. Ready to make an impact? Apply now! Key duties: • Leads collaborative efforts with other organizational entities to enable an end-to-end engineering approach for optimal technological solutions. Provides engineering services and technical oversight to critical, national initiatives related to enterprise platform, storage, database, and data center infrastructure solutions and associated issues and contributes to the mission of providing complex services by shaping the underlying IT architecture. Performs enterprise storage and data capacity forecasting and growth planning, developing multi-year roadmaps to ensure future workload demands are met reliably, securely, and cost-effectively. Ensures studies and analyses are appropriately conducted and recommendations are provided on architectural solutions. Provides senior-level technical, enterprise level, expertise, guidance, direction, and project management. Develops complex guidance to allow technically sound IT investment decisions and steer capital planning decisions. Initiates and provides technical oversight to engineering studies and analyses (including modeling and simulation efforts) concerning the introduction of new technologies, products, and topologies, and to find solutions to critical problems in design of solutions that have a national impact. Designs and implements automation frameworks, APIs, and infrastructure-as-code to enable fleet-scale provisioning, configuration management, and compliance drift detection across enterprise storage infrastructure. Applies NIST SP 800-53 controls and FISMA requirements to enterprise storage and data architectures, including encryption at rest and in transit, external key management, and audit logging. This is a Non-Bargaining Unit Position. This position is primarily aligned to the following NICE Cybersecurity Workforce Framework work roles: Cybersecurity Code 451- System Administrator: Responsible for setting up and maintaining a system or specific components of a system (e.g. for example, installing, configuring, and updating hardware and software; establishing and managing user accounts; overseeing or conducting backup and recovery tasks; implementing operational and technical security controls; and adhering to organizational security policies and procedures). For more information about these work roles, where they fit within the larger Cyber Workforce, and how they can support your unique career journey, please visit the Cyber Career Pathways tool on the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Careers and Studies website: https://niccs.us-cert.gov/workforce-development/cyber-career-pathways Work Schedule: Monday-Friday, 8 am-4:30 pm Compressed/Flexible: Available at Supervisor's discretion. Telework: ADHOC, as determined by Agency Policy. Virtual: This is not a virtual position. Position Description/PD#: IT Specialist (Policy and Planning)/PD02359A Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized PCS Appraised Value Offer (AVO): Not Authorized Qualifications: To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 10/14/2026. You must meet the Basic Requirements (Individual Occupational Requirement), Specialized Experience, and the Selective Placement Factor to qualify for this series as described below. Basic Requirements (Individual Occupational Requirement): Applicants must have IT-related experience demonstrating each of the four competencies listed below at a proficiency level equivalent to the next lower grade level in federal service: Attention to Detail - Is thorough when performing work and conscientious about attending to detail. 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. 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. Problem Solving - Identifies problems; determines accuracy and relevance of information; uses sound judgment to generate and evaluate alternatives, and to make recommendations. -AND- Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade, GS-13, in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Specialized Experience is defined as experience experience in enterprise storage and data management engineering supporting mission-critical systems within a large enterprise environment. For purposes of this position, a large enterprise is defined as an organization operating a geographically distributed IT portfolio across multiple data centers or regions, supporting 10,000 or more end users, managing one hundred or more storage arrays and multiple petabytes of storage under centralized governance, and subject to formal regulatory or compliance requirements (e.g., FISMA (Federal Information Security Modernization Act), HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard), and SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley Act)). Fleet-scale experience is required to demonstrate the disciplined, deliberate engineering and architectural judgment that only develops when standardization, automation, and repeatability are non-negotiable. -AND- Selective Placement Factor: In addition to the minimum qualifications described above, you must meet the following requirement(s) to be considered qualified for the position: Hands-on engineering and architecture experience within the last three years designing and evolving enterprise-class scale-out unified storage environments at petabyte scale across a fleet of one hundred or more arrays or equivalent scale-out cluster nodes; engineering judgment and architectural decision-making, including standardization, reference designs, lifecycle planning, array-based and cloud replication, cloud tiering, and automation-driven configuration management, rather than day-to-day operational tasks. For more information on these qualification standards, please visit the United States Office of Personnel Management's website at https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-standards/. View the full announcement and apply on USAJOBS.gov.