Job Listing

IT STAFFING SERVICES SOLICITATION UNDER
DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION RESOURCES
IT STAFF AUGMENTATION CONTRACT (ITSAC)
RFO DIR-CPO-TMP-445


 

Solicitation Reference Number: 529501098	Working Title: DevOps Engineer 3	Title/Level: DevOps Engineer 3
Category: Applications/Software Development	Full Time	NTE Rate:$166.85

I.  DESCRIPTION OF SERVICES


Texas Health and Human Services Commission requires the services of 1 DevOps Engineer 3, hereafter referred to as Candidate(s), who meets the general qualifications of DevOps Engineer 3, Applications/Software Development and the specifications outlined in this document for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission.

All work products resulting from the project shall be considered "works made for hire" and are the property of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission  and may include pre-selection requirements that potential Vendors (and their Candidates) submit to and satisfy criminal background checks as authorized by Texas law. Texas Health and Human Services Commission will pay no fees for interviews or discussions, which occur during the process of selecting a Candidate(s).



The Department of Information Resources (DIR) requires the services of one DevOps Engineer 3, hereafter referred to as Worker, who meets the general qualification of DevOps Engineer 3 and the specifications outlined in this document for the above-named customer. 
The position requires solid automation background in DEVSECOPS area. This involves architecture, design, development and integration of tools and technologies to achieve “end-to-end” DEVSECOPS process automation. It will require on-demand standup and on-demand decommissioning of environment as single “unit” comprising of multiple components of infrastructure, databases, middleware, messaging, data and applications layers – all of which will need to be automated and orchestrated as part of DEVSECOPS pipeline run. The automation produced will be exercised on-demand and frequently to standup, modify, restore, and decommission environment. Multiple instances of environment standard environments will be active at the same time to support different projects and release levels. Environment will need to be expressed as set of definition files and scripts in our Git instance for versioning, branching and merging and governance. Past experience of designing and implementing a similar initiative is required. The position will require to use approved tools and technologies including Jenkins, Ansible Tower, Ansible, Terraform and Terragrunt and supporting components. The environments will be used to meet the needs of parallel development using Java-based technologies and a mix of modernized and legacy applications running on WebSphere ND platform and Oracle databases on Red Hat Linux VMs on VMWare ESX. Experience with transition to JBOSS, containerization, persistent volumes is a definite plus but not mandatory. Support for AWS based Compute and Storage in place of VMware/VSAN will also be required to extend automation capability to for a hybrid data center support. Automation must also support for execution of test cases to verify general health of environment as well as applications 

In addition, this DevOps engineer will be assigned to install, configure, build and deploy applications in support of Eligibility Supporting Technology applications. This position is central to ensuring these applications and services remain current across all development, test, training, and production environments. 

This DevOps engineer will also provide environment triage support. This responsibility includes both workday and night/weekend on-call support for all development, test, training, and production environments. This service helps maintain high availability for developers, testers, trainers, and production end users. 

This position works under minimal direction with considerable latitude for the use of initiative and independent judgment.

Roles and Responsibilities:
1. Architecture, design, development and integration of tools and technologies to achieve “end-to-end” DEVSECOPS process automation and on-demand standup and on-demand decommissioning of environment as single “unit”
2. Analyzes the technology and point solutions in their current state develops plans and processes for improvement and expansion as needed. 
3. Support Application Development Life Cycle for concurrent application development targeting multiple future releases 
4. Documents processes and procedures.


II.  CANDIDATE SKILLS AND QUALIFICATIONS
 

Minimum Requirements: Candidates that do not meet or exceed the minimum stated requirements (skills/experience) will be displayed to customers but may not be chosen for this opportunity.
Years	Required/Preferred	Experience
8	Required	Architecture, design, development and integration of tools and technologies to achieve “end-to-end” DEVSECOPS process automation and on-demand standup and on-demand decommissioning of environment as single “unit”
8	Required	Experience automating and tool chaining using Git, Jenkins, Ansible, ansible Tower, Terraform and Terragrunt
8	Required	Experience with WebSphere ND, MQ, Liquibase
8	Required	Familiarity with Containers and Container orchestration Kubernetes platforms such as PODMAN, docker, EE/OpenShift/Rancher
8	Required	Experience integrating Artifactory for images, 3rd party librares and other artifacts
8	Required	Experience with script languages such as Groovy, Python, Shell, Ruby
8	Required	Experience with Linux, Solaris and Windows operating systems
8	Required	Familiarity with WebSphere Liberty, Tomcat, JBOSS
8	Required	Familiarity with containerization and with installing and maintaining DevSecOps tools on Kubernetes platform using Helm Charts
8	Required	Experience in IT automated solutions design
3	Preferred	Experience developing and supporting large, mission critical applications, transaction processing applications is preferred.
3	Preferred	AWS Certified Solutions Architect or Developer or similar certification.
3	Preferred	Experience with coding languages and environments including but not limited to Java, J2EE, EJB (Enterprise Java Beans), JSP (JavaServer Pages / Stored Procedures), JSF/Struts (JavaServer Faces, Apache Struts Framework), XML (eXtensible Markup Language),

III.  TERMS OF SERVICE


Services are expected to start 09/01/2024 and are expected to complete by 08/31/2025. Total estimated hours per Candidate shall not exceed 1984 hours. This service may be amended, renewed, and/or extended providing both parties agree to do so in writing.

IV. WORK HOURS AND LOCATION


Services shall be provided during normal business hours unless otherwise coordinated through the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. Normal business hours are Monday through Friday from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, excluding State holidays when the agency is closed.

The primary work location(s) will be at 1609 Centre Creek Drive, Suite 200, Austin, Texas 78754. The working position is Telework. Any and all travel, per diem, parking, and/or living expenses shall be at the Candidate's and/or Vendor's expense. Texas Health and Human Services Commission will provide pre-approved, written authorization for travel for any services to be performed away from the primary work location(s). Pre-approved travel expenses are limited to the rates and comply with the rules prescribed by the State of Texas for travel by its classified employees, including any requirement for original receipts.

The Candidate(s) may be required to work outside the normal business hours on weekends, evenings and holidays, as requested. Payment for work over 40 hours will be at the hourly rate quoted and must be coordinated and pre-approved through Texas Health and Human Services Commission.

V.  OTHER SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS
 

**HHSC MAX NTE Rate: $125.00/HR for this position**

 

TERM OF SERVICE (Required)

Services are expected to start on or around September 1, 2024 and are expected to completed by August 31, 2025. Total estimated hours per Candidate shall not exceed 1,984 hours for FY25. This service may be amended, renewed, and/or extended providing both parties agree to do so in writing.

 

WORK HOURS AND LOCATION (Required)

A) Services shall be provided during normal business hours unless otherwise coordinated through the Agency. Normal business hours are Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. through 5:00 p.m., excluding Texas state holidays when the agency is closed.

B) The primary work location will be 1609 Centre Creek Drive, Suite 200, Austin, Texas 78754.

Position will be remote. Program will allow candidates who are out of state (Any location within the United States).

C) Any and all travel, per diem, parking, and/or living expenses shall be at the worker’s and/or Vendor’s expense.

D) The worker may be required to work remotely at HHSC discretion, up to 100 percent of the time.

E) The worker may be required to work outside the normal business hours on weekends, evenings and holidays, as requested. Payment for work over 40 hours will be at the hourly rate quoted and must be coordinated and pre-approved through the Agency.
 

OTHER SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

Interviews will be conducted: (check all that apply) 
☐    By Phone
☐    In person
☒    Through Microsoft Teams
 
IMPORTANT INFORMATION

A vendor’s submission of a candidate may be disqualified if:

• The vendor fails to add the candidate to competitive solicitation, or RFR, in the DIR ITSAC Portal.
• Another vendor submits the same candidate for the same competitive solicitation, also known as a request of resume (RFR).
• The vendor submits more than one candidate for the same competitive solicitation, or RFR.
• The vendor submits a candidate after the response period for a competitive solicitation, or RFR.
• The vendor fails to format the email subject line properly, when submitting a candidate for a competitive solicitation, or RFR:
  • Proper Formatting: Solicitation Number, Vendor Name, Candidate First and Last Name, Position Type and Level
  • Example: 529123456, Sanders Technologies, Jane Doe, Project Lead 3
• The vendor fails to follow any other instructions noted in the competitive solicitation, or RFR.

VI.  ADDITIONAL TERMS AND CONDITIONS

This position is subject to availability of funding.

A vendor’s submission of a candidate may be disqualified if:

• The vendor fails to add the candidate to competitive solicitation, or RFR, in the DIR ITSAC Portal.
• Another vendor submits the same candidate for the same competitive solicitation, also known as a request of resume (RFR).
• The vendor submits more than one candidate for the same competitive solicitation, or RFR.
• The vendor submits a candidate after the response period for a competitive solicitation, or RFR.
• The vendor fails to format the email subject line properly, when submitting a candidate for a competitive solicitation, or RFR:
  • Proper Formatting: Solicitation Number, Vendor Name, Candidate First and Last Name, Position Type and Level
  • Example: 529123456, Sanders Technologies, Jane Doe, Project Lead 3
• The vendor fails to follow any other instructions noted in the competitive solicitation, or RFR.

In submitting a resume for this solicitation, the vendor attests to their compliance with e-verify for the submitted candidate. E-verify requirements are outlined in Appendix A, Section P. Immigration, of the Standard Terms and Conditions for Information Technology Staff Augmentation Contract.

Worker must sign an Acceptable Use Agreement as a condition of employment.

Worker must sign and return an HHSC Information Technology Staff Augmentation Contractor Integrity Agreement (IT Form 4710) before a purchase order is issued.

Vendor must sign and return and HHS Information Security Cybersecurity Training Acknowledgement (HHS Form 3834) before a purchase order is issued.

Vendor must conduct a criminal history investigation of the Worker and provide the results to HHSC prior to the issuance of any purchase order. The criminal history investigation must have been conducted within six months prior to the issuance of any purchase order, including a purchase order for modifying or extending the terms of the agreement. Should the Worker not be acceptable to HHSC at any time because of the results of the criminal history investigation, then HHSC may immediately terminate its purchase order and related service agreement or request replacement of the Worker in question.

By accepting the purchaser order, the Vendor agrees to comply with the HHS Data Use Agreement.
VII.  RIGHT TO AMEND OR WITHDRAW SOLICITATION

DIR reserves the right to alter, amend or modify any provisions of this solicitation, or to withdraw this solicitation, at any time prior to the award of a Work Order pursuant hereto, if it is determined by DIR to be in the best interest of the State to do so.

VIII.  RESPONSE DEADLINE

Vendor shall respond in accordance with Customer specifications, with proposed candidate resumes and the response must be received by 08/06/2024 @ 5:00 PM (CT).

IX.  EVALUATION OF RESPONSES

1. Response must be submitted in accordance with Customer specifications by the response deadline listed in Section VIII of this solicitation. Failure to do so will result in disqualification of the response.
2. Vendor hereby represents to DIR they are registered as a Texas Vendor, with all necessary Texas taxpayer identification numbers with the Comptroller of Public Accounts and be in good standing with that office, and otherwise be authorized to do business with the State of Texas.
3. Form D (Right to Represent) - a Candidate whose name and Form D is submitted by more than one vendor for the same opportunity may be considered by the Customer. The Customer, at its discretion, may hire a Candidate submitted by multiple Vendors.
4. Vendors may not submit resumes outside of the process for solicitations. (Appendix A, Section 11. C).
5. Vendor is prohibited from contacting a Customer to discuss an “open” competitive solicitation during the Work Order Solicitation; however, Vendor is allowed to market their business to Customers. (Appendix A, Section 13. 3)
6. Vendor is prohibited from submitting a substitute candidate during the interview process if the original candidate is no longer available. Vendor may offer a replacement candidate, if the Purchase Order (PO) has been issued and the original candidate is no longer available. (Appendix A, Section 11. E).
7. The Vendor and/or its subcontractors, if any, shall certify that they are not suspended or debarred from doing business with the federal government as listed in the Excluded Parties List System (EPLS) maintained by the General Services Administration, and (x) as of the effective date of the Contract, are not listed in the prohibited vendors list authorized by Executive Order #13224, "Blocking Property and Prohibiting Transactions with Persons Who Commit, Threaten to Commit, or Support Terrorism," published by the United States Department of the Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control. DIR will verify EPLS status via the TPASS web site. Vendors listed on the prohibited vendors list will result in disqualification of the entire response.

A. Candidate resumes and references from the responses shall be made available to the Customer in accordance with Customer specifications. The determination of candidates to be interviewed and the final award shall be made by the Customer. For Texas State Agency customers, WorkQuest resumes must be reviewed and a determination made to either select the WorkQuest candidate or reject the WorkQuest candidate and report this decision on the Agency's State Use Report per Texas State Use Act, Chapter 122, Texas Human Resources Code.

X.  RESPONSE FORMAT

The Vendor response shall follow the format described below. Submit only the following:

 

1. Candidate Reference Form, submit copy for each Candidate.
2. Candidate Qualifications - Vendor must complete and merge with resume.
3. Candidate Acknowledgement Form, Vendor must obtain signature from Candidate and merge with resume.
4. Candidate Resume - submit copy for each Candidate.
5. Vendor may submit no more than 1 candidate resume(s) for this job.
6. Candidate Reference Form, Candidate Qualification Form, Candidate Acknowledgement Form, and Candidate Resume to be merged into one (1) document and sent to the Customer in accordance with Customer specifications in PDF Format. Order of merge is to be: Candidate Qualification Form, Candidate Resume, Candidate Reference Form and Candidate Acknowledgement Form.
7. Instructions for where to send forms and resume(s): Vendors should input their candidate information in the vendor DIR ITSAC Portal. Once completed, the vendor should submit that candidate resume to ITSAC_RFR@hhs.texas.gov.

XI.  INSTRUCTIONS FOR VENDOR RESPONSE

Follow these instructions carefully:

1. Log into the portal and complete the following for each Candidate.
   • Candidate Name
   • Hourly Rate: Rates shall not exceed the Not-to-Exceed rates contained in Vendor's contract with DIR for the noted position(s). In the event that the Vendor submits an hourly bill rate that exceeds the NTE bill rate in the contract, the candidate will be submitted to the Customer with an hourly bill rate that is reduced to the NTE hourly bill rate in the contract. (Appendix A, Section 12. A.). If the Customer submits a Solicitation that does not require an NTE rate, then the rate will be negotiated between the Customer and Vendor prior to Award.
   • Date of Candidate availability
   • If sub-contracted provide company name, sub-contract in accordance withcentage and company HUB type.
   • Vendors certified as Historically Underutilized Businesses (HUBs) by the State Procurement Division (SPD) shall include HUB Ethnicity & Gender Codes as defined by the SPD. Insert HUB Ethnicity/Gender code assigned to the Vendor by the SPD. If vendor is not a HUB insert N/A. Vendor shall use the HUB Ethnicity & Gender Codes assigned to the Vendor by the SPD. DIR shall verify Vendor's HUB Ethnicity & Gender Codes status via the SPD web site.
2. Send resume packet for each Candidate (Instructions in Section X)
3. Name the resume packet (PDF) document(s) following the guidelines below:
   • Solicitation Number, Vendor Name and Candidate Name. i.e.: 52905008_VendorName_CandidateName.pdf
   • Order of merged PDF is to be:
     • Candidate Qualification Form
     • Candidate Resume
     • Candidate Reference Form
     • Candidate Acknowledgement Form.

XII.  SOLICITATION CONTACT


For questions or comments regarding the solicitation, contact it_staff_aug@hhsc.state.tx.us.
For contract related questions, refer to the Contract Manager listed on the DIR Web Site.



 
CANDIDATE REFERENCE


 

Solicitation Number: 529501098	Title/Level: DevOps Engineer 3
Candidate Name:	Category: Applications/Software Development

 

Reference Name (Required):
Title:
Company Name (Required):
Phone Number (Required include area code):
E-mail Address:
Professional Relationship:

 

Peer

Co-Worker

Supervisor

 

Customer

End-User

Subordinate

 

Reference Name (Required):
Title:
Company Name (Required):
Phone Number (Required include area code):
E-mail Address:
Professional Relationship:

 

Peer

Co-Worker

Supervisor

 

Customer

End-User

Subordinate

 

Reference Name (Required):
Title:
Company Name (Required):
Phone Number (Required include area code):
E-mail Address:
Professional Relationship:

 

Peer

Co-Worker

Supervisor

 

Customer

End-User

Subordinate

NOTE: ONLY INCLUDE THE INFORMATION REQUESTED ON THIS FORM. DO NOT INCLUDE ADDITIONAL INFORMATION.

 
CANDIDATE QUALIFICATIONS


 

Solicitation Number: 529501098	Title/Level: DevOps Engineer 3
Candidate Name:	Category: Applications/Software Development

 

Minimum Requirements: Candidates that do not meet or exceed the minimum stated requirements (skills/experience) will be displayed to customers but may not be chosen for this opportunity.
Actual Years Experience	Years Experience Needed	Required/ Preferred	Skills/Experience
	8	Required	Architecture, design, development and integration of tools and technologies to achieve “end-to-end” DEVSECOPS process automation and on-demand standup and on-demand decommissioning of environment as single “unit”
	8	Required	Experience automating and tool chaining using Git, Jenkins, Ansible, ansible Tower, Terraform and Terragrunt
	8	Required	Experience with WebSphere ND, MQ, Liquibase
	8	Required	Familiarity with Containers and Container orchestration Kubernetes platforms such as PODMAN, docker, EE/OpenShift/Rancher
	8	Required	Experience integrating Artifactory for images, 3rd party librares and other artifacts
	8	Required	Experience with script languages such as Groovy, Python, Shell, Ruby
	8	Required	Experience with Linux, Solaris and Windows operating systems
	8	Required	Familiarity with WebSphere Liberty, Tomcat, JBOSS
	8	Required	Familiarity with containerization and with installing and maintaining DevSecOps tools on Kubernetes platform using Helm Charts
	8	Required	Experience in IT automated solutions design
	3	Preferred	Experience developing and supporting large, mission critical applications, transaction processing applications is preferred.
	3	Preferred	AWS Certified Solutions Architect or Developer or similar certification.
	3	Preferred	Experience with coding languages and environments including but not limited to Java, J2EE, EJB (Enterprise Java Beans), JSP (JavaServer Pages / Stored Procedures), JSF/Struts (JavaServer Faces, Apache Struts Framework), XML (eXtensible Markup Language),

 
CANDIDATE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT


 

RFO: 445 Solicitation Number: 529501098	Title/Level: DevOps Engineer 3
Candidate Name:	Category: Applications/Software Development

 

I hereby authorize Sistema Technologies, Inc. to submit my resume in response to the temporary staffing Solicitation 529501098 for Texas Health and Human Services Commission. I understand that submission of my resume by multiple vendors may result in my disqualification from this opportunity. Customers reserve the right to hire a candidate submitted by multiple vendors. Worker signature:  _______________________________ Date:   _______________________