Electronics Engineer

US National Telecommunications and Information Administration; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 65,000 - 105,000; Full time

Job summary

The US National Telecommunications and Information Administration seeks an Electronics Engineer to support the Department of Commerce. The position follows OPM qualification standards for federal engineering roles at the GS-11 level. Candidates must have a bachelor’s degree in engineering (ABET-accredited) or equivalent, with one year of specialized experience.

Ph.D. degrees or 3 years of related graduate study may substitute, or a combination of education and experience that meets 100%

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in engineering from an ABET-accredited program or equivalent.
• One year of specialized experience equivalent to GS-9 in the Federal Service.
• Substitution: Ph.D. degree or 3 years of progressively higher-level graduate education.
• Combination of education and experience may be used to qualify (>=100%).

Responsibilities

• Design electronics materials used in detection, ranging, viewing, illumination, surveying and/or data processing.
• Assist in development of maintenance programs, training equipment and/or repair procedures.
• Prescribe corrective measures to resolve equipment failure; analyze wireless communications systems.

Education

ABET-accredited engineering program

Job description

This vacancy is for an Electronics Engineer in the National Telecommunications and Information Administration within the Department of Commerce.

Qualification requirements in the vacancy announcements are based on the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Qualification Standards Handbook, which contains federal qualification standards. This handbook is available on the Office of Personnel Management's website located at: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-standards/#url=Occupational-Series
Applicants must possess one year of specialized experience equivalent in difficulty and responsibility to the next lower grade level in the Federal Service. Specialized experience is experience that has equipped the applicant with the particular competencies/knowledge, skills and abilities to successfully perform the duties of the position. This experience need not have been in the federal government.

Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations e.g., professional; philanthropic, religious; spiritual; community, student, social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies; knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience.
To qualify at the GS- 11 level:

BASIC REQUIREMENT- EDUCATION

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. The adequacy of such background must be demonstrated by one of the following:

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) examination or any other written test required for professional registration by a 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).

SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE

To qualify at the GS-11 level, you must possess one full year (52 weeks) of specialized experience equivalent to the GS-9 in the Federal Service or its non-Federal equivalent performing the following:

• Designing electronics material used in such activities as detection, ranging, viewing, illumination, surveying and/or data processing;
• Assisting in the development of maintenance programs, training equipment and/or repair procedures;
• Prescribing corrective measures to resolve equipment failure; AND
• Analyzing wireless communications systems

-OR-

SUBSTITUTION OF EDUCATION

Applicants may qualify with 3 years of progressively higher-level graduate education leading to a Ph.D. degree, OR a Ph.D. or equivalent doctoral degree.

COMBINATION OF EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE

A combination of education and experience may be used to qualify for this position as long as the computed percentage of the requirements is at least 100%.