This position is located in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), Southwest Fisheries Science Center (SWFSC) with one vacancy in San Diego, CA. This is a term appointment not to exceed 13 months with possible extensions up to a total of 10 years without further competition. Appointment to this position will not convey permanent status in the Federal service.

Duties

As an Electronics Technician, you will perform the following duties: Serve as an Electronics Technician in support of the Ecosystem Science Division with an emphasis on maintenance of electronic systems and subsystems, and deployment of autonomous instruments, including ocean buoys, aerial and underwater electric vehicles. Work in a team or individually to build, maintain, and deploy electronic instrumentation to measure physical properties of the Earth System. Use established protocols, and install, service, and provide basic repairs for electronic equipment on autonomous instruments (e.g. subsurface moorings, autonomous aerial and underwater vehicles) including testing, adjusting, and troubleshooting components, printed circuit boards (PCBs), and sub-assemblies. Load, update, and modify software. Calibrate electronic equipment, including active and passive acoustic sonars. Perform PCB assembly, testing, and verification using PCB soldering stations, oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and other testing equipment. Verify the validity of instrumentation by testing and using engineering and software analysis tools. Utilize knowledge of random processes (i.e. noise, sampling theory, spectral estimation, digital filtering, down-sampling, and other signal processing methods, for detection, estimation, and signal-to-noise ratio improvement), in order to develop and use hardware and implement digital signal processing algorithms for real time operation. Use basic programming languages, such as C, C++, CRBasic, LabVIEW, MATLAB, and Python to write code to ensure quality control of data collected environmental sensing systems. Use digital signal processing techniques to summarize passive acoustic sonar data using established protocols, and then summarize results in simple technical reports.

Requirements

Qualifications

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 EDUCATION: There is no positive education requirement for this position. SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE: 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 ZT-3 or GS-09 level: SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE: Applicants must possess one full year (52 weeks) of specialized experience equivalent to the ZT-2 pay band or GS-08 grade level work in the Federal service. Specialized experience must include ALL of the following: Assisting with maintaining electronic systems or equipment, such as for ocean buoys, aerial or underwater electric vehicles, or related equipment; and Utilizing testing techniques to analyze and ensure that electronic systems or equipment are in operational condition. OR SUBSTITUTION OF EDUCATION: Two full years of graduate education or a master's degree in electrical engineering, electronics engineering, or electronics technology. OR COMBINATION OF EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE: A combination of education and experience as described above. Note: Only graduate education in excess of one year is qualifying for combination. CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT/PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS: This position requires the operation of a Federal motor vehicle. This position has physical requirements. At sea deployment for up to 30 days per year. Sea duty will necessarily involve operations in remote and offshore areas with daily duties that are conducted in a demanding physical maritime environment. These operations will involve maintenance, deployment, and troubleshooting of electronic components of fisheries or oceanographic sampling gear while exposed to weather and various sea states, over long, odd hours, and lifting and moving heavy equipment or biological samples (up to 50 pounds) repeatedly during the day, on an unsteady deck, depending on sea state. Position requires driving a government vehicle for field work, movement of equipment and/or supplies between buildings, acquisition of supplies, or meetings at other locations. Must be able to obtain and maintain a valid state driver's license to operate a government vehicle.

Education

College Transcript: If you are qualifying based on education, submit a copy of your college transcript that lists college courses detailing each course by the number and department (i.e., Bio 101, Math 210, etc.), course title, number of credit hours and grade earned. You must submit evidence that any education completed in a foreign institution is equivalent to U.S. education standards with your resume. You may submit an unofficial copy of the transcript at the initial phase of the application process. If course content cannot be easily identified from the title of the course as listed on your transcript, you must submit an official course description from the college/university that reflects the content at the time the course was taken.

Note: Your college transcript is used to verify successful completion of degree, or college course work. An official college transcript will be required before you can report to duty.

Special Instructions for Foreign Education: Education completed in foreign colleges or universities must be evaluated in terms of equivalency to that acquired in U.S. colleges and universities. Applicants educated in whole or in part in foreign countries must submit sufficient evidence, including transcripts, to an accredited private organization for an equivalency evaluation of course work and degree. A listing of these accredited organizations can be found on the Department of Education's website. You MUST provide a copy of the letter containing the results of the equivalency evaluation with a course by course listing along with your application. Failure to provide such documentation by the closing date of the announcement will result in lost consideration. For more information on how foreign education is evaluated visit: OPM Foreign Education Evaluation.

Contacts

• Address NOAA Office of Human Capital Services (OHCS) 1315 East West Hwy SSMC4 Silver Spring, MD 20910 US
• Name: Applicant Inquiries
• Email: [email protected]