Department of Commerce

General Engineer

Washington, District of Columbia Full time

General Engineer

Department: Department of Commerce

Location(s): Washington, District of Columbia

Salary Range: $143913 - $187093 Per Year

Job Summary: This vacancy is to fill multiple General Engineer positions at the Department of Commerce, in the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), within the Export Administration (EA), Office of Technology Evaluation (OTE), Emerging Technology Division (ETD). ETD identifies and analyzes emerging and foundational technologies that are essential to the national security of the United States, pursuant to Section 1758 of the Export Control Reform Act (ECRA) of 2018. You are encouraged to apply!

Major Duties:

  • As a General Engineer, you will perform the following duties: Guide and manage the division's technical assessments, proposed regulatory changes, and other assignments, working independently or with others, and serve as an expert engineering representative in leading and managing the organization both domestically and abroad. Use engineering skills to develop, plan, and conduct studies of emerging and foundational technologies, analyzing their potential risks to national security or foreign policy objectives, and provide findings to senior leadership based on assigned research from various source materials. Evaluate technological trends and technology maturity associated with various emerging and foundational technologies, and develop and recommend export control options to BIS senior leadership to mitigate national security risks associated with these technologies Lead BIS emerging technologies initiatives with the interagency (e.g., Departments of Energy, State, and Defense), the Executive Office of the President, foreign governments, and U.S. industry. This Job Opportunity Announcement may be used to fill other General Engineer GS-0801-14 Full Performance Level (FPL) GS-14 positions within the Department of Commerce in the same geographical location with the same qualifications and specialized experience.

Qualifications: 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. Basic Requirement: 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) 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. (The above examples of related curricula are not all-inclusive). Specialized experience: In addition to the education requirement described above, applicants must also 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. To qualify at the GS-14 grade level, you must possess one full year (52 weeks) of specialized experience equivalent to the GS-13 in the Federal service. Specialized experience is defined as: Applying professional engineering experience to analyze, evaluate, and provide input on policies, programs, or regulatory activities associated with commodities or technologies in one or more of the following areas: advanced computing; advanced engineering materials; advanced gas turbine engine technologies; advanced and network sensing and signature management; advanced manufacturing; artificial intelligence; biotechnologies; clean energy generation and storage; data privacy, data security, and cybersecurity; directed energy; highly automated, autonomous, uncrewed systems, and robotics; human-machine interfaces, hypersonics, integrated communication and network technologies, position, navigation and timing (PNT) technologies; quantum information and enabling technologies; semiconductors and microelectronics; or space technologies and systems; Leads and collaborates with engineering and program management personnel on engineering projects that integrate technologies or disciplines across a wide range of commodities and engineering areas; and Leads and prepares technical analyses, summaries, or reports and communicating technical information to any of the following: leadership, internal stakeholders, external stakeholders, or other relevant audiences to explain engineering concepts, assessment results, or policy-related considerations. The specialized experience must be demonstrated in the resume.

How to Apply: Your complete application, including required documents, must be received by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time (ET) on the closing date of this announcement. To apply on-line, you must complete and submit an application by accessing the USAJOBS website at http://www.usajobs.gov. To begin, click the Apply button and follow the prompts to register/sign-in into your USAJOBS account, answer the questions, and submit all required documents. To return to your saved application, log in to your USAJOBS account at http://www.usajobs.gov and click on "Application Status." Click on the position title, and then select Apply to continue. For instructions on submitting your application in an alternate format, please contact the Agency Contact listed in this vacancy announcement.

Application Deadline: 2026-01-24