Summary This position serves as Without Compensation Research Assistant within the Office of Research and Development (ORD). The VA Research Program strives to promote Veteran-centered care to improve patient experiences and outcomes across VA healthcare and community settings, and to advance value-driven care by providing Veterans the highest quality care at the lowest financial burden. Please note, there is not pay associated with this position. Responsibilities Major Duties: Develop programming specifications and design, write, test, validate, and maintain custom software applications. Support a wide range of research-related data collection and data analysis activities through software development. Create and maintain standardized documentation for software programs, including evaluations, modifications, and system enhancements. Apply relational database principles and software development methodologies within a health services research environment. Analyze and resolve unusual, novel, and complex technical problems related to research data collection and management. Utilize existing VA datasets to support research initiatives and data-driven studies. Design, develop, and implement innovative electronic data collection applications to meet research requirements. Collaborate with researchers and stakeholders to identify technical requirements and develop effective software solutions. Ensure software applications and databases meet project objectives, quality standards, and user requirements. Provide technical expertise and recommendations regarding research data systems, applications, and database management. Work Schedule: Intermittent (Without Compensation) Requirements Conditions of Employment U.S. Citizenship; non-citizens may only be appointed when it is not possible to recruit qualified citizens in accordance with VA Policy. Selective Service Registration is required for males born after 12/31/1959. Subject to background/security investigation. Selected applicants will be required to complete an online onboarding process. Participation in the seasonal influenza vaccination program is a requirement for all Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care Personnel (HCP). Qualifications To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 07/17/2026. Experience: You must possess general experience. General experience is defined as experience: Developing programming specifications and designing, writing, testing, and validating custom software applications; Developing and maintaining software applications to support research, data collection, and data analysis activities; Applying relational database concepts and software development principles within a research or healthcare environment; Creating and maintaining standardized documentation for software programs, modifications, and evaluations; and Resolving complex technical issues related to research data collection, existing datasets, and electronic data collection systems. AND Education: Bachelor's degree in computer science or bachelor's degree with 30 semester hours in a combination of mathematics, statistics, and computer science. At least 15 of the 30 semester hours must have included any combination of statistics and mathematics that included differential and integral calculus. All academic degrees and course work must be from accredited or pre-accredited institutions. You will be rated on the following Competencies for this position: Communication Reasoning Research Technical Competence 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; religions; 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. Note: A full year of work is considered to be 35-40 hours of work per week. Part-time experience will be credited on the basis of time actually spent in appropriate activities. Applicants wishing to receive credit for such experience must indicate clearly the nature of their duties and responsibilities in each position and the number of hours a week spent in such employment. Physical Requirements: The work is predominantly sedentary. Typically, the employee sits comfortably to do the work. However, there will be some walking, standing, bending and carrying of items of moderate weight such as large binders, banker style file boxes, meeting materials, papers, books or small parts. Hand and eye coordination for delicate testing procedures may be the only special physical demand required to perform the work. Education A transcript must be submitted with your application if you are basing all or part of your qualifications on education. PLEASE NOTE: Education must be accredited by an accrediting institution recognized by the U.S. Department of Education in order for it to be credited towards qualifications (particularly positions with a positive education requirement). Therefore, applicants must report only attendance and/or degrees from schools accredited by accrediting institutions recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. Applicants can verify accreditation at the following website: http://www.ed.gov/admins/finaid/accred/index.html. All education claimed by applicants will be verified by the appointing agency accordingly. If you are using foreign education to meet qualification requirements, you must send a Certificate of Foreign Equivalency with your transcript in order to receive credit for that education. Additional Information If you are unable to apply online or need an alternate method to submit documents, please reach out to the Agency Contact listed in this Job Opportunity Announcement. Under the Fair Chance to Compete Act, the Department of Veterans Affairs prohibits requesting an applicant's criminal history prior to accepting a tentative job offer. For more information about the Act and the complaint process, visit Human Resources and Administration/Operations, Security, and Preparedness (HRA/OSP) at The Fair Chance Act.
