HR Specialist - Program Manager
Offer Contingent Upon Contract Award***
Position Summary
Fully Remote
Crowned Grace International (CGINTL) seeks an HR Classification Specialist with project management experience and federal agency experience. The HR Classification Specialist is the dedicated subject matter. The HR Classification Specialist classifies positions ranging from entry-level to senior level across engineering, scientific, specialist, and administrative occupations; independently executes end-to-end classification actions; and ensures all classification actions meet legal standards and procedural guidelines. The position possesses deep subject matter expertise in job evaluation, Federal position classification standards, and organizational design, and produces classification determinations that are equitable, compliant, and defensible on audit or administrative appeal. The HR Classification Specialist will also serve as Program Manager, leading delivery of human resources support services to a federal agency's Office of Human Resources. You will be the single point of contact for the government's contracting officer's representative; you will directly supervise a team of five HR professionals; and you will be responsible for the accuracy of every personnel action the team produces. You must be a U.S. citizen, or a lawful permanent resident or otherwise lawfully authorized for employment as evidenced by USCIS documentation. You must be able to obtain a favorable Public Trust suitability determination, which involves completing a Questionnaire for Public Trust Positions (SF-85P) and fingerprinting.
Key Responsibilities
- Classifies positions from entry level to senior level, including engineers, scientists, specialists, and administrative positions. Determines the appropriate pay plan, occupational series, official title, and grade.
- Reviews existing position descriptions and updates them as needed to reflect current duties, organizational structure, and classification standards.
- Drafts, updates, and standardizes Position Descriptions in close collaboration with hiring managers and subject matter experts and writes new position descriptions where no suitable description exists.
- Conducts thorough job analyses to capture major duties, responsibilities, knowledge requirements, and supervisory relationships accurately and at the level of specificity required to sustain the classification decision.
- Analyzes position descriptions against applicable classification standards, including OPM General Schedule qualification and classification standards and Federal Wage System standards.
- Evaluates position factors - Knowledge Required by the Position, Supervisory Controls, Guidelines, Complexity, Scope and Effect, Personal Contacts, Purpose of Contacts, Physical Demands, and Work Environment - and assigns factor levels and point values under the Factor Evaluation System.
- Conducts desk audits and structured job interviews with incumbent staff and supervisors to resolve discrepancies between assigned duties and operational reality.
- Prepares detailed Evaluation Statements justifying each classification decision, documenting the standards applied, the factor-level determinations, and the crediting rationale sufficiently to withstand audit or administrative appeal.
- Provides advisory services to leadership during organizational restructures, assessing the ripple effects of proposed changes on existing position hierarchies and supervisory ratios.
- Identifies potential classification impact areas arising from reorganization, including erosion of duties, mixed-series roles, and accretion-of-duties promotion exposure, and advises leadership on remedies before the change is affected.
- Maintains the central repository and library of active position descriptions, ensuring version control, periodic review cycles, and retirement of superseded descriptions.
- Ensures full compliance with Federal law governing classification and compensation, including Title 5, United States Code, and the Equal Pay Act, to prevent misclassification risk and inequitable pay structure alignment.
- Provides guidance and assistance to HR Specialists and supervisors on classification matters and supports HR Specialists on job analysis and on the selection of questions from the USDOT automated staffing question library, including the appropriateness of developing new questions.
- Guides managers and HR Specialists on the writing of specialized experience statements for each classification.
- Reviews vacancy announcements to ensure accuracy, legality, and consistency with the classified position description.
- May provide guidance and oversight to other administrative or HR staff.
- Enforces the Privacy Act and PII safeguards when handling position, incumbent, and organizational data.
Minimum Qualifications
- A minimum of ten (10) years of Federal human resources experience classifying various positions, including engineers. This requirement is non-waivable, and you may not substitute education for experience.
- At least five years of experience overseeing the management of HR services and administrative support personnel and deliverables.
- CGINTL qualification floor: Bachelor's degree, or an equivalent combination of education and directly related Federal classification experience.
- Demonstrated independent application of the Factor Evaluation System and OPM classification standards to professional, scientific, engineering, and administrative occupational series.
- Demonstrated experience advising leadership on organizational design, reorganization impact, and accretion-of-duties exposure.
- Experience managing a federal services contract or task order, including deliverable schedules, quality control, and recurring status reporting to a government client.
- Experience recruiting and onboarding professional staff against a firm deadline.
- A track record of supervising people directly - hiring, developing, and, when necessary, replacing them.
- Demonstrated experience conducting desk audits and preparing written Evaluation Statements that have withstood audit or classification appeal.
- Citizenship or lawful permanent residence/employment authorization as evidenced by USCIS documentation, and eligibility to obtain a favorable Public Trust suitability determination under DOT Order 1632.2B.
Preferred Qualifications and Certifications
- Project Management (PMP) Certification
- Prior classification experience within a federal Operating Administration, or within another Federal agency with a substantial engineering or scientific workforce.
- Experience with Federal Wage System classification in addition to General Schedule classification.
- Experience serving as an agency representative in a classification appeal before OPM or a Merit Systems Protection Board proceeding.
- Experience building and governing a position description library, including version control and periodic review cycles.
- OPM Delegated Examining (DEU) Certification.
- SHRM Certified Professional (SHRM-CP) or HRCI Professional in Human Resources (PHR).
- Prior experience supporting a Federal HR office of comparable scale.
- Working proficiency with USA Staffing, Monster Government Solutions, Workday, or the National Finance Center (NFC) systems.
- Experience supporting scientific, engineering, or other technical occupational series.
Everyone at Crowned Grace International is a Leader. That is not a slogan about titles - it describes what we expect from every person on the team. Our culture rests on a simple standard: the right people, doing the right thing, delivering the right results. Seven values carry it:
- Integrity and Trust - you tell the truth about status, including when the news is
- Credibility - you can show your work, and your numbers hold
- Accountability - you own the outcome rather than the
- Continuous Improvement - you fix the cause, not just the
- Action Orientation - you move, and you escalate a blocker the day you find
- Caring - you remember there is a person on the other side of every
- Marketplace Ministry - you treat the work as stewardship, not a transaction.