This vacancy is for an Electronics Engineer with the Department of Commerce, National Telecommunications and information Administration (NTIA), Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS).
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-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-standards/#url=Occupational-Series 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. This position is being filled under the Department Of Commerce Alternative Personnel System (CAPS). Under CAPS, positions are classified by career path and pay band. The ZP-4 is equivalent to the GS-13/14 grade levels. To qualify at the ZP-4 level you must meet the following basic requirements and specialized experience. BASIC REQUIREMENTS - All applicants must meet the basic requirements listed below: 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: 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. 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. 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. 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- SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE: You must possess one full year (52 weeks) of specialized experience equivalent to the ZP-3 (or GS-12 equivalent pay band) in the Federal service. Specialized experience is defined as: Applying and interpreting engineering principles, statistical or computational methods, and relevant policies or guidelines to address challenges in the Radio Frequency (RF) spectrum; AND Conducting laboratory and field measurements of electromagnetic or wireless communication systems; AND Preparing and delivering scientific and technical reports, proposals, or publications; AND Presenting and briefing technical results or project progress to internal and external stakeholders; AND Formulating and executing research approaches that address spectrum management challenges. NOTE: Education can not be substituted for experience at the ZP-4 grade level.
As an Electronics Engineer, you will perform the following duties: Perform basic or applied research or engineering in such areas as propagation theory, scattering and diffraction, antenna design and optimization, radiated electromagnetic interference, and microwave systems. Oversee and conduct lab and field measurements and/or develop, refine, and validate state-of-the-art theoretical and empirical radio propagation, spectrum, or wireless system models. Develop software tools that use measurement findings and simulations to evaluate wireless system performance, predict technology behavior under various deployment conditions, and recommend more efficient uses of the radio spectrum. Apply digital signal processing methods-including techniques for noise reduction, sampling, spectral estimation, filtering, and real-time detection and estimation-in software and hardware to analyze wireless signals. Develop research proposals and present plans, progress, financials, and findings to managers, senior officials, and external stakeholders; lead meetings to communicate and coordinate research activities. Author and contribute to peer-reviewed scientific publications in multiple media that advance the scientific and engineering understanding of radio spectrum technologies. This Job Opportunity Announcement may be used to fill other Electronics Engineer ZP-0855-4, FPL ZP-4 positions within the Department of Commerce in the same geographical location with the same qualifications and specialized experience. This position is also advertised under NTIA-ITS-ST-25-12798349, which is open to Merit Promotion eligible applicants. You must apply to both announcements if you want to be considered for both.