FBI Hurries To Get New IT Professionals On Board

The FBI is beginning the New Year with a big push for new technology professionals.

"These IT positions are critical in support of this FBI's mission to protect the United States against terrorism, foreign intelligence, criminal enterprise and cyber attacks," Director Robert Mueller said in a prepared statement.

The FBI and other federal agencies under the Department of Homeland Security recruit IT professionals all the time, but a new campaign unveiled last week aims to bring in a new group of hires quickly. The push is part of an overall plan to strengthen systems engineering and integrate new service oriented architecture, while ensuring that higher industry and government standards are enforced.

The agency's goal is to get people in on the ground floor for new systems that will be built and deployed in 2006, an agency representative said.

"The big push with this is to expeditiously get people in," spokeswoman Cathy Milhoan said in an interview Friday. "We're really trying to hone in on this and get them in as quickly as we can."

The agency's Web site now prominently displays technology opportunities, outlining needs in 11 specialty areas, on its jobs page. More than 100 technology and electronics related vacancies are listed.

A full page ad states that: "Today's FBI is for you. Now is the time to explore an IT career with the FBI."

The agency is seeking application engineers and portal technology experts to develop systems built with architecture that crosses intelligence, administrative and law enforcement needs. Though the FBI states that its data warehousing has been successful, it needs data engineers to improve enterprise extraction, translation and loading processes. The engineers will also plan and model legacy databases for federated search.

The FBI plans a shift to and operations and maintenance environment and is recruiting system engineers for development and testing.

The FBI is offering new employees the possibility of recruitment bonuses, exciting and rewarding careers, and the opportunity to maintain robust, secure and cutting edge global information technology infrastructure.

Salaries begin around $35,000 and can go as high as $136,000 depending on experience, qualifications and responsibilities.

Candidates have until the end of January to apply. New employees could start within 120 days under the plan to put new hires to work as soon as possible.