Contract Specialist

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 06/03/2026. Time-In-Grade Requirement: Applicants who are current Federal employees and have held a GS grade any time in the past 52 weeks must also meet time-in-grade requirements by the closing date of this announcement. For a GS-12 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-11. The grade may have been in any occupation, but must have been held in the Federal service. An SF-50 that shows your time-in-grade eligibility must be submitted with your application materials. If the most recent SF-50 has an effective date within the past year, it may not clearly demonstrate you possess one-year time-in-grade, as required by the announcement. In this instance, you must provide an additional SF-50 that clearly demonstrates one-year time-in-grade.

Note: Time-In-Grade requirements also apply to some former Federal employees applying for reinstatement, as well as current employees applying for Veterans Employment Opportunities Act of 1998 (VEOA) appointment. See the Required Document section below for more information regarding the SF-50s needed to verify time-in-grade.

Selective Placement Factor: Applicants must possess an active Federal Acquisition Certification in Contracting (FAC-C) (Professional) from the Office of Federal Procurement Policy's (OFPP) at the time of application. Applicants who do not meet this requirement will be found ineligible for further consideration.

Individual Occupational Requirements: To qualify for this position, you must meet the individual occupational requirements for Contracting Series, 1102 for GS-5 through GS-12 include: A 4-year course of study leading to a bachelor's degree with a major in any field; or At least 24 semester hours in any combination of the following fields: accounting, business, finance, law, contracts, purchasing, economics, industrial management, marketing, quantitative methods, or organization and management.

Exceptions: Employees in GS-1102 positions will be considered to have met the standard for positions they occupy on January 1, 2000. Employees who occupy GS-1102 positions at grades 5 through 12 will be considered to meet the basic requirements for other GS-1102 positions up to and including those classified at GS-12. This includes positions at other agencies and promotions up through grade 12. However, employees must meet specialized experience requirements when seeking another position. You may qualify based on your experience as described below: Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-11 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Examples of specialized experience would typically include, but are not limited to: utilizing specialized knowledge of Government contract termination concepts, procedures, and precedents sufficient to evaluate contractor claims or proposals, and to execute settlement agreements relating to a broad range of contract termination or claim problems (e.g., partial payments, claims, unsettled change proposals, and subcontract problems) to secure and administer a variety of complex procurements of complex Information Technology equipment (i.e., items which require special manufacturing, have special regulatory requirements, are interrelated with other agencies, etc.) and professional or technical services; or serving as a mentor to junior acquisition professionals on various types of contracts, methods of contracting, and selection factors to plan appropriate strategies to procure complex requirements, and to conduct negotiations in the pre-award and post-award phases of contracting to regularly balance program and technical needs, the interests of the contractors, statutory and regulatory requirements, and the prevailing socioeconomic climate to make decisions based on sound business judgment that are in the best interest of the Government; or applying the full range of Government termination and claim settlement methods and techniques required to analyze, evaluate, negotiate, and settle, within contracting officer delegation, a variety of contractor claims and/or settlement proposals, unresolved issues, and equitable adjustments complicated by cost analysis involving cost proposals, determining allowable costs, and determining profit to be allowed. You will be rated on the following Competencies for this position: Accountability Acquisition Strategy Attention to Detail Contract Administration Contracting/Procurement Customer Service Decision Making Flexibility Influencing/Negotiating Integrity/Honesty Interpersonal Skills Learning Oral Communication Reading Comprehension Reasoning Self-Management Stress Tolerance Teamwork Written Communication Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations