Job opening: Mechanical Engineer
Salary: $78 592 - 122 459 per year
Published at: Dec 13 2023
Employment Type: Full-time
NIST works with industry and science to advance innovation and improve quality of life. We're looking for a Mechanical Engineer to join our team!
This notice is issued under direct-hire authority to recruit new talent to occupations for which NIST has a severe shortage of candidates.
Duties
The Infrastructure Materials Group, part of the Materials and Structural Systems Division in the Engineering Laboratory, conducts research to predict performance of conventional and innovative materials, components, and systems composing US buildings and infrastructure throughout the service life. This is accomplished by developing a fundamental understanding of the performance properties and the degradation mechanisms when exposed to intended (real world) or accelerated (laboratory) loading environments.
For this position, material systems being evaluated include concrete, aggregate, polymers, and composites that are exposed to environmental stressors. The goal is to improve infrastructure resilience with an improved understanding and the support of standard development that addresses durability. A key focus area for the group is to address the issue of crumbling foundations due the pyrrhotite impurity in concrete aggregate.
If selected, you will:
Assist with method development of tests for concrete and aggregate for the presence of the pyrrhotite mineral.
Contribute to evaluating mitigation methods for disrupting the cracking and mechanical degradation of concrete due to the presence of pyrrhotite.
Perform method development that includes mechanical testing of concrete samples for properties including bend strength and elastic modulus.
Provide hardware and software support for collecting data for test and mitigation efforts.
Requirements
- U.S. citizenship
- Males born after 12-31-59 must be registered for Selective Service
- Suitable for Federal employment
- Bargaining Unit Position: No
Qualifications
Basic Requirements:
A. Degree in 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), 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 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.
In addition to the basic requirements above, applicants must have at least one year (52 weeks) of specialized experience at the GS-09 (ZP-II at NIST) grade level. Specialized experience is defined as experience in carrying out research methodologies in the area of infrastructure resilience and presenting findings of research through either peer-reviewed publications or presentations.
OR
Master's or equivalent graduate degree.
OR
Combination of specialized experience and graduate level education.
Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done. We will credit all qualifying volunteer experience in your application.
The qualification requirements in this vacancy announcement are based on the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Qualification Standards Handbook.
Applicant Reconsideration
Education
This position has an education requirement. Transcripts must be submitted to validate that the education requirement has been met. Unofficial transcripts will be accepted in the application package. However, an official copy will be required prior to a final offer of employment.
Education completed outside of the U.S. must be evaluated by an accredited organization to ensure that it is comparable to education received in accredited institutions in the U.S. Click
here to view a listing of accredited organizations from the Department of Education's website. A copy of the foreign education evaluation (containing the results with a course by course listing) is required with your application.
Contacts
- Address Materials and Structural Systems Division
100 Bureau Drive
Gaithersburg, MD 20899
US
- Name: Evelyn Carter-Hopkins
- Phone: 000-000-0000
- Email: [email protected]
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