Passionate about data science and making a difference? Want to use your mathematical statistics and computer science skills to help protect public health? Join USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service–USDA’s public health agency–as an Interdisciplinary Data Scientist! Five openings. Direct Hire Authority. Telework and virtual eligible. Multiple grade levels. Salary range: $53,433 – $122,884/year (as of Dec. 2021). Closes 01/10/2022 or after 150 applications have been received, whichever occurs first.

Agency contact information: Amanda Smith

Fax: 1-833-840-9220

Job Duties

• Analyze and interpret data to inform decision making.
• Verify and validate analysis results.
• Write statistical computer programs and algorithms.
• Use relational databases to extract and transform data.
• Develop innovative approaches to analyze data.

Qualifications

Applicants must meet all qualifications and eligibility requirements by the closing date of the announcement including specialized experience and/or education.

NOTE: There are individual occupational requirements for the 1529 and 1550 job series. You must meet the individual occupational requirement (basic education requirement) for the respective job series, outlined in the Education section of this announcement.

How You Will Be Evaluated

You will be evaluated for this job based on how well you meet the qualifications listed in the announcement. Applications will be evaluated in accordance with Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) Delegated Examining Procedures and USDA policy using category rating. Applicants who meet basic minimum qualifications will be placed in one of two or three categories: Best Qualified, Well Qualified, or Qualified. Within these categories, applicants eligible for veteran’s preference will receive selection priority over non-veterans. Category placement will be determined based on applicants’ quality of experience and the extent they possess the following knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA) or competencies:

• Analytical Programming
• Interpersonal Skills
• Manages and Organizes Information
• Mathematical Reasoning
• Planning and Evaluating
• Problem Solving

Your application, including the online Assessment Questionnaire, will be reviewed to determine if you meet (a) minimum qualification requirements and (b) the resume supports the answers provided to the job-specific questions. Your resume must clearly support your responses to all the questions addressing experience and education relevant to this position. Those determined to be in the best qualified category will be referred to the selecting official for consideration.

Note: If, after reviewing your resume and/or supporting documentation, a determination is made that you have inflated your qualifications and or experience, your score may be adjusted to more accurately reflect your abilities, or you may be found ineligible. Please follow all instructions carefully. Errors or omissions may affect your rating. Providing inaccurate information on Federal documents could be grounds for non-selection or disciplinary action up to including removal from the Federal service.

Benefits

Qualifications/Education

Applicants must meet all qualifications and eligibility requirements in the announcement including specialized experience and/or education. NOTE: There are individual occupational requirements for the 1529 and 1550 job series. You must meet the individual occupational requirement (basic education requirement) for the respective job series, outlined in the Education section of this announcement. 

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 and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience.

Qualifications Requirements for the GS-09 Grade Level: Applicants must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to the GS-07 grade level in the Federal service or equivalent responsibility in the private sector/pay systems. This specialized experience must includeall the following:

• Writing statistical computer programs and algorithms.
• Training or experience extracting and transforming data from relational databases.
• Cleaning data to address issues such as missing values, outliers, duplicates, functional dependencies, etc.

To substitute education for experience at the GS-09 grade level, you must meet at least one of the individual occupational requirements identified in the education section of the announcement.

AND

You must possess a master’s or equivalent graduate degree or 2 years of progressively higher-level graduate education leading to a master’s degree. This education demonstrates the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to do the work of this position.

OR

Combination of Experience and Education: You must have an appropriate combination of successfully completed graduate level education and experience. The quality of the combination of education and experience must be sufficient to demonstrate that you possesses the knowledge, skills, and abilities required to perform work in the occupation. To determine your combination, first compute your experience as a percentage of the experience listed in the job announcement (1 year of specialized experience); then determine your education as a percentage of the education listed above; then add the two percentages. The total percentages must equal at least 100 percent. Only graduate education in excess of 1 year (18 semester hours) may be used to qualify.

Qualifications Requirements for the GS-11 Grade Level: In addition to the GS-09 specialized experience detailed above, to qualify at the GS-11 grade level applicants must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to the GS-09 grade level in the Federal service or equivalent responsibility in the private sector/pay systems that includesall the following:

• Independently extracting and transforming data from relational databases.
• Performing review of computer programing code for accuracy.
• Experience engaging with leaders, colleagues, students, or clients to identify analytical needs or understand and define reporting requirements.

To substitute education for experience at the GS-11 grade level, you must meet at least one of the individual occupational requirements identified in the education section of the announcement.

AND

You must possess a Ph.D. or equivalent doctoral degree or 3 years of progressively higher-level graduate education leading to a Ph.D. degree. This education must demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to do the work of this position. One year of full-time graduate education is considered to be the number of credit hours that the school attended has determined to represent 1 year of full-time study. If that information cannot be determined from the school, 18 semester hours should be considered as equivalent to 1 year of full-time study.

OR

Combination of Experience and Education: You must have an appropriate combination of successfully completed graduate level education and experience. The quality of the combination of education and experience must be sufficient to demonstrate that you possesses the knowledge, skills, and abilities required to perform work in the occupation To determine your combination, first compute your experience as a percentage of the experience listed above; then determine your education as a percentage of the education listed above; then add the two percentages. The total percentages must equal at least 100 percent. Only graduate education in excess of 2 years (36 semester hours) may be used to qualify.

• Qualifications Requirements for the GS-12 Grade Level: In addition to the GS-09 and GS-11 specialized experience detailed above, to qualify at the GS-12 grade level applicants must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to the GS-11 grade level in the Federal service or equivalent responsibility in the private sector/pay systems that includesall the following:Designing and implementing plans to accomplish analytic or computer programming projects.
• Leading data analysis projects to capture and implement data requirements and business rules.
• Developing interactive visualizations that combine data from multiple sources using tools, such as Python, SAS Visual Analytics, Tableau, ArcGIS, ggplot2, matplotlib, plotly, etc.

Education

To qualify for this position, you must meet at least one of the Individual Occupational Requirements (basic education) outlined below. You must submit a copy of ALL transcripts (including undergraduate; not only the most recent transcripts) to validate that you meet at least one of the basic education requirements.

Individual Occupational Requirements

Mathematical Statistician (1529)

Basic Education Requirements:

A. Degree: that included 24 semester hours of mathematics and statistics, of which at least 12 semester hours were in mathematics and 6 semester hours were in statistics.

OR

B. Combination of education and experience — at least 24 semester hours of mathematics and statistics, including at least 12 hours in mathematics and 6 hours in statistics, as shown in A above, plus appropriate experience or additional education.

Evaluation of Experience:

The experience offered in combination with educational courses to meet the requirements in paragraph B above should include evidence of statistical work such as (a) sampling, (b) collecting, computing, and analyzing statistical data, and (c) applying known statistical techniques to data such as measurement of central tendency, dispersion, skewness, sampling error, simple and multiple correlation, analysis of variance, and tests of significance.

Without other indications of statistical experience, work required in the processing of numerical or quantified information by other than statistical methods is not considered appropriate qualifying experience. Examples of such nonqualifying work include statistical clerical work; statistical drafting; calculation of totals, averages, percentages, or other arithmetic summations; preparation of simple tables or charts; or verification of data by simple comparison or proofreading.

Computer Scientist (1550)

Basic Education Requirements:

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 degrees and course work must be from accredited or pre-accredited institutions.

Evaluation of Education:

Applicants should have sufficient knowledge to understand the fundamental concepts and techniques of computer science. Courses designed to provide an introduction to computer science techniques and methodologies, to problems of system design, and to other specialized fields are acceptable. Courses or experience in teaching elementary, business, or shop mathematics are not acceptable.

To Substitute Education for Specialized Experience at GS-09 and GS-11 Grade Levels

To qualify at the GS-09 grade level based on Education, applicants must meet one of the individual occupational requirements identified above

AND

A. Successfully completed a master’s or equivalent graduate degree or 2 full years of progressively higher level graduate education leading to such a degree in a field which demonstrates the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to perform the work of the position

OR

B. have the specialized experience as described in A, but less than one year; and I have at least one year of graduate education as described in B, but less than the required two years. I have computed the percentage of the requirements that I meet, and the total is at least 100% (To compute the percentage, divide your total months of qualifying experience by 12. Then, divide your semester hours of graduate education beyond the first year (total graduate semester hours minus 18) by 18. Add the two percentages. The total percentage must equal at least 100 percent to qualify.)

To qualify at the GS-11 grade level based on Education, applicants must meet one of the individual occupational requirements identified above

AND

A. Have successfully completed a Ph.D. or equivalent doctoral degree or 3 full years of progressively higher level graduate education leading to such a degree in a field which demonstrates the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to perform the work of the position

OR

B. Have the specialized experience as described in A, but less than one year; and I have at least two years of graduate education as described in B, but less than the required three years. I have computed the percentage of the requirements that I meet, and the total is at least 100% (To compute the percentage, divide your total months of qualifying experience by 12. Then, divide your semester hours of graduate education beyond the second year (total graduate semester hours minus 36) by 18. Add the two percentages. The total percentage must equal at least 100 percent to qualify.).

There is no education substitute for the GS-12 grade level.

How You Will Be Evaluated

You will be evaluated for this job based on how well you meet the qualifications. Applications will be evaluated in accordance with Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) Delegated Examining Procedures and USDA policy using category rating. Applicants who meet basic minimum qualifications will be placed in one of two or three categories: Best Qualified, Well Qualified, or Qualified. Within these categories, applicants eligible for veteran’s preference will receive selection priority over non-veterans. Category placement will be determined based on applicants’ quality of experience and the extent they possess the following knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA) or competencies:

• Analytical Programming
• Interpersonal Skills
• Manages and Organizes Information
• Mathematical Reasoning
• Planning and Evaluating
• Problem Solving

Your application, including the online Assessment Questionnaire, will be reviewed to determine if you meet (a) minimum qualification requirements and (b) the resume supports the answers provided to the job-specific questions. Your resume must clearly support your responses to all the questions addressing experience and education relevant to this position. Those determined to be in the best qualified category will be referred to the selecting official for consideration.

Note: If, after reviewing your resume and/or supporting documentation, a determination is made that you have inflated your qualifications and or experience, your score may be adjusted to more accurately reflect your abilities, or you may be found ineligible. Please follow all instructions carefully. Errors or omissions may affect your rating. Providing inaccurate information on Federal documents could be grounds for non-selection or disciplinary action up to including removal from the Federal service.

Clicking the link below will present a preview of the application form; i.e. the online questionnaire. The application form link below will only provide a preview and does not initiate the application process. To initiate the online application process, click the “Apply” button to the right.

Direct Hire Authority will be utilized for the Mathematical Statistics Series 1529 at the GS-11 and GS-12 grade levels only.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has granted Direct Hire Authority for several STEM positions governmentwide, including the 1529 job series at grades 11-15. OPM has determined that there is either a severe shortage of candidates or a critical hiring need.

Due to the Direct-Hire Authority (DHA) for the Mathematical Statistics Series 1529 at the GS-11 and GS-12 grade levels, applicants who apply for this series at these grade levels will not be rated and ranked numerically, and Veteran’s preference will not apply. Applicants are strongly encouraged to provide complete information about their job-related experience and education.

Your transcripts and resume must document that you meet the Education and Specialized Experience requirements detailed in the Qualifications section above. Applicants who meet the minimum qualification requirements established for the position will be placed in the Eligible category.

Although Veteran’s preference does not apply due to the existence of the DHA for the Mathematical Statistics Series 1529 at the GS-11 and GS-12 grade levels, applicants are still encouraged to provide documentation related to veteran’s preference.

Note: If, after reviewing your resume and/or supporting documentation, a determination is made that you have inflated your qualifications and or experience, your score may be adjusted to more accurately reflect your abilities, or you may be found ineligible. Please follow all instructions carefully. Errors or omissions may affect your rating. Providing inaccurate information on Federal documents could be grounds for non-selection or disciplinary action up to including removal from the Federal service.

How to Apply

Next Steps

Equal Employment Opportunity Policy

The United States Government does not discriminate in employment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy and gender identity), national origin, political affiliation, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, genetic information, age, membership in an employee organization, retaliation, parental status, military service, or other non-merit factor.