Delegated Authority Having Jurisdiction - Code Compliance

National Institute of Standards and Technology; Gaithersburg (MD); On-site; USD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, MD, seeks a Fire Protection Engineer to evaluate, inspect, and test fire protection and life safety systems. You will ensure compliance with industry standards and codes across diverse occupancies.

The role requires a strong engineering background, professional registration, and experience with ICC and NFPA standards. You will lead design reviews, perform evaluations, and contribute to system commissioning for critical facilities.

Qualifications

• Professional registration or licensure: EI, EIT, or PE in a US state or equivalent.
• FE examination or other licensure tests required by licensure boards.
• 60+ semester hours in physical, mathematical and engineering sciences with specified courses.
• Alternate curriculum accepted with 1+ year professional engineering experience.
• One year specialized experience for ZP-III level; five areas of engineering science referenced.

Responsibilities

• Evaluate and design fire protection and life safety systems across occupancies.
• Review compliance with ICC and NFPA codes and standards.
• Lead commissioning, design reviews, and final approvals for complex systems.

Skills

Fire protection design

Life safety systems

Engineering knowledge

Code compliance

Education

ABET-accredited engineering degree

Tools

ICC codes

NFPA standards

Job description

NIST is seeking a Fire Protection Engineer to support NIST in the evaluation, inspection, and testing of fire protection and life safety systems and sub-systems. Responsibilities include ensuring NIST complies with industry standards and code requirements.

Individual Occupational Requirements Basic Requirements

A. Degree: Engineering. To be acceptable, the program must: (1) lead to a bachelor's degree in a school of engineering with at least one program accredited by ABET; or (2) include differential and integral calculus and courses (more advanced than first-year physics and chemistry) in five of the following seven areas of engineering science or physics: (a) statics, dynamics; (b) strength of materials (stress-strain relationships); (c) fluid mechanics, hydraulics; (d) thermodynamics; (e) electrical fields and circuits; (f) nature and properties of materials (relating particle and aggregate structure to properties); and (g) any other comparable area of fundamental engineering science or physics, such as optics, heat transfer, soil mechanics, or electronics.

OR B. Combination of education and experience -- college-level education, training, and/or technical experience that furnished (1) a thorough knowledge of the physical and mathematical sciences underlying engineering, and (2) a good understanding, both theoretical and practical, of the engineering sciences and techniques and their applications to one of the branches of engineering.

1. Professional registration or licensure -- Current registration as an Engineer Intern (EI), Engineer in Training (EIT)1, or licensure as a Professional Engineer (PE) by any State, the District of Columbia, Guam, or Puerto Rico. Absent other means of qualifying under this standard, those applicants who achieved such registration by means other than written test (e.g., State grandfather or eminence provisions) are eligible only for positions that are within or closely related to the specialty field of their registration. For example, an applicant who attains registration through a State Board's eminence provision as a manufacturing engineer typically would be rated eligible only for manufacturing engineering positions.

2. Written Test -- Evidence of having successfully passed the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE)2 examination or any other written test required for professional registration by an engineering licensure board in the various States, the District of Columbia, Guam, and Puerto Rico.

3. Specified academic courses -- Successful completion of at least 60 semester hours of courses in the physical, mathematical, and engineering sciences and that included the courses specified in the basic requirements under paragraph A. The courses must be fully acceptable toward meeting the requirements of an engineering program as described in paragraph A.

4. Related curriculum -- Successful completion of a curriculum leading to a bachelor's degree in an appropriate scientific field, e.g., engineering technology, physics, chemistry, architecture, computer science, mathematics, hydrology, or geology, may be accepted in lieu of a bachelor's degree in engineering, provided the applicant has had at least 1 year of professional engineering experience acquired under professional engineering supervision and guidance.

Ordinarily there should be either an established plan of intensive training to develop professional engineering competence, or several years of prior professional engineering-type experience, e.g., in interdisciplinary positions. (The above examples of related curricula are not all inclusive.) In addition to the basic requirements, to qualify for the ZP-III position, applicants must have one year (52 Weeks) of specialized experience equivalent to a GS-09 grade level (ZP-II at NIST employees) in the Federal service.

Specialized experience is defined as: Experience designing or reviewing fire protection and life safety systems across various occupancies (business, laboratory, education, and industrial) AND Experience using the ICC suite of codes and NFPA codes and standards OR 3 years of progressively higher-level graduate education leading to a Ph.D. degree or Ph.D. or equivalent doctoral degree.

In addition to the basic requirements, to qualify for the ZP-IV position, applicants must have one year (52 Weeks) of specialized experience equivalent to a GS-12 grade level (ZP-III at NIST employees) in the Federal service.

Specialized experience is defined as: Experience independently leading complex design, peer review, commissioning or final approval of fire protection and life safety systems across multi-hazard, high-complexity, or high-occupancy environments. AND Experience interpreting the ICC suite of codes and NFPA codes and standards to evaluate non-standard designs, variance requests or code equivalencies.

***Selective Placement Factor for the ZP-IV position: Must possess a valid Professional Engi