Background
In January2017, one of our clients, an IT and Cyber Security Government contractor comprised of about 300 employees, informed us that they were bidding on a NextGen Software Engineering contract for the Dept. of Homeland Security – USCIS DIDit Program. They were bidding as Prime and engaged Warriors to identify key personnel and then after they won the work in May 2018 engaged our team for staffing the prime contact.
Program Details
The Digital Innovation and Development (DIDit) contract supports the US Citizenship and Immigration Services in providing agile software development for and mission-critical operations for mission and internal functions within the agency. Our client was responsible for providing services such as: business analysis, testing (automated/functional/508), software development(Ruby, ColdFusion, Java), database engineering (SQL Server, PostgreSQL),systems engineering (AWS), DevOps engineering (Chef), user experience design and project/program management using Agile methodologies. This technology supports anti-terrorism screening applications for refugees hoping to relocate to the United States.
The Pain
Our client was struggling to identify a pool of qualified candidates who met the technical requirements with conventional methods. Additionally, the DHS EOD security screening was a lengthy process, and our client was experiencing candidate disengagement throughout the clearance process.
Mission
- Staff the program requiring 50+ full time technical employees.
- Each candidate submitted for consideration needs to meet all (10-15) Federal government requirements to include a combination of education, certifications, AND specific skills/ experience with the designated technologies to be in compliance with specified government LCATs.
- Each candidate submitted for consideration must be able to obtain a USCIS Badge (DHS clearance) prior to beginning work.
Results
- Submitted 350 highly qualified candidates for review that met the specific criteria required by USCIS (LCATs).
- Coordinated & scheduled over 250 phone, virtual and personal interviews.
- Staffed 64 new, Full-Time Employees supporting the USCIS contract on the client’s payroll.
- As of 2024, the DIDit mission is still critical, and work is ongoing years after our client was acquired in 2019.
Conclusion
Due to the combined efforts and teamwork between the Warriors Recruiting engine and our client’s hiring team, the USCIS DIDit program was fully-staffed successfully. We continued to maintain the team and support DIDit staffing efforts until our client was acquired in 2019. Warriors was able to successfully fill the most challenging technical positions requiring a rare combination of professional skills, education and clearances, as well as successfully staff technical key roles and leadership positions on the contract.
