Senior Policy Analyst

About A1M

A1M Solutions is a woman-owned small business driven by the aspiration to provide value to our customers, employees, partners, and community while remaining aligned to our guiding principles of foundational values, deliberate focus, and empathetic connection.

A1M’s mission is to preserve and improve government healthcare programs that are lifelines for underserved people in the United States, including people in poverty, elderly people, members of ethnic and racial minorities, immigrants, and refugees. We look for projects with nation-wide impact at the intersection of policy, data, and user experience design.

Besides building useful and usable digital services, A1M helps teams improve their agile, user-centered design practices – or helps them get started. Our goal is not just to build sustainable public services, but also to leave our teaming partners and customers more skilled and more confident in the future.

Policy & Government Operations at A1M

The Policy & Government Operations (PGO) Practice is home to staff whose core capabilities are rooted in health policy and/ or government operations domain expertise. Policy is a broad term that encompasses practitioners who have worked in or around government, and whose skills include policy making or analysis, program, product, and/or project management, strategic thinking, client consulting, stakeholder communications, and content development.

About this role

Policy Analysts at A1M are responsible for providing high-level subject matter expertise to foster integration of policy and domain knowledge with programs and systems.

This includes the analysis of complex problems and policies, making recommendations, developing alternative solutions, and drafting and working with design and engineering teams to execute implementation plans. Policy Analysts provide guidance to high levels of management, teaming partners, and government clients and stakeholders.

Human-centered, agile practices are crucial to the overall success of our government projects, so an interest and willingness to learn these practices is a must.

Skills and responsibilities

Technical capabilities

Demonstrate in-depth functional knowledge of government practices and culture,

Participate in developing strategies to provide advice to clients and stakeholders.

Independently research, analyze, and interpret policy, including statute, regulations, and subregulatory guidance

Synthesize policy for clients and stakeholders

Create effective communications and demonstrate excellent writing skills

Communicate policy insight and requirements to UX researchers, designers, product strategists, clients and other parties of interest in order to achieve client outcomes

Help the team understand how policy is used and how it relates to the systems or products within our contracts.

Assist with overall design, development and implementation strategy for products and services.

Communication and collaboration

Builds connections and relationships between people, teams/projects, and A1M and clients in ways that prevent and break down silos, enabling new opportunities for improved delivery.

Gets buy-in from relevant parties (teammates, team leads, government stakeholders, etc.) to make sure necessary work happens.

Proactively recognize risks and conflicts within the team and clients, help identify approaches, and take action – manage up (understanding timing, context and other pressures, etc.) and escalate when appropriate.

Evaluate your own skills and deliverables and take action based on self-assessment. This might include proactively reaching out to other team members for help upskilling in skill gap areas.

Cross-domain understanding

Initiate and drive projects that require working with multiple people in other disciplines and practices on challenging problems.

Coach and mentor people not just within your own practice or discipline, but across practice areas – for example, designers coaching engineers.

Anticipate and proactively provide information needed by other practices and disciplines.

Government domain acumen

Proactively identify and respond to government requirements or policy that may impact project work, such as accessibility, PRA, FOIA, acquisition regulations, and security compliance.

Sufficient government understanding to anticipate needs of government partners and users, and be prepared to speak to them proactively.

Trusted to represent the company and team to clients, including in challenging situations.

Qualifications

8+ years of relevant professional experience.

Your portfolio or resume should demonstrate

College degree in political science, communications, or a related field

Personal experience with government health and human services programs

Expertise with applying policy expertise (understanding of policy hierarchy, analysis and interpretations of statutes, regulations, and agency guidance) within a team

Working knowledge of Medicare, the ACA, and Medicaid and CHIP

Previous work with and/or within a state or the federal government. Specifically, experience is required with a government health agency, Medicaid agency, and/or similar government agencies or offices.

Experience working with distributed, cross-functional teams, including product managers, designers, engineers, and subject matter experts

Flexibility pivoting with our client’s evolving strategic priorities

Preferred

Working knowledge of Public Law 119-21, which the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) refers to as the “Working Families Tax Cut” (WFTC) legislation

Experience working in government consulting engagements, preferably with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and/or the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)

Experience working with a social impact-focused product team or in civic tech

Experience working in government consulting engagements

Familiarity with SAFe and agile methodologies

Familiarity with Human-centered design

Applicant requirements

Our contracts require employees to work from the United States. That includes all 50 US states, the District of Columbia, and all US territories.

A1M employees must have been residents in the United States for 3 of the past 5 years.

Due to tax reasons, A1M employees cannot reside in New York state.

You must already have legal authorization to work within the US and not require ongoing visa sponsorship to maintain legal authorization to work.

You must be a permanent US resident.

Because A1M employees have access to government data and systems, new hires will need to complete a Public Trust form. Public Trust is a type of background investigation, but it is not a security clearance. Depending on the role, you must complete either the Standard Form 85 (SF85) or 85P (SF85P) questionnaire.

You will at the very least get asked questions about where you’ve lived, worked, went to school, military history, police records, and substance use. You’ll also need to have your fingerprints taken.

Our partners primarily work on Eastern Standard Time (EST), and will require flexibility in your hours if you reside outside of EST. We do offer flexibility for non-work-related life responsibilities during the day.