Job opening: Interdisciplinary Engineer
Salary: $139 395 - 181 216 per year
Published at: Feb 15 2024
Employment Type: Full-time
The Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) assures that patients and providers have timely and continued access to safe, effective, and high-quality medical devices and safe radiation-emitting products. CDRH facilitates medical device innovation by advancing regulatory science, providing industry with predictable, consistent, transparent, and efficient regulatory pathways, and assuring consumer confidence in devices marketed in the U.S.
Duties
This position(s) is located in the Center for Devices and Radiological Heath (CDRH), Office of Science and Scientific Laboratories (OSEL) in Silver Spring, Maryland. OSEL supports the CDRH mission of protecting and promoting public health.
As an Interdisciplinary Engineer in OSEL, you will be responsible for:
The evaluation of device safety, failure, and/or unsatisfactory performance or design limitations using his/her knowledge of scientific and/or principles and performance parameters and prepares written evaluations with supporting data.
Presenting seminars and data to the Agency as well as to external institutions and by organizing and participating in Center work groups related to scientific issues, device issues, or guidance and policy development.
Conducting reviews of manufacturers’ pre-market submissions of medical devices in conjunction with product evaluation, guidance development, standard setting, and educational activities.
Developing new concepts, hypotheses, and interpretations enabling the team to conduct the experimental and theoretical scientific.
Interacting with internal and external experts to identify, develop, and disseminate state-of- the-art and consensus practices for the evaluation of medical devices.
Requirements
- Citizenship Requirement: You must be a U.S. Citizen to be considered for this advertisement unless explicitly stated otherwise.
- FDA participates in e-Verify: All new hires must complete the I-9 form; this information will be processed through e-Verify to determine your employment eligibility. If a discrepancy arises, you must take affirmative steps to resolve the matter.
- Selective Service Registration: All applicants born male, on (or after) 12/31/1959, must be registered with the Selective Service System OR have an approved exemption. Visit www.SSS.gov for more info.
- Background Investigation Requirement: All employees must pass a security investigation. Failing to pass the background check may be grounds for removal or legal action. If hired, you may be subject to additional investigations at a later time.
- Time-in-Grade Requirement: If you are applying as a current Federal employee, you must meet the time-in-grade requirements described in the Qualifications section, generally, 52-weeks of comparable experience at the next lowest grade.
- Certification of Accuracy: All information concerning eligibility and qualification is subject to investigation and verification. False representation may be grounds for non-consideration, non-selection, or appropriate legal action.
- You must meet ALL requirements by the closing date of this announcement to be considered. Only education, experience, and qualifications attained by this date will be considered. You must continue to meet all requirements through the hiring process.
- Direct Deposit: You will be required to have all federal salary payments electronically deposited into a bank account with a financial institution of your choice.
- Additional selections may be made from this vacancy, within the same geographical area, by other organizational elements from within FDA, through shared corporate recruiting activities.
Qualifications
The position of Interdisciplinary Engineer falls within the 0801/0806/0830/0850 occupational series. To qualify for this position at grade GS-14, you must meet Time-in-Grade requirements by 11:59 pm EST on 02/29/2024.
To Qualify for the GS-0801, General Engineer; GS-0806, Materials Engineer; GS-0830, Mechanical Engineer; or the GS-0850, Electrical Engineer you must meet A or B of the Basic Qualification listed below and the Specialized Experience:
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)2. 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.
AND
Specialized Experience:
For the GS-14 level, you must possess one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the GS-13 or equivalent band level of responsibility in the Federal service, experience includes: Analyzing and interpreting scientific documents, data sets, technical information, and/or opinions related to medical device products; and - Evaluating the accuracy and/or reliability of products such as medical devices and/or radiological products. Contributes to regulatory review and support by utilizing technical knowledge.
In accordance with Office of Personnel Management policy, federal employees are assumed to have gained experience by performing duties and responsibilities appropriate for their official series and grade level as described in their position description. Experience that would not normally be part of the employee's position is creditable, however, when documented by satisfactory evidence, such as a signed memorandum from the employee's supervisor or an SF-50 or SF-52 documenting an official detail or other official assignment. The documentation must indicate whether the duties were performed full time or, if part time, the percentage of times the other duties were performed. It is expected that this documentation is included in the employee's official personnel record. In order to receive credit for experience in your resume that is not within the official series and grade level of your official position, you must provide a copy of the appropriate documentation of such experience as indicated above.
NOTE: It is your responsibility to ensure your responses and appropriate documentation is submitted prior to the closing date. To verify your application is complete, log into your USAJOBS account, https://my.usajobs.gov/Account/Login, select the Application Status link and then select the More Information link for this position. The Details page will display the status of your application, the documentation received and processed, and any correspondence the agency has sent related to this application. Your uploaded documents may take several hours to clear the virus scan process.
IN DESCRIBING YOUR EXPERIENCE, PLEASE BE CLEAR AND SPECIFIC. WE WILL NOT MAKE ASSUMPTIONS REGARDING YOUR EXPERIENCE. Qualifications are based on breadth/level of experience. In addition to describing duties performed, applicants must provide the exact dates of each period of employment (from MM/YY to MM/YY) and the number of hours worked per week if part time. As qualification determinations cannot be made when resumes do not include the required information, failure to provide this information may result in disqualification. Applicants are encouraged to use the USAJOBS Resume Builder to develop their federal resume.
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.
You must submit supporting documentation to verify your eligibility to apply for this vacancy.
For internal applicants an SF-50 will be required. If Educational requirements are listed, you must submit a Transcript, even if you occupy the series/grade in question. See the Required Documents section for full details...
Education
EDUCATION:
If you are claiming education as any part of your qualifications for this position, you must submit an official transcript, unofficial transcript, or a list including courses, grades earned, completion dates, and quarter and semester hours earned. 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 and such education has been deemed equivalent to that gained in an accredited U.S. education program. For further information, click on foreign education.
TRANSCRIPTS:
Positions which are scientific or technical in nature often have very specific educational requirements. You must submit an official transcript, unofficial transcript, or a list including courses, grades earned, completion dates, and quarter and semester hours earned.
If you are using education completed in foreign colleges or universities, see the Foreign Education section below for additional requirements.
Pay careful attention to the Qualifications and Education sections to identify vacancies where a transcript is required. Even if you hold a similar position or are a current employee, you are not exempt from transcript requirements.
Electronic Transcript Caution: If you have obtained your transcripts electronically, the file might contain security measures that could prevent our application system from reading the file. Therefore, you should consider asking the institution to provide the file in a non-secured electronic format. Alternatively, you could scan or take a photo of the printed copy of the transcript. If your uploaded transcript cannot be read by our system, you may receive consideration and credit for the information we can access.
See the Application Manager Documentation for tips on submitting your paper-based documents.
FOREIGN EDUCATION
Applicants using part, or all of their education completed outside of the U.S. to meet the qualification requirements, must have their foreign education evaluated by an accredited organization to ensure that the foreign education is comparable to education received in accredited educational institutions in the U.S. We will only accept the completed foreign credential evaluation.
To be acceptable, the foreign credential evaluation must include/describe at a minimum, the following information: (1) The type of education received by the applicant; (2) The level of education in relation to the U.S. education system, and state that its comparability recommendations follow the general guidelines of the International Evaluation Standards Council; (3) The content of the applicant's educational program earned abroad, and the standard obtained; (4) The status of the awarding foreign school's recognition and legitimacy in its home country's education system; and (5) Any other information of interest such as what the evaluation service did to obtain this information, the qualifications of the evaluator, and any indications as to other problems such as forgery.
Note: Some positions require the completion of specific courses or a specified number of credit hours. Therefore, the foreign credential evaluation should provide information similar to that of an official transcript, to include a list of the courses taken, quarter and/or semester hours awarded, the cumulative grade point average (GPA), honors received, if any, date degree awarded.
Applicants can request an evaluation from a member organization of one of the two national associations of credential evaluation services listed below:
- National Association of Credential Evaluation Services (NACES)
- Association of International Credentials Evaluators (AICE)
Credential evaluations are not free, and applicants are responsible for the cost of the selected service.
For more information about this requirement, please visit the U.S. Department of Education website for Foreign Education Evaluation
Contacts
- Address FDA Center for Devices and Radiological Health
10903 New Hampshire Ave
Silver Spring, MD 20993
US
- Name: FDA Applicant Help Desk
- Phone: 866-807-3742
- Email: [email protected]
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