Department of Veterans Affairs

Engineering Technician

Durham, North Carolina Full time

Engineering Technician

Department: Department of Veterans Affairs

Location(s): Durham, North Carolina

Salary Range: $77983 - $101383 Per Year

Job Summary: This position is located at the Durham VA Medical Center, Durham NC, and reports to the Supervisory Healthcare Engineer.

Major Duties:

  • Duties include, but are not limited to: Prepares contract drawings and specifications for competitively bid construction and maintenance repair work at this VA Medical Center. Also prepares drawings for outpatient clinic (OPC) level projects. Duties include architectural design, mechanical and electrical design, fire sprinkler design, lighting design, plumbing, heating, air conditioning, ventilation design and asbestos abatement design. Prepares detailed cost estimates for competitively bid construction projects and maintenance and repair work. Serves as Contracting Officer's Technical Representative (COTR) on projects and inspects competitively bid construction and maintenance and repair projects to insure compliance with drawings and specifications. Works with General Contractor to resolve problems that arise due to error or differing site conditions. Coordinates all projects with using service, from conception to completion. Works with service chiefs to prepare project applications, conceptual plans, scope of work and construction documents, etc. Performs assessments in areas of maintenance and repair or remodeling to help determine the presence of asbestos. Reviews change order requests from contractors for accuracy and cost control and negotiates, when necessary. Assists consulting architects and engineers with design of competitively bid construction and maintenance and repair work. Provides existing as built drawings, field measurements, VA construction standards and VA construction specifications. Reviews preliminary design drawings and specifications for errors and omissions and technical soundness. Performs field measurements and gathers engineering data necessary for preparing construction drawings and specifications. Reviews shop drawings and submittals from contractors during construction of new structures or renovation of existing structures for compliance with specifications. Prepares construction progress reports and payment requests for contract construction projects. Maintains record drawings of all Station structures and grounds utilizing AutoCad programs. Makes necessary changes to keep drawings current as remodeling occurs. Record drawings are low priority and accomplished only as time allows. As required, assists in orientation of any temporary technician or draftsman when assigned to the project section. Work Schedule: Monday-Friday 8:00am-4:30pm Virtual: This is not a virtual position. Position Description/PD#: Engineering Technician/PD05413A Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized Critical Skills Incentive (CSI): Not Approved Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized

Qualifications: To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 05/18/2026. Time-In-Grade Requirement: Applicants who are current Federal employees and have held a GS grade any time in the past 52 weeks must also meet time-in-grade requirements by the closing date of this announcement. For a GS-11 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-09. The grade may have been in any occupation, but must have been held in the Federal service. An SF-50 that shows your time-in-grade eligibility must be submitted with your application materials. If the most recent SF-50 has an effective date within the past year, it may not clearly demonstrate you possess one-year time-in-grade, as required by the announcement. In this instance, you must provide an additional SF-50 that clearly demonstrates one-year time-in-grade. Note: Time-In-Grade requirements also apply to former Federal employees applying for reinstatement as well as current employees applying for Veterans Employment Opportunities Act of 1998 (VEOA) appointment. Individual Occupational Requirements: This series covers technical positions supervising, leading, or performing work involving applying a practical knowledge of the: methods and techniques of engineering or architecture; and construction, application, properties, operations, and limitations of engineering systems, processes, structures, machinery, devices, and materials. You may qualify based on your experience as described below: Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-09 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Examples of specialized experience would typically include, but are not limited to: technical work in: drafting, surveying construction estimating, physical science, mathematics, aerospace, architecture, chemicals, electrical or mechanical systems, mining, petroleum, or nuclear systems. NOTE: You must fully support your response to this specialized experience in your resume. Failure to provide enough details may result in being rated ineligible if unable to thoroughly assess your qualifications. 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. Work Environment: The work is mostly performed in an office setting. However, at times the work is performed in a construction site area with inherent dangers. Work is also performed in an asbestos contaminated area on a limited basis. Adequate safety procedures, training and personal protective equipment are provided to make the work environment as safe as possible.· 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/.

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 questionnaire and submission of the required documentation specified in the How to Apply and Required Documents section. 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 application questionnaire, click https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/12953459. 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, 05/18/2026. If you are required to complete any USA Hire Assessments, you will be notified after submitting your application. The notification will be provided in your application submission screen and via email. The notification will include your unique assessment access link to the USA Hire system and the completion deadline. Additionally, in USAJOBS you can click "Track this application" to return to your assessment completion notice. Access USA Hire using your unique assessment link. Access is granted through your USAJOBS login credentials. Review all instructions prior to beginning your assessments. You will have the opportunity to request a testing accommodation before beginning the assessments should you have a disability covered under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as amended. 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 later, you can re-use your unique assessment link. NOTE: 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 update your application, including supporting documentation: During the announcement open period, return to your USAJOBS account, find your application record, and click Edit my application. This option will no longer be available once the announcement has closed. 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: 2026-05-18