The NASA Ames Research Center is seeking candidates to serve as a systems engineer within the Mission Design Center Technical Area of the Spaceflight Division. In this role, you will lead a multidisciplinary team that supports the design, analysis, and development of mission concepts and technology demonstration activities using multiple, simultaneous design engineering methodologies.

Duties

Duties described below are at the full-performance level. Duties assigned at a lower grade level will be of more limited scope, performed with less independence and limited complexity; duties will be commensurate with the grade of selected employee. Foster a culture of engagement, diversity, inclusiveness, excellence and innovation. Champion NASA's commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility to create an environment that promotes a commitment to safety, integrity, and teamwork. Manage and integrate stakeholder goals and objectives to define feasible mission concept designs utilizing the concept maturity level (CML) framework. Identify key mission design drivers based upon science traceability matrix, technology demonstration traceability matrix, or similar mission objectives-based framework. Generate mission requirements from concept goals and objectives and utilize key driving assumptions to facilitate rapid convergence on various mission scenarios. Identify and establish architectures, trade studies, analysis tasks, and methodologies necessary to integrate components, assemblies, subsystems, and systems to achieve design convergence. Lead sensitivity analysis, trajectory analysis, flight system configuration, block diagram approaches, and interface analysis to define launch system, flight system, data system, and ground system mission segments. Perform risk analysis to assess key technical and programmatic risks for mission concept teams. Develop and oversee the generation of technical budgets, including master equipment lists, delta V, power, communication, or data system designs, to ensure that adequate performance margins are met. Provide technical leadership of some or all aspects of mission architecture definition and/or trade-off analyses utilizing systems engineering and/or project management best practices to assess mission resources and schedules.

Requirements

• This position is open to U.S. citizens, nationals or those who owe allegiance to the U.S.
• Position subject to pre-employment background investigation.
• You must meet qualifications requirements by the closing date of this announcement.
• This position may require a one year trial period.

Qualifications

In addition to the Basic Education Requirement (in the Education section below), to qualify for this position you must meet the requirements below. Specialized experience is experience that has equipped you with the particular ability, skill, and knowledge to successfully perform the duties of this position and is typically in or related to this line of work. NASA utilizes OPM-approved qualification and rating requirements specific for Aerospace Technology (AST) positions which recognizes NASA's unique aerospace work. The specific qualifications and minimum education requirements are further described below and within the education section of the job announcement. To qualify for GS-13, you must have one year of directly related specialized experience equivalent to the GS-12 level: Participating in a mission concept development team to perform mission requirements development, feasibility assessments, trade studies, or risk assessments; either as a team member providing inputs or coordinating team member inputs for the analysis; Performing mission design and analysis in the areas of launch systems, orbital trajectory designs, spacecraft subsystem analyses, or mission design; Creating accurate, cohesive, high quality technical reports. To qualify for GS-14, you must have one year of directly related specialized experience equivalent to the GS-13 level: Leading a mission concept development team to perform mission requirements development, feasibility assessments, trade studies, or risk assessments; as a team member providing inputs and coordinating team member inputs for the analysis; Leading a mission design team, directing technical tasks, and interfacing with customer and stakeholders; Producing and presenting accurate, cohesive, high quality technical reports. Your resume must include a clear and detailed narrative description, in your own words, of how you meet the required specialized experience. Experience statements copied from a position description, vacancy announcement or other reference material constitutes plagiarism and may result in disqualification and losing consideration for the job.

Education

Basic Education Requirement: You must have successfully completed a bachelor's degree with a major in one of the following:
a) Engineering from a college or university that has ABET accredited engineering programs
b) Physical Science, Mathematics, Life Science or other field of Science
c) Computer Science that included 30 semester hours or 45 quarter hours of course work in any combination of mathematics, statistics and computer science with at least half of those hours in mathematics and statistics courses that included differential and integral calculus; and that provided an in-depth knowledge of theoretical and practical applications of computer science, including digital computer system architecture and system software organization, the representation and transformation of information structures, and the theoretical models for such representations and transformations.

If you did not complete a qualifying bachelor's degree, you may be eligible if you have obtained a graduate degree in an AST qualifying field, as listed above.

Degrees in engineering technology are not considered qualifying for this position.

Engineering degrees earned within the United States: Engineering degrees earned within the United States must be from a college or university that has at least one ABET accredited engineering program. To find out if a school has at least one ABET accredited program, please visit http://www.abet.org.

Engineering degrees earned outside the United States: Engineering degrees earned outside the United States must be recognized by a Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA), often known as accords. These are non-governmental agreements among organizations that accredit academic degree programs. MRAs recognize the substantial equivalence of mature accreditation systems and programs accredited by signatory organizations within their jurisdictions. For a listing of Signatories, please visit, https://www.abet.org/global-presence/mutual-recognition-agreements/is-your-program-recognized/.

Science and other related degrees earned within the United States: Science and other related degrees must have been awarded from colleges or universities that are accredited by recognized accrediting organizations. For a list of schools that meet this criteria, go to http://ope.ed.gov/accreditation/.

Science and other related degrees earned outside the United States: If you are using education completed in foreign colleges or universities to meet the qualification requirements, you must show that the education credentials have been evaluated by a private organization that specializes in interpretation of foreign education programs. These education credentials must be deemed equivalent to that gained in an accredited U.S. education program; or full credit has been given for the courses at a U.S. accredited college or university. For further information, visit: https://sites.ed.gov/international/recognition-of-foreign-qualifications/.

All degrees must have been received in the year of, or any year subsequent to the original date of accreditation.

Contacts

• Address Ames Research Center Moffett Blvd Mountain View, CA 94035 US
• Name: NASA Shared Services Contact Center
• Phone: 1-877-677-2123
• Email: [email protected]