Electrical Engineer

Reclamation is seeking a career professional looking for an opportunity to capitalize on their expertise as a Electrical Engineer. You can make a difference in the West by assisting in meeting increasing water demands while protecting the environment.

Duty Location: Lakewood, Colorado

• Advises senior leadership, program officials, and colleagues on engineering analysis, recommendations, and study conclusions (e.g., advising director on region-wide implementation plans for new or updated standards and on relay protection planning that cuts across major projects, advising on Category 1 Power Recommendation Information System).

• Develops engineering policies, technical guidelines and standards, and/or project or study objectives. Leads and advises technical teams, directing technical procedures and practices for the teams.

• Provides technical direction, leadership, mentorship, guidance, training, and advice to engineers and technicians and other internal and external stakeholders.

• Provides technical organizational representation and collaboration on teams external to the organization, including external stakeholders and partners.

• Remains current with agency and national standards; drafts, coordinates, and contributes to agency and/or national standards which may include serving on national standards committees in the electrical engineering industry (e.g., North American Electrical Reliability Corporation (NERC), Western Electric Coordinating Council (WECC), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), Centre for Energy Advancement through Technological Innovation (CEATI)).

• Provides technical reviews, peer reviews, and checking of designs, drawings, engineering analysis, technical documents, specifications, cost estimates, and contract correspondence, ensuring documents are accurate and quality assurance processes were followed.

• Directs, plans, develops, and prepares procedures, policies, and/or protocols for electrical engineering studies and special projects that require advanced engineering analysis that extends or modifies theories, concepts, and assumptions or resolves unique or novel problems, conditions, or issues. Develops project job plans, guidelines, protocols, and procedures that are specific to the project and develops new methods and criteria.

• Directs, guides, plans, schedules, coordinates, and conducts electrical engineering facility examinations, reviews, and/or inspections.

• Control System Diagnostics and Testing: Leads and performs diagnostics testing and analysis of excitation and governor control systems including properly tuning these systems for interaction with power system dynamics and stability.
  
  Leads and performs experimental development activities in the field of excitation and governor control systems and power system stability enhancements including creating, designing, and building electrical parts and systems for use in hydroelectric powerplant excitation and governor control systems. Participates in planning the future direction of experimental development and developing new control concepts and methods of improving power system stability and reliability. Leads and defines Reclamation-wide maintenance and testing programs and related operating procedures and practices.In order to qualify for this position, you must meet BOTH the Basic Qualification Requirement and the Additional Qualification Requirements for the grade level described below. Your resume must clearly describe your relevant experience.

BASIC QUALIFICATION REQUIREMENT

To be eligible for the position, you must possess one of the following:

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), 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.

• or-

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.

• or-

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.

• or-

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. (The above examples of related curricula are not all inclusive.)

~AND~

ADDITIONAL QUALIFICATION REQUIREMENTIn addition to the basic education requirement and in order to be rated as qualified for this position, the HR Office must be able to determine that the applicant meets the following education or specialized experience requirement - this information must be clearly supported in the resume.

To qualify at the GS-13 level, applicants must meet one of the following requirements:

A. Specialized Experience: To qualify at the GS-13, you must possess one year of specialized experience equivalent in difficulty and complexity to at least the GS-12 level in federal service having demonstrated experience that demonstrates the particular knowledge, skills, and abilities including, performing duties relative to electric power projects in the areas of testing and diagnostics of hydroelectric generator excitation and governor control systems.

The HR Office must be able to determine that the applicant meets the following education or specialized experience requirement - this information must be clearly supported in the resume.

IN DESCRIBING YOUR EXPERIENCE, PLEASE BE CLEAR AND SPECIFIC. WE MAY NOT MAKE ASSUMPTIONS REGARDING YOUR EXPERIENCE. If your resume does not support your questionnaire answers, we will not allow credit for your response(s).

You must include months, years and hours per week worked to receive credit for your work and/or volunteer experience. One year of specialized experience is equivalent to 12 months at 40 hours per week.

Part-time hours are prorated. You will not receive any credit for experience that does not indicate exact hours per week or is listed as "varies".

Definition of Professional Engineering Experience: The professional engineering experience required for grades GS-7 and above is defined as non-routine engineering work that required and was characterized by (1) professional knowledge of engineering; (2) professional ability to apply such knowledge to engineering problems; and (3) positive and continuing development of professional knowledge and ability. Professional knowledge of engineering is defined as the comprehensive, in-depth knowledge of mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences applicable to a specialty field of engineering that characterizes a full 4-year engineering program leading to a bachelor's degree, or the equivalent.

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 meet all Eligibility and Qualification requirements, including time-in-grade restrictions and any selective placement factors if applicable, by 05/02/2024.