Wanted: A rockstar developer for Data.gov

Agencies often have a hard time competing with private-sector employers for top-notch IT talent, but this job might hold special appeal for the open-data crowd: The Data.gov team is hiring its own developer.

This GS-14 "IT specialist (applications software)" will join the small crew of dataphiles in the General Services Administration's Office of Citizens Services and Innovative Technologies, where he or she will serve as an in-house software engineer, collaborate with outside developers, and serve as web architect for Data.gov.

The technical underpinnings of Data.gov, which launched in May 2009, have been largely built by contractors, but GSA has now decided to bring some coding capacity onto the permanent staff.

"We get a lot of really great ideas from a lot of different places," Data.gov Program Director Marion A. Royal told FCW. "We need a technologist on board to help us prioritize... which should we seek immediately, and which should we invest in for the future."

Details of the job are posted on USAJobs.com. But would-be applicants had better hurry -- the application window closes on June 11.