The Office of Personnel Management has been without a permanent CIO since its last top tech official, Donna Seymour, resigned days before she was scheduled to appear at what was expected to be a contentious hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Now, almost four months later, OPM is advertising for the open position, accepting applications through June 22. The position is currently held on an interim basis by Lisa Schlosser, who is also the deputy federal CIO at the Office of Management and Budget and deputy administrator of the Office of E-Government.
USAJobs: Chief Information Officer, Office of Personnel Management
While federal CIO jobs are tough all around, the new OPM CIO will have the unenviable position of restoring federal employees' confidence in the government's human resources agency's ability to securely store their data.
The new CIO will take the lead deploying the agency's new Shell environment — which will modernize OPM's systems and enable stronger security measures — and work closely with the Department of Defense on the new National Background Investigations Bureau and the associated IT systems, all with the specter of last year's major data breach looming over everything.
But, the position is perfect for a dynamic CIO looking to make their mark.
"To carry these efforts forward, the CIO position demands a visionary individual who can lead a dynamic workforce within OPM while coordinating with a variety of key stakeholder - across the federal government and with external partners," according to the posting on USAJobs. "This position offers an unprecedented opportunity to an individual who has a passion for enabling excellence in human capital management services through the rapid deployment of emerging technology."
Along with a number of management skills, the position requires technical experience in at least three areas:
- Successfully transforming, building and leading high performing best practice, IT organizations in a large distributed enterprise.
- Delivering mission/customer-focused, modern IT/digital solutions in a highly complex organization.
- Implementing and operating a comprehensive cybersecurity program across a large enterprise.
The position also requires applicants to be eligible for top secret clearance.
The job posting lists the starting salary range as $123,000 to $185,000 per year.
Aaron Boyd is an awarding-winning journalist currently serving as editor of Federal Times — a Washington, D.C. institution covering federal workforce and contracting for more than 50 years — and Fifth Domain — a news and information hub focused on cybersecurity and cyberwar from a civilian, military and international perspective.
