General Engineer (Lead Engineer)

Department of Transportation; Des Plaines (IL); On-site; USD 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

The Department of Transportation seeks a Lead Engineer to manage highly complex projects and national programs demanding deep engineering knowledge and independent judgment. The role involves coordinating diverse sub-projects and critical activities across multiple sites to ensure timely, compliant delivery.

Qualifications include a Professional Engineering degree (ABET-accredited) and demonstrated experience in planning, coordinating, and resource scheduling for multi-site initiatives.

Qualifications

• Professional Engineering degree; ABET accreditation preferred.
• In-depth knowledge of engineering principles across core areas and the ability to apply calculus and physics as required.
• Ability to demonstrate specialized experience in planning, coordinating, identifying resources, scheduling, and tracking multi-site projects.

Responsibilities

• Lead engineering projects or large national programs with multiple sub-projects.
• Coordinate critical activities across sites and manage complex technical requirements.
• Provide independent judgement in high-stakes program execution and resource allocation.

Skills

Project planning

Coordination

Resource scheduling

Multi-site management

Education

Professional Engineering degree (ABET accredited)

Job description

The Lead Engineer (LE) is responsible for the implementation of highly complex and challenging projects comprised of multiple sub-projects and/or large national programs which require application of in-depth engineering knowledge and independent judgement and the ability to coordinate difficult and/or critical activities.

Basic Requirements:

Degree: Professional 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

Combination of education and experience. For additional information on qualification requirements, please visit the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) website at:

https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-standards/0800/files/all-professional-engineering-positions-0800.pdf

AND

To qualify for this position, you must demonstrate in your application that you possess at least one year of specialized experience equivalent to FV-I (FG/GS-13). Specialized experience is experience that has equipped you with the particular knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform successfully the duties of the position.

Specialized experience includes: Experience in the planning, coordinating, identifying resources, scheduling, and tracking of multi-site engineering projects through completion.

Applicants must include examples of specialized experience in their work history.

Qualifications must be met by the closing date of this vacancy announcement.

Knowledge, Skill, and Ability (KSAs): As a part of the Federal-Wide Hiring Reform Initiative (streamlining the hiring process), the FAA is committed to eliminating the use of the Knowledge, Skills and Ability (KSA) narratives from the initial application in the hiring process for all announcements. Therefore, as an applicant for this announcement, you are NOT required to provide a narrative response in the text box listed below each KSA.

In lieu of providing a KSA narrative response in the text box listed below each KSA section, in your work history, please include information that provides specific examples of how you meet the response level or answer you chose for each KSA. Your work history examples should be specific and clearly reflect the highest level of ability.

Your KSA answers will be evaluated further to validate whether the level that you selected is appropriate based on the work history and experience you provided. Your answers may be adjusted by a Human Resource Specialist as appropriate. Based on this evaluation, applicants will be placed in one of the following categories: score order, category grouping, or alphabetical and referred to the selecting official for consideration.