Department: Department of Veterans Affairs
Location(s): Indianapolis, Indiana
Salary Range: $75374 - $97991 Per Year
Job Summary: THE CLOSING DATE FOR THIS ANNOUNCEMENT HAS BEEN EXTENDED. IF YOU HAD PREVIOUSLY APPLIED, YOU DO NOT NEED TO REAPPLY. These positions are located within the Office of the Chief, under the Deputy Chief, Engineering Service, at the Richard L. Roudebush VA Medical Center, Indianapolis, IN.
Major Duties:
Qualifications: To qualify for this position at the GS-11 level, you must meet one of the following: Experience: At least one (1) full year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade level (GS-10) in the Federal Service that has given you the particular knowledge, skills and abilities required to successfully perform the duties of an Engineering Technician. Examples of qualifying specialized experience include technical work in: drafting, surveying construction estimating, physical science, mathematics, aerospace, architecture, chemicals, electrical or mechanical systems, mining, petroleum, or nuclear systems. Experience in a trade or craft may be credited as specialized experience when the work provided intensive knowledge of engineering principles, techniques, methods, and precedents. Examples are trade positions with substantial developmental, test, or design responsibilities such as: Planner and estimator who analyzed designs for production purposes; Instrument maker or model maker who performed design or development work on devices fabricated. At this grade level, experience should include applying a practical knowledge of a wide range of technical methods, principles, and practices relative to the profession field to prepare complex drawings, estimates, and specifications for architectural, fire and safety, mechanical, plumbing, electrical, telecommunication, electronic and digital controls, and asbestos abatement for the maintenance, repair, alteration, and/or total replacement of facility and building components; preparing, reading, and interpreting engineering and structural drawings and specifications; and making preliminary sketches, concepts, and layouts for complex projects in all construction disciplines; experience with AutoCAD, Revit and Microsoft Office Software including Microsoft Word and Excel NOTE: Experience must be fully documented on your resume and must include job title, duties, month and year start/end dates AND hours worked per week. ~OR~ Education: Successful completion of a Ph.D. or equivalent doctoral degree, or 3 academic years of progressively higher-level graduate education that is directly related to the work of the Engineering Technician position, such as engineering, construction, or industrial technology, and included coursework in drafting. NOTE: Transcripts (unofficial or official) must be submitted with your application materials. Education cannot be credited without documentation. ~OR~ Combination: Equivalent combinations of successfully completed graduate level education (beyond master's degree) and specialized experience, as described above. NOTE: Transcripts (unofficial or official) must be submitted with your application materials. Education cannot be credited without documentation. CERTIFICATION: Engineering technicians may be certified by the National Institute for Certification in Engineering Technologies, an organization sponsored by the National Society of Professional Engineers. Certification by the Institute will be helpful as a measure of the technician's quality of experience. For more information on these qualification standards, please visit the United States Office of Personnel Management's website at https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-standards/. Physical Requirements: The work is mostly sedentary; however, the incumbent must be physically able to climb, crawl, walk and stoop. Work is frequently performed in the cramped and awkward positions. Such work shall require the use of all limbs, a strong back and legs along with good coordination, and balance. Good eyesight, color and depth perception are also requisite to being able to perform at an optimum level. The work may also require being exposed to the elements. Some work may require some physical exertion long periods of standing, walking, bending, climbing, and crawling in or around the facility and construction sites, field inspections, or to observe and study work operations in an industrial, storage, or comparable work area. The EET exercises physical effort in the performance of duties that may include lifting and carrying objects weighing up to 50 pounds. Work hours can vary from the norm, depending upon the circumstances surrounding project performance, which can entail night, weekend, and/or extended work hours.
How to Apply: Please read the entire announcement and all the instructions before you begin an application. To apply for this position, you must complete the initial online application, to include the initial online assessment and submission of the required documentation specified in the Required Documents section above. The complete application package must be submitted by 11:59 PM (ET) on the closing date of the announcement to receive consideration. To preview the questionnaire, click https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/12933081. The application process is as follows: To begin, click Apply Online to create a USA JOBS account or log in to your existing account. Follow the prompts to select your USA JOBS resume and/or other supporting documents. Answer the questions presented in the application and attach all necessary supporting documentation. Click the Submit Application button prior to 11:59 PM (ET) on the announcement closing date, 04/28/2026. After submitting the online application, you will be notified whether or not you are required to take additional online assessments through the USA Hire Competency Based Assessment system. This message will be delivered to you via email notification. The email may be routed to your "Spam" or "Junk" folder. IMPORTANT: If you are asked to take the USA Hire Competency Based Assessments, you will be presented with a unique URL to access the USA Hire system. Access to USA Hire is granted through your USAJOBS login credentials. Be sure to review all instructions prior to beginning your USA Hire Assessments. Click here for Computer System Requirements. Set aside at least 3 hours to take the USA Hire assessments; however, most applicants complete the assessments in less time. If you need to stop the assessments and continue at a later time, you can re-use the URL sent to you via email and also found in your USAJOBS account under the "Track my application" link for the corresponding application. Your responses to the USA Hire Assessments will be reused for one year (in most cases) from the date you complete an assessment. If future applications you submit require completion of the same assessments, your responses will be automatically reused. Visit the USA Hire Applicant Resource Center for practice assessments and assessment preparation resources at https://support-usahire.opm.gov/hc/en-us. To view the announcement status or your application status: https://help.usajobs.gov/how-to. Your application status page is where you can view your application status, USA Hire assessment completion status, and review your notifications sent by the hiring agency regarding your application. Beginning September 27, 2025, Federal agencies will only accept resumes up to two pages in length to comply with the Merit Hiring Plan. Resumes longer than two pages will result in ineligibility for further consideration for the position. USAJOBS will not allow you to upload or build resumes longer than two pages, and you will need to update the resumes in your profile before applying for a job. Resumes should include information relevant to the knowledge, skills, abilities, and competencies of the position to which you are applying. VA is unable to make assumptions about qualifications if not clearly listed. Resumes must be legible so they can be reviewed for eligibility, minimum qualifications and other position requirements listed in the job announcement. Your resume must be 5MB or less. We recommend saving and uploading your resume as a PDF to maintain formatting and number of pages. We also accept GIF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, RTF, TXT, PDF, ODT or Word (DOC or DOCX). We do not accept PDF portfolio files. We recommend using a sans-serif font size like Lato, if available. Other widely available options are Calibri, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, Open San Source Sans Pro, Roboto or Noro Sans. Make your page margins 0.5 inches. Consider using 14-point size font for titles and 10-point for the main text in your resume. The resume builder can help you create a resume using these recommendations and uses the information in your USAJOBS profile to help you get started. Helpful Hints for Creating a Two-Page Resume: Prioritize most relevant and recent experience Use concise, results focused language Align language from the job announcement Focus on demonstrating skills and competencies Remove outdated or unrelated experience Use the USAJOBS resume builder Additional guidance on this new requirement and resume building tools can be found at: https://help.usajobs.gov/faq/application/documents/resume/page-limit.
Application Deadline: 2026-04-28