Ops Research - Data Scientist

Your qualifications will be evaluated on your knowledge, skills, abilities, and competencies in the following areas:

Data Engineering and Analytic Platform Architectures: Experience constructing, scheduling, and optimizing data pipelines, and working with enterprise data architectures, cloud data warehouses, or big-data platforms to feed, calibrate, and validate operations research statistical and simulation models. Experience with the War Data Platform or other DoW data systems is desirable.

Analytic Software Integration: Applied mathematical modeling and scientific software development (or DevOps experience) in an operations research context, including deploying, containerizing, or integrating R, Python, MATLAB, or GAMS models into shared computing environments.

Simulation and Emulation Pipeline Operation: Experience running large simulation campaigns on shared computing platforms, and operating model-serving pipelines for statistical or machine-learning surrogates: registries, versioning, monitoring, and scheduled re-fitting.

Analytic Data Foundations and Baseline Curation: Experience in curating authoritative, multidimensional analytic baselines for decision support; Detailed knowledge of data management principles, including database schema design, master data management, metadata standard enforcement to ensure mathematical consistency, data integrity, and provenance across disparate operational and budget data sets.

Operations Research and Tool Execution: Familiarity with executing operational models, wargaming frameworks, or mathematical program-evaluation tools, and ability to run, debug, and extract results from complex simulation models on deadline.

Collaboration: Ability to work with platform owners, data stewards, Operations research methodologists, and strategic analysts to align technical infrastructure with decision timelines.

Communication: Ability to translate complex operations research models, platform engineering, database, and software architecture concepts into plain language for senior executives, while effectively translating analyst requirements into technical specifications.

• →Credit will be given for appropriate unpaid and/or part-time work.
• →You must clearly identify the duties and responsibilities in each position held and the total number of hours per week.
• →Refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service Programs (i.e., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religious; spiritual; community; student and social).
• →Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge and skills that can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment.
• →You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience.

The Federal hiring process is set up to be fair and transparent. Please read the following guidance.

Privacy Act Statement

Criminal History Inquiries

Equal Employment Opportunity Policy

Financial Suitability

What is financial disclosure and why does this job require it

Privacy Policy

New Employee Probationary Period

Reasonable Accommodation Policy

Selective Service Registration

Signature and false statements

Social security number request

You will be required to obtain and maintain a Top Secret or Top Secret/SCI security clearance. For more information regarding security clearances click here.

1. Resume:

a. IN DESCRIBING YOUR EXPERIENCE, BE CLEAR, SPECIFIC AND DETAILED. WE MAY NOT MAKE ASSUMPTIONS REGARDING YOUR EXPERIENCE.

b. Include your name, address, and contact information, and for each position the hours worked per week and the dates of employment or volunteer service (month/year to month/year, or month/year to present). One year of specialized experience equals 2,087 hours, or 52 weeks at 40 hours per week; part-time hours are prorated. Experience that does not state exact hours per week, or lists them as "varies", will not be credited. For additional information see: How do I write a resume for a federal job c. Do not include any photos and Personally Identifiable Information (i.e., Social Security Number, Birthdate) on your resume.

d. Resume must be limited to 2 pages and a minimum size 10 font. Please save your resume as a PDF file to preserve the 2-page length.

2. Transcripts: To count toward the qualification requirements, education must come from an institution accredited by an accrediting body recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. A copy of a diploma alone is not sufficient.

a. Foreign Education: Education completed at a foreign college or university may be used to meet the requirements if you provide proof that the credentials have been evaluated as at least equivalent to those earned in an accredited U.S. program.

3. Writing Sample: Demonstrate your analytic ability and writing skills in one page, addressing the following: Choose one problem and propose a practical operating design: (1) replace a fragile manual data pipeline while preserving lineage and reproducibility; (2) reconcile two conflicting authoritative baselines and govern future versions; or (3) eliminate dependence on a single model operator while preserving configuration control and output validation. Identify the controls, ownership, and evidence that would show the solution is working.

4. Veterans Preference: veteran eligibility documentation (DD-214 Member #4 Copy, VA Letter, Standard Form (SF) 15 as applicable). Please note: If you are a veteran who has not yet been discharged, you may provide a statement of intent to discharge from your agency to receive Veterans Preference under the VOW (Veterans Opportunity to Work) to Hire Heroes Act of 2011.

5. SF-50: Your latest SF-50 (if applicable) showing your tenure, grade and step, and type of position occupied. Remove all Personally Identifiable Information (Social Security Number and Birthdate). If you receive an updated SF-50 after initially applying, please provide the updated document to CAPE to be added to your application. If you’ve had a break in service – please provide your original appointment SF50 in addition to your resignation SF50. If you do not have your latest documents, you can submit a request to the National Personnel Records Center to obtain them – see guidance here: https://www.archives.gov/personnel-records-center/civilian-non-archival

6. Military Spouse Preference Eligibility documentation (if applicable). For Priority Placement Program, you must include a copy of the Military Spouse PPP Self-Certification Checklist along with the documents identified on the checklist to verify your eligibility for MSP, such as PCS orders/verification of duty location assignment and a copy of marriage certificate or license. For eligibility under Executive Order 13473, acceptable documentation includes: verification of marriage to the servicemember, verification of member’s 100 percent disability or verification of member’s death while on active duty.

7. Free Response Essay Questions: Optional section to demonstrate your commitment to improving the efficiency of the Federal government, passion about the ideals of our American republic, and commitment to upholding the rule of law and the United States Constitution. You will not be scored against your responses for this section.

Please visit the CAPE Careers website for more information on CAPE, our benefits and more.

How You Will Be Evaluated:

Subject matter experts will evaluate your qualifications before any referral. If you meet the minimum qualifications for this position, your application will be assessed in a multi-hurdle process that ends in a ranking and referral.

Resume Review (First Hurdle): Subject matter experts will review your resume to determine qualifications based on the required competencies identified above.

Qualifying Structured Interviews (Second Hurdle): If the subject matter experts determine that your resume reflects the required competencies, you will have a panel interview (virtual or by phone) to assess your experience against those competencies. The interview may include in-depth questions or an exercise or case study to measure your depth of knowledge.

Ranking and Preference: Qualified candidates receive a score between 70 and 100, before any points for veterans’ preference. Your answers are verified against the information in your application and by reference checks. Preference is applied to applicants who move forward after the qualifying interviews.

Selection Process: Hiring managers receive a certificate listing the qualified candidates eligible for selection. If you are not selected for this position, you may be considered for similar positions for up to six months from the certificate date, and the certificate may be shared with other CAPE hiring managers. If you are selected for an interview, you may be asked to give a presentation, analyze a case study, or take part in several rounds of interviews.

Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE)

Email: osd.pentagon.cape.mbx.esd-support@mail.mil
Address: 1800 Defense Pentagon, Room 3E231, Washington, DC 20301-1800

Priority consideration programs will continue under their current operating procedures:

Military Spouse Preference (MSP) Eligible: Military Spouse Preference applicants, must be selected and placed at the highest grade level for which they have applied and been determined best qualified up to and including the full performance level. You must include a completed copy of the Military Spouse PPP Self-Certification Checklist dated within 30 days along with the documents identified on the checklist to verify your eligibility for Military Spouse Preference. Click here to obtain a copy of the Military Spouse PPP Self-Certification Checklist.