Program Specialist

Program Specialist

Department: Department of Veterans Affairs

Location(s): Boston, Massachusetts

Salary Range: $84579 - $109959 Per Year

Job Summary: This position is located within the Research and Development Service at the VA Boston Healthcare System located at the Jamaica Plain Campus in Boston, MA. The individual is primarily responsible for developing, assessing, implementing and tracking success of various programs within the Research and Development Service as they are required in order to enable the Service to meet its strategic goals and requirements for compliance and assurance in research at the Jamaica Plain Campus.

Major Duties:

• ***THIS IS NOT A VIRTUAL POSITION, YOU MUST LIVE WITHIN OR BE WILLING TO RELOCATE WITHIN A COMMUTABLE DISTANCE OF THE DUTY LOCATION*** Duties include, but may not be limited to the following: Administers the R&D Department property management program for nonexpendable equipment which includes responsibility for analyzing maintenance and repair frequency and cost, and recommending action to dispose of or replace the equipment. Conducts physical inventories and investigates inventory/equipment discrepancies. Oversees the management, maintenance and coordinates the repair of operational systems equipment within service. Develops reporting procedures, sampling techniques, and measurements at various points in the transaction process or business cycle to identify problem areas or inherent weaknesses in work processes, procedures, information systems and content. Coordinates the data management within the Research Service. Monitors quality program implementation and indicators designed to prevent erroneous transactions and ineffective work practices to verify adherence to quality plans and requirements. Provides overall technical and administrative direction to administrative support activities. Investigates and analyzes adverse quality trends or conditions. Processes incoming and outgoing communications, to include routing of mail by general subject matter throughout the R&D Department. Maintains small office supply and forms storerooms, reorders supplies to maintain predetermined stock levels, and issues and procures materials to authorized personnel. Organizes meetings for government and non-government officials. Provides travel services for the R&D Department, including securing route and fare information, advising travelers of most advantageous routing, issuing transportation requests, securing reservations and tickets, etc. Performs other related duties as assigned. Work Schedule: Monday-Friday, 8:00am-4:30pm Recruitment & Relocation Incentives: Not authorized Critical Skills Incentive (CSI): Not Approved Telework: This position may be authorized for telework, Ad Hoc Only. Telework eligibility will be discussed during the interview process.

Qualifications: TO QUALIFY FOR THIS POSITION AT THE GS-11 LEVEL YOU MUST MEET THE FOLLOWING CRITERIA: SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE: Have at least one (1) full year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade level (GS-9) in the Federal Service that has given you the particular knowledge, skills and abilities required to successfully perform the duties of this position. Specialized experience includes: maintaining the property management program; performing inventory of equipment and supplies; using standard qualitative and quantitative measurement techniques to perform data tracking and reporting of adverse trends; and provides overall technical and administrative support including records management, maintaining office stock and supply and identifying ways to improve customer support. NOTE: Applicants wishing to receive credit for such experience must clearly indicate the nature of their duties and responsibilities in each position and the number of hours a week spent in such employment. -OR- EDUCATION: 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 related field of study or LL.M that demonstrates your ability to perform the duties of this position. NOTE: If you select this option, you must submit a copy of your transcript (unofficial or official) with your application. Education cannot be credited without documentation. -OR- COMBINATION: Have equivalent combinations of successfully completed graduate-level education (beyond the second year) and specialized experience, as described above, which meet the total experience requirements for this grade level. The education portion must have provided the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to do the work of this position (as described above). NOTE: Copies of transcripts must be submitted with your application materials. Education cannot be credited without documentation. 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/.

How to Apply: Please read the entire announcement and all the instructions before you begin an application. To apply for this position, you must complete the initial online application, to include the initial online assessment and submission of the required documentation specified in the Required Documents section above. The complete application package must be submitted by 11:59 PM (ET) on the closing date of the announcement to receive consideration. To preview the questionnaire, click https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/12897569. The application process is as follows: To begin, click Apply Online to create a USA JOBS account or log in to your existing account. Follow the prompts to select your USA JOBS resume and/or other supporting documents. Answer the questions presented in the application and attach all necessary supporting documentation. Click the Submit Application button prior to 11:59 PM (ET) on the announcement closing date, 03/09/2026. After submitting the online application, you will be notified whether or not you are required to take additional online assessments through the USA Hire Competency Based Assessment system. This message will be delivered to you via email notification. The email may be routed to your "Spam" or "Junk" folder. IMPORTANT: If you are asked to take the USA Hire Competency Based Assessments, you will be presented with a unique URL to access the USA Hire system. Access to USA Hire is granted through your USAJOBS login credentials. Be sure to review all instructions prior to beginning your USA Hire Assessments. Click here for Computer System Requirements. Set aside at least 3 hours to take the USA Hire assessments; however, most applicants complete the assessments in less time. If you need to stop the assessments and continue at a later time, you can re-use the URL sent to you via email and also found in your USAJOBS account under the "Track my application" link for the corresponding application. Your responses to the USA Hire Assessments will be reused for one year (in most cases) from the date you complete an assessment. If future applications you submit require completion of the same assessments, your responses will be automatically reused. Visit the USA Hire Applicant Resource Center for practice assessments and assessment preparation resources at https://support-usahire.opm.gov/hc/en-us. To view the announcement status or your application status: https://help.usajobs.gov/how-to. Your application status page is where you can view your application status, USA Hire assessment completion status, and review your notifications sent by the hiring agency regarding your application. Beginning September 27, 2025, Federal agencies will only accept resumes up to two pages in length to comply with the Merit Hiring Plan. Resumes longer than two pages will result in ineligibility for further consideration for the position. USAJOBS will not allow you to upload or build resumes longer than two pages, and you will need to update the resumes in your profile before applying for a job. Resumes should include information relevant to the knowledge, skills, abilities, and competencies of the position to which you are applying. VA is unable to make assumptions about qualifications if not clearly listed. Resumes must be legible so they can be reviewed for eligibility, minimum qualifications and other position requirements listed in the job announcement. Your resume must be 5MB or less. We recommend saving and uploading your resume as a PDF to maintain formatting and number of pages. We also accept GIF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, RTF, TXT, PDF, ODT or Word (DOC or DOCX). We do not accept PDF portfolio files. We recommend using a sans-serif font size like Lato, if available. Other widely available options are Calibri, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, Open San Source Sans Pro, Roboto or Noro Sans. Make your page margins 0.5 inches. Consider using 14-point size font for titles and 10-point for the main text in your resume. The resume builder can help you create a resume using these recommendations and uses the information in your USAJOBS profile to help you get started. Helpful Hints for Creating a Two-Page Resume: Prioritize most relevant and recent experience Use concise, results focused language Align language from the job announcement Focus on demonstrating skills and competencies Remove outdated or unrelated experience Use the USAJOBS resume builder Additional guidance on this new requirement and resume building tools can be found at: https://help.usajobs.gov/faq/application/documents/resume/page-limit.

Application Deadline: 2026-03-09