Clarification from the agency

This is a Direct Hiring Authority Notice open to the Public using the Department of Defense Streamlined DHA.

• The following duties will be performed in a developmental capacity:
• Providing pre-award and post-award support to contracting officers and engineering activities, contract administration components, and DLA contractors.
• Assisting in preparing and issuing QA letters of instruction to government inspection activities/depots on contract quality requirements and history.
• Participating in quality systems management visits to evaluate the adequacy of technical requirements and product conformance.
• Evaluating QA procedures, reports, inspection and test/methods and other operational aspects involving assigned items/commodities.
• Establishing and maintaining quality history files by item, contractor and specification.

Conditions of employment

• Must be a U.S. citizen
• Tour of Duty: Flexible
• Security Requirements: Non-Critical Sensitive
• Appointment is subject to the completion of a favorable suitability or fitness determination, where reciprocity cannot be applied; unfavorably adjudicated background checks will be grounds for removal.
• Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA): Non-Exempt
• Selective Service Requirement: Males born after 12-31-59 must be registered or exempt from Selective Service.
• Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized
• Bargaining Unit Status: Yes
• Pre-Employment Physical: Not Required
• Defense Acquisition Workforce position. Must complete DoD certification and other requirements. See Addtl Info.

Qualifications

To qualify for a Quality Assurance Specialist, your resume and supporting documentation must support:

A. Have a bachelor's degree from an accredited educational institution with major study in quality assurance, statistics,
mathematics, production management, industrial management, computer science, engineering, engineering technology,
physical sciences, textiles, or another field related to the position AND meet Superior Academic Achievement (SAA) based
on ONE of the following: (1) class standing (upper third standing in graduating class); -OR- (2) grade-point average (2.95
or higher overall or over the last two years of bachelor's degree -or- 3.45 in my major field or over the last two years in my
major); -OR-(3) election to membership in a national scholastic honor society.

OR

B. Have at least one full year of graduate level study, or possess a master's or Ph.D., with major study in quality
assurance, statistics, mathematics, production management, industrial management, computer science, engineering,
engineering technology, physical science, textiles, or other closely related fields to the position. One academic year of
graduate education is considered to be the number of credit hours that your graduate school has determined to represent
one academic year of full-time study. Such study may have been performed on a full-time or part-time basis. If you cannot
obtain your graduate school's definition of one year of graduate study, 18 semester hours (or 27 quarter hours) should be
considered as satisfying the requirement.

OR

C. Specialized Experience: One year of specialized experience that equipped you with the particular competencies to
successfully perform the duties of the position, and is directly in or related to this position. In addition to meeting the Basic
Contracting Requirement above, to qualify for the GS-07 grade level, specialized experience must be at the GS-5 grade
level or equivalent under other pay systems in the Federal service, military or private sector. Applicants must meet
eligibility requirements including time-in-grade (General Schedule (GS) positions only), time-after-competitive appointment,
minimum qualifications, and any other regulatory requirements by the cut-off/closing date of the announcement. Creditable
specialized experience includes:

• Understanding techniques, regulations, and requirements related to Quality Assurance (QA) functions to plan and perform a variety of assignments.
• Ability to perform projects including solving problems from established methods, procedures, or precedents of unknown factors and relationships that are mostly factual in nature.
• Skilled in interpreting, explaining, and applying technical requirements and specifications to quality problems involving product inspections or investigations.
• Trained in fact finding or investigative techniques, skills to develop, analyze, and evaluate facts relative to unsatisfactory conditions or trends and to prepare documented reports of findings.
• Experienced resolving questions of basic QA and technical equipment support methods of product/process characteristics.

OR

D. Have less than the full amount of graduate education described in "B" and less than the amount of experience
described in "C," but have a combination of the type of graduate education described in "B" and the type of experience
described in "C." COMBINATION OF EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE: If you do not qualify based on education or
experience alone, you can combine your education and experience by converting each to a percentage and then adding
the percentages.(If your education is currently described in quarter hours, convert the quarter hours into semester hours
by multiplying the quarter hours by the fraction 2/3.) For GS-7: To calculate your percentage of graduate education divide
the number of graduate semester hours by 18. Refer to the qualification requirements above for a description of the type
of experience that is considered qualifying. To determine your percentage of qualifying experience, you must divide your
total number of months of qualifying experience by the required number of months of experience. GS-07: Requires 12
months of specialized experience as described in "C" above. Now add your percentages of education and experience.
The two percentages must total at least 100% for you to qualify under the combination of education and experience.

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

How you will be evaluated

You will be evaluated for this job based on how well you meet the qualifications above.

The assessments for this job will measure the following Competencies:

• Educational Experience (ACWA)
• Mathematical Skills (ACWA)
• Rating (ACWA)
• Social Organizations (ACWA)
• Work Experience (ACWA)

ADMINISTRATIVE CAREERS WITH AMERICA (ACWA) ASSESSMENT: The series on this job announcement is covered under the Administrative Careers with America (ACWA) examining program. You must take and pass the ACWA assessment. Once the announcement has closed, a review of your application package (resume, supporting documents, and responses to the ACWA assessment) will be used to determine whether you meet the qualification requirements listed on this announcement.

Open-Continuous Cut-off Information: An initial cut-off date of November 26, 2025 will be used to evaluate candidates for the initial available vacancies. Any application received after the initial cut-off date will only be considered should additional vacancies be received after the initial cut-off date. If additional vacancies are received after the initial cut-off date, ALL applicants that have applied will be evaluated/re-evaluated and ranked as stated within the Evaluation statement in the announcement.

Direct Hire Evaluation: Once the application process is complete, a review of your application will be made to ensure you meet the job requirements. This vacancy will be filled through a Department of Defense Direct Hire Authority. All applicants who meet the basic qualification requirements will be forwarded to the Selecting Official for consideration. The rule of Three, Veteran's Preference and traditional rating and ranking of applicants do not apply to this vacancy. We will evaluate your application for basic eligibility and to determine if your experience meets the basic qualification requirements described in the announcement. All applicants who meet the qualifications and other basic requirement are eligible for referral and selection consideration. Please follow all instructions carefully. Errors or omissions may affect your rating.

To apply for this position you must provide a complete Application Package. Each Application Package MUST include:

1. Your Resume: IMPORTANT UPDATE: Your resume must not exceed two (2) pages. If your resume exceeds the two-page limit, you will be removed from consideration for this announcement. The resume and required supporting documentation should provide the minimum qualifications and relevant experience for the announced position. Must include the work schedule, hours worked per week, dates of employment, and duties performed. If multiple resumes are submitted by an applicant, only the last resume submitted will be reviewed for qualifications and referred for selection consideration, if eligible. The resume must not be more than 5MB and should be saved and uploaded 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. Page margins should be 0.5 inches, and font styles must be legible. Consider using 14-point size font for titles and 10-point for the main text. We recommend using a font like Lato, if available. Other widely available options are Calibri, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, Open San Source Sans Pro, Roboto or Noro Sans.
2. Applicable documents to support the eligibility(s) for which you are applying. Please review the following link for a listing of the additional documents you will need to provide: Supporting Documents.

Next steps