REQUEST_FOR_OFFER_5805147980.pdf

Our Mission: Securing the Financial Future and Sustaining the Trust of California’s Educators

CALIFORNIA STATE TEACHERS’ RETIREMENT SYSTEM

Technology Services California Multiple Award Schedule (CMAS) Agreement

Investment Data Warehouse (IDW)

Technical Resources

REQUEST FOR OFFER # 5805147980

OFFER DUE DATE

August 28, 2026, by 2:00 P.M., PT

Soyeb Hussein Pension Procurement Specialist

California State Teachers’ Retirement Systems ITProcurement@CalSTRS.com mailto:IT

Request for Offer 5805147980

IDW Technical Resources

REQUEST FOR OFFER

You are invited to review and respond to the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS), Request for Offer (RFO), entitled Investment Data Warehouse (IDW) Technical Resources. Read this document carefully.

In submitting your Offer, you must comply with the instructions, terms and conditions stated in this RFO and in your Information Technology CMAS contract.

Offers must be submitted to CalSTRS via email to ITProcurement@CalSTRS.com and must be received by CalSTRS no later than August 28, 2026, by 2:00 p.m., Pacific Time (PT). Offers received after the specified date and time may be rejected.

Respondents requiring clarification of the intent and content of this RFO, or on the competitive process, may request clarification only by submitting written questions to:

Soyeb Hussein Pension Procurement Specialist ITProcurement@CalSTRS.com

Refer to Attachment IV, Frequently Asked Questions, prior to submitting any written questions. Any additional questions must be received by August 24, 2026, by 10:00 a.m., PT. Questions received by this date will be answered in writing, without identifying the source of query.

Any attempt by a firm responding to this Offer to initiate contact with any member of the Teachers’ Retirement Board and/or CalSTRS staff, other than the CalSTRS contact listed above, regarding this RFO process may disqualify the firm from further consideration.

Please note that no verbal information given will be binding upon the California State Teachers’ Retirement System unless such information is incorporated into this RFO via an addendum.

mailto:ITProcurement@CalSTRS.com mailto:ITProcurement@CalSTRS.com

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

A. INTRODUCTION

B. BACKGROUND

C. QUALIFICATIONS REQUIREMENTS

D. OFFER REQUIREMENTS AND INFORMATION

E. ATTACHMENTS

I. Information and Offer Sheet II. Proposed Project Person Skill Summary Sheet III. Proposed Project Person Business Reference Sheet IV. Frequently Asked Questions V. Statement of Work

F. SAMPLE AGREEMENT

1. Agreement Terms and Conditions

2. Exhibit A – Statement of Work

3. Exhibit B – <Contractor’s> Key Personnel

4. Exhibit C – Teachers’ Retirement Board Governance Manual – Third Party Economic Interest

Disclosure Policy

5. Exhibit D – Form 600-H Third Party Economic Interest Disclosure

6. Exhibit E – Contractor Background Investigation Policy

7. Exhibit F – Certification of Contractor’s Employee Background Investigation Form

8. Exhibit G – Personal History Statement

9. Exhibit H – CalSTRS Information Security and Privacy Addendum

10. Exhibit I – Confidentiality, Non-Disclosure and Acceptable Use Agreement

11. Exhibit J – CalSTRS Minimum Information Security Requirements

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GENERAL INFORMATION

A. INTRODUCTION

CalSTRS is the largest educator-only pension fund in the world. CalSTRS administers a hybrid retirement system, consisting of traditional defined benefit, cash balance and voluntary defined contribution plans.

CalSTRS also provides disability and survivor benefits. CalSTRS serves California’s public school educators and their families from the state’s school districts, county offices of education and community college districts. For more information on CalSTRS and its various programs, please refer to the CalSTRS Website at: https://www.CalSTRS.com.

The purpose of this RFO is to select up to six (6) experienced Investment Data Warehouse (IDW) Technical Resources with detailed knowledge and experience of designing, implementing, enhancing and maintaining Generative Business Intelligence (GenBI) use cases or solutions, as well as providing maintenance and support to the CalSTRS’ Investment Data Warehouse (IDW) platform, which has the capabilities of GenBI, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Machine Learning (ML). The services required are more fully described in Attachment V, Statement of Work, included in this document.

CalSTRS will only accept one (1) offer per Vendor (Respondent) for this RFO. Each offer shall include at least one (1) proposed project personnel for the Lead Developer role. CalSTRS anticipates selecting up to six (6) project personnel (as identified in the table below). CalSTRS may select project personnel from more than one (1) proposing firm.

Role Maximum # of Proposed Personnel

Lead Developer (1 mandatory) 1 Solution Architect (optional) 1

Front-End Developer (optional) 1 Back-End Developer (optional) 3

The total services period may be up to twelve (12) months, with an option to extend up to thirty-six (36) additional months, at an estimated average of 160 work hours per month at the rate negotiated at contract execution. Any contract resulting from this RFO may be amended to add time or funds, at the sole discretion of CalSTRS.

The Vendor/Contractor must be able to perform all work on-site 2 to 3 business days per week at the CalSTRS headquarters facility in West Sacramento, CA. At CalSTRS’ discretion, a different approach (i.e., fully in-office, fully remote or different work hours) may be utilized based on CalSTRS business need and/or directive.

Work must be performed during CalSTRS business hours and shall not be permitted on California State Holidays identified on the California Department of Human Resources website, unless pre-approved in writing by CalSTRS management. All work schedules must be pre-approved in writing by CalSTRS management and must adhere to all applicable CalSTRS policies and procedures. The Vendor/Contractor is responsible for any travel costs (including travel time) that they may incur while providing the services identified in the Statement of Work.

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The proposed project person selected as a result of this RFO will be under the direction of the CalSTRS Technology Services Enterprise IT Solutions & Innovation Director or designee and may be assigned one or more teams/programs/projects during the services period.

B. BACKGROUND

The CalSTRS Technology Services (TS) Branch supports approximately 1,700 employees and contractors at the headquarters and seven Member Service Centers (MSC) throughout the State of California. The CalSTRS Technology Services (TS) Branch delivers technology products, services, and business solutions which support all information technology systems throughout the organization including implementation of enterprise projects. TS programs and projects utilize the System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) methodology and Agile Development guidelines.

The goal of this engagement is to construct a team of technical resources, with all the necessary skillsets collectively, for maintaining and advancing CalSTRS’ IDW platform with GenBI/ AI/ML capabilities, as well as designing/building additional GenBI solutions or use cases that will be deployed onto the IDW platform.

For more information about the CalSTRS organization, mission, vision, and strategic and business plans, go to www.CalSTRS.com.

C. QUALIFICATIONS REQUIREMENTS

The proposed project person must meet all of the following minimum qualifications to CalSTRS’ satisfaction to be given further consideration. Failure to satisfy any of the minimum qualifications upon submittal of the Offer may result in the immediate rejection of the Offer.

Minimum Administrative Qualifications

As of the Offer Due Date:

1. The Respondent must hold a current Information Technology California Multiple Award Schedule (CMAS) agreement with the California Department of General Services and must comply with the instructions, terms and conditions stated in the Leveraged Procurement Agreement.

2. The Respondent must submit all data/information and attachments requested in the offer format described below under Section D, Subsection 2, Offer Requirements. Failure to submit Attachment I - Information and Offer Sheet and Attachment II - Proposed Project Person Skill Summary Sheet, by the Offer Due Date, will be grounds for immediate rejection of the submission.

Minimum Technical Qualifications

As of the Offer Due Date, the proposed project personnel must have the following listed experience, knowledge, skills and abilities, as evidenced by Attachment II, Proposed Project Person Skill Summary Sheet and resume:

Lead Developer:

IDW Technical Resources

1. At least ten (10) years of experience in data/BI engineering or analytics.

2. At least five (5) years of experience in leading a team (at least 3 members) to implement enterprise-level BI and/or large data warehouse solutions.

3. At least five (5) years of experience working with AI/ML or GenAI technologies.

4. At least two (2) proven deliveries of production-grade BI or data products (dashboards, data models, APIs).

5. At least two (2) years of experience with ETL/ELT pipelines, data warehousing platforms such as Snowflake, Amazon Redshift, and orchestration tools (Airflow, dbt, etc.).

6. At least two (2) years of experience using OpenAI APIs or similar LLM platforms, building natural language to SQL/query systems, designing prompt strategies for business insights and analytics, and prompt engineering to guide the platform's system behavior.

7. At least two (2) years of experience in SQL (advanced joins, window functions, performance tuning), data modeling (star/snowflake schemas, semantic layers), and hands-on experience with at least one major BI tool such as Power BI, Tableau, Looker.

8. At least two (2) years of experience leading a team of analysts and developers, as well as collaborating with stakeholders, to discover, document, and implement requirements and stakeholder requests for data warehouse or business intelligence projects.

Solution Architect:

1. At least fifteen (15) years of experience in the Information Technology (IT) field with extensive experience in positions of technical developer/lead, software engineer, application architect, enterprise architect, etc.

2. At least ten (10) years of experience incorporating an industry's open & non-proprietary SDLC methodology to lead and manage various technical aspects of solution/software implementation projects, while facilitating and collaborating closely with organization's IT divisions and business stakeholders to follow all applicable project's implementation standards, processes, procedures, and best practices, etc.

3. At least seven (7) years of experience of architecting, designing & implementing AI/ML use cases or GenAI solutions.

4. At least five (5) years of experience in leading cloud architecture (AWS, Azure, GCP) for large or complex environments (multi-tier apps, enterprise integrations, or migrations), and proven delivery of end-to-end cloud solutions (not just components).

5. At least three (3) years of experience in designing high availability & fault-tolerant systems, and cost optimization strategies on SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS, etc.

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6. At least two (2) years of experience in working with AI infrastructure & agentic workflows/orchestration, Generative AI design patterns, cloud strategy & FinOps, hybrid & multi-cloud systems, security & compliance (AI Governance), etc.

7. At least two (2) years of experience in designing Microservices, distributed systems, event-driven and API-based architecture.

Front-End Developer:

1. At least five (5) years of experience in front-end UX/UI design for analytics dashboards and highly interactive reporting.

2. At least four (4) years of experience in development with React for or building scalable, highly customized production-grade user interfaces.

3. At least two (2) years of experience in front-end development with Chainlit or Streamlit for AI/ML or GenAI solutions with complex state management & data handling (e.g., real-time updates; UI states for loading, retries, and partial responses).

4. At least two (2) years of experience in latency handling and async UX patterns, explainable AI interfaces (confidence, sources, disclaimers), and prompt design basics.

5. At least two (2) years of hands-on experience and proven ability to build chat interfaces (streaming responses, token handling), and AI-assisted workflows (autocomplete, summarization, recommendations).

Back-End Developer(s):

1. At least seven (7) years of experience in the Information Technology (IT) field with extensive experience in report writing, data analysis, or database querying.

2. At least five (5) years of experience in data engineering, data warehousing, or BI analytics.

3. At least two (2) years of experience with ETL/ELT pipelines, cloud data warehouses such as Snowflake, Amazon Redshift, Azure Synapse, and orchestration tools (Airflow, dbt, etc.).

4. At least two (2) years of experience in SQL (advanced joins, window functions, performance tuning), data modeling (star/snowflake schemas, semantic layers), and hands-on experience with at least one major BI tool such as Power BI, Tableau, Looker.

5. At least two (2) years of hands-on experience in containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes), CI/CD pipelines for ML and data workflows, monitoring and logging for ML and BI systems, cloud infrastructure automation (Terraform, Ansible).

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Desirable Technical Qualifications

It is desirable for the proposed project personnel to have the following listed experience, knowledge, skills and abilities as evidenced by Attachment II, Proposed Project Person Skill Summary Sheet and resume.

CalSTRS may request a copy of the degrees/certification for desirable qualifications.

Lead Developer:

1. Holding technical certifications in the areas of:

• AWS certifications

• Snowflake certifications

• BI certifications (Power BI, Tableau)

• AI/ML or GenAI-related coursework or credentials

2. Have a bachelor’s degree in computer science, computer engineering, or related fields from an accredited or government sanctioned college/university. CalSTRS may request a copy of the diploma/degree.

3. The proposed onsite project person will be able to adhere to the hybrid working model by working on-site 2 to 3 business days per week at CalSTRS Headquarters, West Sacramento, CA. (no points)

Solution Architect:

1. Holding technical certifications in the areas of cloud platform/architecture and/or GenAI or GenBI such as:

• Snowflake SnowPro Advanced – Architect

• AWS Solutions Architect – Professional

• Azure Solutions Architect Expert

2. At least two (2) years of experience providing IT consulting services in technical solution implementations to large public/governmental agencies.

3. Experience supervising and guiding the implementation using industry standards and best practices such as Project Management Institute (PMI) Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK), Scaled Agile Framework, IEEE, etc.

4. Have a bachelor’s degree in computer science, computer engineering, or related fields from an accredited or government sanctioned college/university. CalSTRS may request a copy of the diploma/degree.

5. The proposed onsite project person will be able to adhere to the hybrid working model by working on-site 2 to 3 business days per week at CalSTRS Headquarters, West Sacramento, CA. (no points)

Front-End Developer:

1. Holding technical certifications in the areas of:

• AWS certifications

• Snowflake certifications

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• BI certifications (Power BI, Tableau)

• AI/ML or GenAI-related coursework or credentials

2. At least five (5) years of experience in data engineering, data warehousing, or BI analytics.

3. At least three (3) years of experience working with AI/ML or GenAI technologies to design and build AI/GenAI solutions using cloud services such as AWS, Snowflake, or Azure.

4. Practical hands-on experience using OpenAI APIs or similar LLM platforms, building natural language to programming languages such as SQL/query, designing prompt strategies for business insights, and prompt engineering to guide system behavior.

5. Experience in developing semantic models supporting natural language querying and AI-driven analytics (i.e., GenBI); statistical analysis, predictive analytics, and optimization.

6. Have a bachelor’s degree in computer science, computer engineering, or related fields from an accredited or government sanctioned college/university. CalSTRS may request a copy of the diploma/degree.

7. The proposed onsite project person will be able to adhere to the hybrid working model by working on-site 2 to 3 business days per week at CalSTRS Headquarters, West Sacramento, CA. (no points)

Back-End Developer(s):

1. Holding technical certifications in the areas of:

• AWS certifications

• Snowflake certifications

• BI certifications (Power BI, Tableau)

• AI/ML or GenAI-related coursework or credentials

2. At least five (5) years of experience in front-end UX/UI design for analytics dashboards and highly interactive reporting.

3. At least four (4) years of experience in development with React for or building scalable, highly customized production-grade user interfaces.

4. At least two (2) years of experience in front-end development with Chainlit or Streamlit for AI/ML or GenAI solutions with complex state management & data handling (e.g., real-time updates; UI states for loading, retries, and partial responses).

5. Experience and understanding in latency handling and async UX patterns, explainable AI interfaces (confidence, sources, disclaimers), and prompt design basics.

6. Hands-on experience and proven ability to build chat interfaces (streaming responses, token handling), and AI-assisted workflows (autocomplete, summarization, recommendations).

7. At least three (3) years of experience working with AI/ML or GenAI technologies.

8. At least one (1) year of hands-on experience using OpenAI APIs or similar LLM platforms, building natural language to SQL/query systems, designing prompt strategies for business insights, and prompt engineering to guide system behavior.

9. At least three (3) years of experience in semantic layer design, data modeling, and delivering enterprise semantic models across multiple teams for large organizations.

10. At least one (1) year of experience in developing semantic models supporting natural language querying and AI-driven analytics (i.e., GenBI); statistical analysis, predictive analytics, and optimization.

11. Have a bachelor’s degree in computer science, computer engineering, or related fields from an accredited or government sanctioned college/university. CalSTRS may request a copy of the diploma/degree.

12. The proposed onsite project person will be able to adhere to the hybrid working model by working on-site 2 to 3 business days per week at CalSTRS Headquarters, West Sacramento, CA. (no points)

D. OFFER REQUIREMENTS AND INFORMATION

1. Time Schedule

CalSTRS will use its best efforts to adhere to the time schedule. However, CalSTRS reserves the right to amend the time schedule, as it deems necessary or appropriate.

Event Date

Written Question Submittal Due Date August 24, 2026 by 10:00 a.m., PT

Offer Due Date August 28, 2026 by 2:00 p.m., PT

Estimated Start Work Date November 2026

2. Offer Requirements

To be eligible, an Offer must include all of the following listed attachments and information:

a. Attachment I, Information and Offer Sheet

b. Attachment II, Proposed Project Person Skill Summary Sheet

One (1) Proposed Project Person Skill Summary Sheet shall be completed for each proposed project person.

c. Attachment III, Proposed Project Person Business Reference Sheet

One (1) Business Reference Sheet must be completed for each proposed project person. Business references should be able to verify the proposed project person’s experiences, within the last 10 years, and to verify the other information provided regarding such person.

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d. Proposed Project Person’s Resume

e. Current California Multiple Award Schedule (CMAS) Agreement

One (1) copy of the Respondent’s current, completed and signed Information Technology CMAS agreement and all supplements issued by the Department of General Services.

f. Current General Services Administration (GSA) Agreement

One (1) copy of the Respondent’s current GSA agreement and pricing pages applicable to the Respondent’s Information Technology CMAS contract, which includes the personnel classifications, hourly rates, and minimum qualifications.

3. Submission of Offer

a. All offers must be submitted to CalSTRS via email to ITProcurement@CalSTRS.com. If Respondents encounter any difficulties sending their offer, they must promptly notify CalSTRS Procurement.

b. Offers must be received no later than the offer due date and time. Offers received after the specified date and time may be rejected.

c. CalSTRS will only accept ONE offer submission per Respondent. Only ONE file attachment is allowed and must be in the form of .PDF (reduced file size) or a compressed zip file. The file title must not exceed thirty (30) characters and must include the Respondent Firm name and ten-digit RFO number (i.e. Vendor A, 5000001234). The file attachment must include all required documents as listed in section D.2. Offer Requirements of this RFO.

d. It is the Respondent’s responsibility to respond with all data/information requested; provide data/information that is deemed adequate for CalSTRS to determine/verify the proposed project person’s ability to perform the tasks/activities defined in Attachment V, Statement of Work; and submit all data/information in the Offer format described in Section D, Subsection 2, Offer Requirements.

e. It is the Respondent’s responsibility to check for and review any addenda and consider such modifications when preparing its submissions.

f. By submittal of an Offer, the Respondent declares that any proposed project person is in compliance with all experience, qualification, and education requirements stipulated in the Respondent’s applicable Leveraged Procurement Agreement.

g. If a Respondent has assigned contract person to CalSTRS under an existing agreement, the Respondent should not offer the same contract person for this RFO if the current term of the existing agreement and the estimated start of these RFO services will overlap. These Offers, if received, may be rejected at CalSTRS discretion.

h. This RFO and all Offers in response to this RFO will be made a part of the resulting contract file. All documents submitted in response to this RFO will become the property of the State of California and

I I

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IDW Technical Resources may be subject to review by or release to the public under the California Public Records Act, Government Code section 7920.000 et seq.

i. CalSTRS encourages Respondents to submit their Offers early.

j. CalSTRS accepts no responsibility for any technical difficulties associated with the electronic submission and transmission of any Offer.

k. CalSTRS will not disseminate the competitive processes and attachments hereto in any other format (i.e. Microsoft Word).

l. Costs for developing Offers and in anticipation of award of an agreement are entirely the responsibilities of the Respondents and shall not be charged to CalSTRS.

m. Respondents may modify their Offer, after its submission, by withdrawing their original Offer and resubmitting a new Offer prior to the Offer Due Date. Offer modifications submitted in any other manner, oral or written, or after the Offer Due Date will not be considered. Respondents may withdraw their own Offer by submitting a written withdrawal request to the CalSTRS Contact via email at ITProcurement@CalSTRS.com. Respondents may thereafter submit a new Offer prior to the Offer Due Date.

n. CalSTRS may modify the RFO prior to the Offer Due Date by issuing an addendum.

o. Respondents are cautioned to not rely on CalSTRS to discover and report to the Respondent any defects or errors in the submitted documents. Respondents, before submitting their documents, should carefully proofread for errors and ensure adherence to the RFO requirements.

p. CalSTRS reserves the right to cancel this RFO at any time and has the right to reject all Offers.

CalSTRS is not required to award an agreement.

4. Comparison Process

a. Upon receipt, Offers will be checked for the presence or absence of required content. Incomplete Offers may be rejected. No assumptions will be made by CalSTRS regarding the intentions of the Respondent in submitting the Offer.

b. Offers and any subsequent presentations should be submitted with the most favorable terms the Respondent can offer.

c. If CalSTRS is unable to execute an agreement with the most qualified and responsible Respondent, CalSTRS reserves the right to award the agreement to the next qualified and responsible Respondent.

d. Offers will be reviewed to determine best value using the following phases:

PHASES

1 PREQUALIFICATION OF MINIMUM ADMINISTRATIVE

AND TECHNICAL QUALIFICATIONS

Pass/Fail

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PHASES

2 ROLE TECHNICAL QUALIFICATION REVIEW 70 points / Per Role 3 COST COMPARISON 30 points / Per Role

PHASE 2 + PHASE 3 SCORE 100 points

4 INTERVIEWS (OPTIONAL) 100 points / Per Role REFERENCE CHECKS (OPTIONAL) Pass/Fail

5 COST NEGOTIATIONS Pass/Fail

1) In Phase 1, the Respondent’s offer will be reviewed for compliance with the minimum qualifications, content and format requirements of the RFO. Both the minimum administrative and technical qualifications must be met as specified in Section C, Qualifications Requirements.

Failure to satisfy any of part of prequalification may result in the immediate disqualification of the offer and/or applicable proposed project person.

2) Proposed project personnel who meet the minimum qualifications will move to Phase 2, Technical Qualification Review. Each proposed project person’s expertise, experience, and education will be reviewed and scored based on the information provided in their Attachment II, Skill Summary Sheet (which also includes desirable qualifications), and resume.

3) In Phase 3, Cost Comparison, the hourly rate provided in the Respondent’s Attachment I, will be scored using the cost formula indicated below. The Respondent’s proposed project person with the lowest hourly rate will receive the full allotment of points. All other Respondents’ proposed project personnel will be scored as follows:

Lowest Hourly Rate x Maximum Number of Points (30) = Personnel’s Score Personnel’s Proposed Hourly Rate

4) In Phase 4, highest scoring proposed project person(s) after Phase 2, Technical Qualification Review and Phase 3, Cost Comparison may be invited for one or more rounds of interviews, at CalSTRS’ discretion. Reference checks may be conducted.

5) In Phase 5, if interviews are conducted, CalSTRS will negotiate rates with the Respondent whose proposed project person scored the highest points from Phase 4, subject to passing reference checks at the option of CalSTRS. If interviews are not conducted, CalSTRS will negotiate rates in Phase 5 with the Respondent(s) whose proposed project person(s) received the highest total points from Phase 2 and Phase 3, subject to passing reference checks at the option of CalSTRS.

5. Award

a. If CalSTRS enters into an agreement, it will be with the highest scoring responsible and responsive Respondent(s)/Proposed Personnel, as detailed above, subject to optional reference checks including passing the cost negotiation phase and satisfying all the requirements for this RFO. Respondents should review the attached Sample Agreement for a sample of the agreement that will be awarded.

b. If CalSTRS is unable to execute an agreement with the highest scoring Respondent(s)/Proposed Personnel, CalSTRS reserves the right to award to the next highest scoring responsive Respondent(s)/Proposed Personnel in line.

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c. Multiple project personnel may be selected from this RFO.

d. The Respondent, if awarded an agreement, must register in the CalSTRS integrated financial system, the SAP Business Network. This portal provides direct access to administering product and service delivery with CalSTRS. Click on the hyperlink to register:

https://s1.ariba.com/Sourcing/Main/ad/selfRegistration?realm=calstrs.

e. If at any time during or at the conclusion of this RFO process CalSTRS determines that, in its opinion, the results of this process are unsatisfactory, CalSTRS reserves the right to cancel this RFO, discontinue this process and decline to award an agreement.

f. In the event of a tie, (i.e. two Respondent’s proposed project persons with the same highest score), the award shall be determined by a coin toss.

6. Payment Structure

The payment structure for activities performed under Attachment V, Statement of Work, is hourly.

Invoices shall be submitted in triplicate not more frequently than monthly in arrears.

Invoice(s) must include: 1) Purchase Order Number, 2) Contractor’s name, address and telephone number,

3) total amount of invoice, 4) copies of the Contractor’s weekly status reports that cover the invoice dates, and 5) a copy of the timesheet approved/signed by the CalSTRS Contract Manager that covers the invoice dates.

7. Services or Procurement Resulting from Agreement

No person, firm, or subsidiary thereof awarded an agreement resulting from this RFO may submit a bid for, nor be awarded a contract for, the provision of services, procurement of goods or supplies, or any other related action which is required, suggested, or otherwise deemed appropriate in the end product of an agreement resulting from this RFO. (Public Contract Code §10365.5).

8. Workers’ Compensation/Employer’s Liability Insurance

Contractor shall maintain statutory workers’ compensation and employer’s liability coverage for all its employees who will be engaged in the performance of the agreement, including special coverage extensions where applicable.

9. Security

Contractor shall perform a background investigation on all of Contractor’s employees, subcontractors and agents assigned to perform the services, or any part of the services, pursuant to the agreement (the “Contractor Personnel”), per the provisions of the attached Sample Purchasing Authority Purchase Order Agreement, Section G - Affirmative Covenants, Item 10 – Security, and must demonstrate compliance with Exhibit E, CalSTRS Contractor Background Investigation Policy. CalSTRS reserves the right to conduct a background investigation on the Contractor’s personnel, at its sole discretion.

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ATTACHMENT I

Information and Offer Sheet

Respondent Firm Name Firm Address

Street Address City, State, Zip Code

Information Technology CMAS & Small Business / DVBE Certification

CMAS Number CMAS Term Dates Certified Small Business Enterprise (Yes or No) If Yes, provide DGS certification number Certified Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise (Yes or No) If Yes, provide DGS certification number

Administrative Contact

Name and Title Office Telephone # (Include area code) Cell Telephone # (Include area code) Email Address

Authorized Signer

Name and Title Office Telephone # (Include area code) Cell Telephone # (Include area code) Email Address

Proposed Project Personnel and Rate

Proposed Project Person #1 (Lead Developer - Mandatory)

Name of Proposed Project Person CMAS Job Title (Must be a job title listed in the Available Products and/or Services of your CMAS) CMAS (GSA) Hourly Rate Discount Hourly Rate Offered

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Proposed Project Person #2 (Solution Architect) Name of Proposed Project Person CMAS Job Title (Must be a job title listed in the Available Products and/or Services of your CMAS) CMAS (GSA) Hourly Rate Discount Hourly Rate Offered

Proposed Project Person #3 (Front-End Developer) Name of Proposed Project Person CMAS Job Title (Must be a job title listed in the Available Products and/or Services of your CMAS) CMAS (GSA) Hourly Rate Discount Hourly Rate Offered

Proposed Project Person #4 (Back-End Developer) Name of Proposed Project Person CMAS Job Title (Must be a job title listed in the Available Products and/or Services of your CMAS) CMAS (GSA) Hourly Rate Discount Hourly Rate Offered

Proposed Project Person #5 (Back-End Developer) Name of Proposed Project Person CMAS Job Title (Must be a job title listed in the Available Products and/or Services of your CMAS) CMAS (GSA) Hourly Rate Discount Hourly Rate Offered

Proposed Project Person #6 (Back-End Developer) Name of Proposed Project Person CMAS Job Title (Must be a job title listed in the Available Products and/or Services of your CMAS) CMAS (GSA) Hourly Rate Discount Hourly Rate Offered

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ATTACHMENT II

Proposed Project Person Skill Summary Sheet

This sheet must be completed by each Proposed Project Person.

Proposed Project Person Name

The proposed project person’s expertise, experience, and education will be reviewed and scored based on the information including descriptions provided in this Attachment (which also includes desirable qualifications), and resume.

Follow the format prescribed below. The work experiences, skills and abilities listed in each description must be verifiable by proposed personnel references and resumes. A statement such as, Refer to Resume, is not acceptable. All fields must be completed.

MINIMUM TECHNICAL QUALIFICATIONS

Lead Developer

1. At least (10) years of experience in data/BI engineering or analytics. YES/

NO

TOTAL

NO. OF

YEARS

Do you meet the above minimum qualification?

Provide a detailed description of specific work experience that meets the minimum qualification.

Description

Employer and Work Location(s) Date Range(s) No. of Years From (MM/YYYY) To (MM/YYYY)

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2. At least (5) years of experience in leading a team (at least 3 members) to implement enterprise-level BI and/or large data warehouse solutions.

YES/

NO

TOTAL

NO. OF

YEARS

Do you meet the above minimum qualification?

Provide a detailed description of specific work experience that meets the minimum qualification.

Description

Employer and Work Location(s) Date Range(s) No. of Years From (MM/YYYY) To (MM/YYYY)

3. At least (5) years of experience working with AI/ML or GenAI technologies. YES/

NO

TOTAL

NO. OF

YEARS

Do you meet the above minimum qualification?

Provide a detailed description of specific work experience that meets the minimum qualification.

Description

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4. At least (2) proven deliveries of production-grade BI or data products (dashboards, data models, APIs).

YES/

NO

TOTAL

NO. OF

YEARS

Do you meet the above minimum qualification?

Provide a detailed description of specific work experience that meets the minimum qualification.

Description

Employer and Work Location(s) Date Range(s) No. of Years From (MM/YYYY) To (MM/YYYY)

5. At least (2) years of experience with ETL/ELT pipelines, data warehousing platforms such as Snowflake, Amazon Redshift, and orchestration tools (Airflow, dbt, etc.)

YES/

NO

TOTAL

NO. OF

YEARS

Do you meet the above minimum qualification?

Provide a detailed description of specific work experience that meets the minimum qualification.

Description

IDW Technical Resources

6. At least (2) years of experience using OpenAI APIs or similar LLM platforms, building natural language to SQL/query systems, designing prompt strategies for business insights and analytics, and prompt engineering to guide the platform's system behavior.

YES/

NO

TOTAL

NO. OF

YEARS

Do you meet the above minimum qualification?

Provide a detailed description of specific work experience that meets the minimum qualification.

Description

Employer and Work Location(s) Date Range(s) No. of Years From (MM/YYYY) To (MM/YYYY)

7. At least (2) years of experience in SQL (advanced joins, window functions, performance tuning), data modeling (star/snowflake schemas, semantic layers), and hands-on experience with at least one major BI tool such as Power BI, Tableau, Looker.

YES/

NO

TOTAL

NO. OF

YEARS

Do you meet the above minimum qualification?

Provide a detailed description of specific work experience that meets the minimum qualification.

Description

IDW Technical Resources

8. At least (2) years of experience leading a team of analysts and developers, as well as collaborating with stakeholders, to discover, document, and implement requirements and stakeholder requests for data warehouse or business intelligence projects.

YES/

NO

TOTAL

NO. OF

YEARS

Do you meet the above minimum qualification?

Provide a detailed description of specific work experience that meets the minimum qualification.

Description

Employer and Work Location(s) Date Range(s) No. of Years From (MM/YYYY) To (MM/YYYY)

Solution Architect

1. At least (15) years of experience in the Information Technology (IT) field with extensive experience in positions of technical developer/lead, software engineer, application architect, enterprise architect, etc.

YES/

NO

TOTAL

NO. OF

YEARS

Do you meet the above minimum qualification?

Provide a detailed description of specific work experience that meets the minimum qualification.

Description

IDW Technical Resources

2. At least (10) years of experience incorporating an industry's open & non-proprietary SDLC methodology to lead and manage various technical aspects of solution/software implementation projects, while facilitating and collaborating closely with organization's IT divisions and business stakeholders to follow all applicable project's implementation standards, processes, procedures, and best practices, etc.

YES/

NO

TOTAL

NO. OF

YEARS

Do you meet the above minimum qualification?

Provide a detailed description of specific work experience that meets the minimum qualification.

Description

Employer and Work Location(s) Date Range(s) No. of Years From (MM/YYYY) To (MM/YYYY)

3. At least (7) years of experience of architecting, designing & implementing AI/ML use cases or GenAI solutions.

YES/

NO

TOTAL

NO. OF

YEARS

Do you meet the above minimum qualification?

Provide a detailed description of specific work experience that meets the minimum qualification.

Description

IDW Technical Resources

4. At least (5) years of experience in leading cloud architecture (AWS, Azure, GCP) for large or complex environments (multi-tier apps, enterprise integrations, or migrations), and proven delivery of end-to-end cloud solutions (not just components).

YES/

NO

TOTAL

NO. OF

YEARS

Do you meet the above minimum qualification?

Provide a detailed description of specific work experience that meets the minimum qualification.

Description

Employer and Work Location(s) Date Range(s) No. of Years From (MM/YYYY) To (MM/YYYY)

5. At least (3) years of experience in designing high availability & fault-tolerant systems, and cost optimization strategies on SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS, etc.

YES/

NO

TOTAL

NO. OF

YEARS

Do you meet the above minimum qualification?

Provide a detailed description of specific work experience that meets the minimum qualification.

Description

IDW Technical Resources

6. At least (2) years of experience in working with AI infrastructure & agentic workflows/orchestration, Generative AI design patterns, cloud strategy & FinOps, hybrid & multi-cloud systems, security & compliance (AI Governance), etc.

YES/

NO

TOTAL

NO. OF

YEARS

Do you meet the above minimum qualification?

Provide a detailed description of specific work experience that meets the minimum qualification.

Description

Employer and Work Location(s) Date Range(s) No. of Years From (MM/YYYY) To (MM/YYYY)

7. At least (2) years of experience in designing Microservices, distributed systems, event-driven and API-based architecture.

YES/

NO

TOTAL

NO. OF

YEARS

Do you meet the above minimum qualification?

Provide a detailed description of specific work experience that meets the minimum qualification.

Description

IDW Technical Resources

Front-End Developer

1. At least (5) years of experience in front-end UX/UI design for analytics dashboards and highly interactive reporting.

YES/

NO

TOTAL

NO. OF

YEARS

Do you meet the above minimum qualification?

Provide a detailed description of specific work experience that meets the minimum qualification.

Description

Employer and Work Location(s) Date Range(s) No. of Years From (MM/YYYY) To (MM/YYYY)

2. At least (4) years of experience in development with React for or building scalable, highly customized production-grade user interfaces.

YES/

NO

TOTAL

NO. OF

YEARS

Do you meet the above minimum qualification?

Provide a detailed description of specific work experience that meets the minimum qualification.

Description

IDW Technical Resources

3. At least (2) years of experience in front-end development with Chainlit or Streamlit for AI/ML or GenAI solutions with complex state management & data handling (e.g., real-time updates; UI states for loading, retries, and partial responses).

YES/

NO

TOTAL

NO. OF

YEARS

Do you meet the above minimum qualification?

Provide a detailed description of specific work experience that meets the minimum qualification.

Description

Employer and Work Location(s) Date Range(s) No. of Years From (MM/YYYY) To (MM/YYYY)

4. At least (2) years of experience in latency handling and async UX patterns, explainable AI interfaces (confidence, sources, disclaimers), and prompt design basics.

YES/

NO

TOTAL

NO. OF

YEARS

Do you meet the above minimum qualification?

Provide a detailed description of specific work experience that meets the minimum qualification.

Description

IDW Technical Resources

5. At least (2) years of hands-on experience and proven ability to build chat interfaces (streaming responses, token handling), and AI-assisted workflows (autocomplete, summarization, recommendations).

YES/

NO

TOTAL

NO. OF

YEARS

Do you meet the above minimum qualification?

Provide a detailed description of specific work experience that meets the minimum qualification.

Description

Employer and Work Location(s) Date Range(s) No. of Years From (MM/YYYY) To (MM/YYYY)

Back-End Developer

1. At least (7) years of experience in the Information Technology (IT) field with extensive experience in report writing, data analysis, or database querying.

YES/

NO

TOTAL

NO. OF

YEARS

Do you meet the above minimum qualification?

Provide a detailed description of specific work experience that meets the minimum qualification.

Description

IDW Technical Resources

2. At least (5) years of experience in data engineering, data warehousing, or BI analytics.

YES/

NO

TOTAL

NO. OF

YEARS

Do you meet the above minimum qualification?

Provide a detailed description of specific work experience that meets the minimum qualification.

Description

Employer and Work Location(s) Date Range(s) No. of Years From (MM/YYYY) To (MM/YYYY)

3. At least (2) years of experience with ETL/ELT pipelines, cloud data warehouses such as Snowflake, Amazon Redshift, Azure Synapse, and orchestration tools (Airflow, dbt, etc.)

YES/

NO

TOTAL

NO. OF

YEARS

Do you meet the above minimum qualification?

Provide a detailed description of specific work experience that meets the minimum qualification.

Description

IDW Technical Resources

4. At least (2) years of experience in SQL (advanced joins, window functions, performance tuning), data modeling (star/snowflake schemas, semantic layers), and hands-on experience with at least one major BI tool such as Power BI, Tableau, Looker.

YES/

NO

TOTAL

NO. OF

YEARS

Do you meet the above minimum qualification?

Provide a detailed description of specific work experience that meets the minimum qualification.

Description

Employer and Work Location(s) Date Range(s) No. of Years From (MM/YYYY) To (MM/YYYY)

5. At least (2) years of hands-on experience in containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes), CI/CD pipelines for ML and data workflows, monitoring and logging for ML and BI systems, cloud infrastructure automation (Terraform, Ansible).

YES/

NO

TOTAL

NO. OF

YEARS

Do you meet the above minimum qualification?

Provide a detailed description of specific work experience that meets the minimum qualification.

Description

IDW Technical Resources

For each DESIRABLE QUALIFICATION, give a brief description of specific work experience that meets/exceeds the criteria and demonstrates the number of YEARS entered, as applicable.

Follow the format prescribed below. The work experiences, skills and abilities listed in each description must be verifiable by proposed personnel references and resumes. A statement such as, Refer to Resume, is not acceptable. CalSTRS may request a copy of the degrees/certification for desirable qualifications.

DESIRABLE QUALIFICATIONS

Lead Developer

1. Holding technical certifications in the areas of:

• AWS certifications

• Snowflake certifications

• BI certifications (Power BI, Tableau)

• AI/ML or GenAI-related coursework or credentials

NO. OF

YEARS

Description

2. Have a bachelor’s degree in computer science, computer engineering, or related fields from an accredited or government sanctioned college/university. CalSTRS may request a copy of the diploma/degree.

YES/

NO

Description

3. The proposed onsite project person will be able to adhere to the hybrid working model by working on-site 2 to 3 business days per week at CalSTRS Headquarters, West Sacramento, CA. (no points)

YES/

NO

Description

IDW Technical Resources

Solution Architect

1. Holding technical certifications in the areas of cloud platform/architecture and/or GenAI or GenBI such as:

• Snowflake SnowPro Advanced – Architect

• AWS Solutions Architect – Professional

• Azure Solutions Architect Expert

NO. OF

YEARS

Description

2. At least two (2) years of experience providing IT consulting services in technical solution implementations to large public/governmental agencies.

NO. OF

YEARS

Description

3. Experience supervising and guiding the implementation using industry standards and best practices such as Project Management Institute (PMI) Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK), Scaled Agile Framework, IEEE, etc.

NO. OF

YEARS

Description

4. Have a bachelor’s degree in computer science, computer engineering, or related fields from an accredited or government sanctioned college/university. CalSTRS may request a copy of the diploma/degree.

YES/

NO

Description

5. The proposed onsite project person will be able to adhere to the hybrid working model by working on-site 2 to 3 business days per week at CalSTRS Headquarters, West Sacramento, CA. (no points)

YES/

IDW Technical Resources

Front-End Developer

1. Holding technical certifications in the areas of:

• AWS certifications

• Snowflake certifications

• BI certifications (Power BI, Tableau)

• AI/ML or GenAI-related coursework or credentials

NO. OF

YEARS

Description

2. At least (5) years of experience in data engineering, data warehousing, or BI analytics. NO. OF

YEARS

Description

3. At least (3) years of experience working with AI/ML or GenAI technologies to design and build AI/GenAI solutions using cloud services such as AWS, Snowflake, or Azure.

NO. OF

YEARS

Description

4. Practical hands-on experience using OpenAI APIs or similar LLM platforms, building natural language to programming languages such as SQL/query, designing prompt strategies for business insights, and prompt engineering to guide system behavior.

NO. OF

YEARS

Description

5. Experience in developing semantic models supporting natural language querying and AI-driven analytics (i.e., GenBI); statistical analysis, predictive analytics, and optimization.

NO. OF

YEARS

IDW Technical Resources

6. Have a bachelor’s degree in computer science, computer engineering, or related fields from an accredited or government sanctioned college/university. CalSTRS may request a copy of the diploma/degree.

YES/

NO

Description

7. The proposed onsite project person will be able to adhere to the hybrid working model by working on-site 2 to 3 business days per week at CalSTRS Headquarters, West Sacramento, CA. (no points)

YES/

NO

Description

Back-End Developer

1. Holding technical certifications in the areas of:

• AWS certifications

• Snowflake certifications

• BI certifications (Power BI, Tableau)

• AI/ML or GenAI-related coursework or credentials

NO. OF

YEARS

Description

2. At least (5) years of experience in front-end UX/UI design for analytics dashboards and highly interactive reporting.

NO. OF

YEARS

Description

3. At least (4) years of experience in development with React for or building scalable, highly customized production-grade user interfaces.

NO. OF

IDW Technical Resources

4. At least (2) years of experience in front-end development with Chainlit or Streamlit for AI/ML or GenAI solutions with complex state management & data handling (e.g., real-time updates;

UI states for loading, retries, and partial responses).

NO. OF

YEARS

Description

5. Experience and understanding in latency handling and async UX patterns, explainable AI interfaces (confidence, sources, disclaimers), and prompt design basics.

NO. OF

YEARS

Description

6. Hands-on experience and proven ability to build chat interfaces (streaming responses, token handling), and AI-assisted workflows (autocomplete, summarization, recommendations).

NO. OF

YEARS

Description

7. At least (3) years of experience working with AI/ML or GenAI technologies. NO. OF

YEARS

Description

8. At least (1) year of hands-on experience using OpenAI APIs or similar LLM platforms, building natural language to SQL/query systems, designing prompt strategies for business insights, and prompt engineering to guide system behavior.

NO. OF

YEARS

Description

9. At least (3) years of experience in semantic layer design, data modeling, and delivering enterprise semantic models across multiple teams for large organizations.

NO. OF

IDW Technical Resources

10. At least (1) year of experience in developing semantic models supporting natural language querying and AI-driven analytics (i.e., GenBI); statistical analysis, predictive analytics, and optimization.

NO. OF

YEARS

Description

11. Have a bachelor’s degree in computer science, computer engineering, or related fields from an accredited or government sanctioned college/university. CalSTRS may request a copy of the diploma/degree.

YES/

NO

Description

12. The proposed onsite project person will be able to adhere to the hybrid working model by working on-site 2 to 3 business days per week at CalSTRS Headquarters, West Sacramento, CA. (no points)

YES/

Technology Services

IDW Technical Resources

ATTACHMENT III

Proposed Project Person…