Civil Engineer

This position is located in the Regional Offices, Region Four, Mitigation Division, Risk Analysis Branch. The ideal candidate will have experience in dam safety, including experience in dam breach inundation modeling techniques, and in developing and reviewing technical analysis for hazard mitigation projects to ensure technical feasibility and cost-effectiveness.

• Reviewing mitigation project proposals for technical feasibility and benefit/cost effectiveness and recommending acceptance or modifications.
• Working extensively with other FEMA personnel and State Agencies in the implementation of the National Dam Safety Program.
• Supporting grant and contract implementation through the performance of a range of review and management activities.
• Collaborating with others to develop technical guidance materials for briefings, training workshops, and conferences.

At FEMA, our mission is to help people before, during, and after disasters, and every employee at FEMA has a role in emergency management.

Every FEMA employee has regular and recurring emergency management responsibilities, though not every position requires routine deployment to disaster sites.

All positions are subject to recall around the clock for emergency management operations, which may require irregular work hours, work at locations other than the official duty station, and may include duties other than those specified in the employee's official position description.

Travel requirements in support of emergency operations may be extensive in nature (weeks to months), with little advance notice, and may require employees to relocate to emergency sites with physically austere and operationally challenging conditions.

FEMA is committed to ensuring that its workforce reflects the diversity of the nation.

To learn about FEMA's ongoing diversity and inclusion efforts, reasonable accommodation process, and the FEMA Core Values, please visit

• You must be a U.S. citizen to apply for this position.
• You must successfully pass a background investigation.
• Selective Service registration required.
• Current federal employees must meet time-in-grade requirements.
• You must be able to obtain and maintain a Government credit card.
• You must be able to deploy with little or no advance notice to anywhere in the United States and its territories for an extended period of time.

To qualify for this position at the GS-12 level, you must possess one full year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the GS-11 level in the Federal government, which has equipped you with the skills needed to successfully perform the duties of the position.

Experience may be obtained in the federal government, a state or local government, or private sector, and must demonstrate the following:

• Developing and providing technical assistance and training in the implementation of mitigation programs to state, tribal, or local officials.
• Designing or reviewing mitigation project proposals.
• Assisting agencies in the implementation of the National Dam Safety Program.

In addition to the Minimum Qualifications requirement listed above, you must meet the education or combination of education/experience listed below under Basic Requirements.

A. Degree: Engineering.

To be acceptable, the program must:

• lead to a bachelor's degree in a school of engineering with at least one program accredited by ABET; or
• 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:

• statics, dynamics;
• strength of materials (stress-strain relationships);
• fluid mechanics, hydraulics;
• thermodynamics;
• electrical fields and circuits;
• nature and properties of materials (relating particle and aggregate structure to properties);
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.

Please read the following important information to ensure we have everything we need to consider your application:

Do not copy and paste the duties, specialized experience, or occupational assessment questionnaire from this announcement into your resume as that will not be considered a demonstration of your qualifications for this position.

Please limit your resume to five pages.

If more than five pages are submitted, only the first five pages will be reviewed to determine your eligibility and qualifications.

Your resume serves as the basis for experience related qualification determinations, and you must highlight your most relevant and significant work experience and education (if applicable), as it relates to this job opportunity.

Please use your own words, be clear, and specific when describing your work history.

We cannot make assumptions regarding your experience.

Are you qualifying based on your work experience? Qualifications are based on your ability to demonstrate in your resume that you possess one year of the specialized experience for this announcement at a comparable scope and responsibility.

To ensure all of the essential information is in your resume, we encourage you to use the USAJOBS online Resume Builder.

If you choose to use your own resume, it must contain the following information organized by experience/position:

• Job title.
• Name of employer.
• Start and end dates of each period of employment (from MM/DD/YY to MM/DD/YY).
• Detailed description of duties performed, accomplishments, and related skills.
• Hours worked per week (part-time employment will be prorated in crediting experience).

Are you a current or former FEMA Reservist/Disaster Assistance Employee (DAE)? To accurately credit your experience from intermittent positions and Reservist Deployments, you must list the dates (from MM/DD/YY to MM/DD/YY) of deployments that are relevant to your qualifying experience, along with the job title and specific duties you were responsible for during each deployment.

Determining length of General or Specialized Experience is dependent on the above information.

Failure to provide the above information in your resume may result in your application being found not qualified.

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 provides valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment.

You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience.

For additional information on crediting experience and/or education, please reference the OPM General Schedule Qualification Standards.

This position has a positive education requirement, as outlined in the requirements section.

You must submit a copy of your transcripts (unofficial are acceptable) with your online application.

Once selected and prior to appointment, applicants must provide official college transcripts.

Education completed in foreign colleges or universities may be used to meet Federal qualification requirements if you can show that your foreign education is comparable to education received in accredited educational institutions in the United States.

For example, specific courses accepted for college-level credit by an accredited U.S. college or university, or foreign education evaluated by an organization recognized for accreditation by the Department of Education as education equivalent to that gained in an accredited U.S. college or university.

It is your responsibility to provide such evidence with your application.

Visit the Department of Education's Recognition of Foreign Qualifications for more information.

If you receive a conditional offer of employment for this position, you will be required to complete an Optional Form 306, Declaration for Federal Employment, and to sign and certify the accuracy of all information in your application, prior to entry on duty.

False statements on any part of the application may result in withdrawal of offer of employment, dismissal after beginning work, fine, or imprisonment.

The Fair Chance to Compete for Jobs Act prohibits the Department of Homeland Security and its Components from requesting an applicant's criminal history record before that individual receives a conditional offer of employment.

Applicants who believe they have been subjected to a violation of the Fair Chance to Compete for Jobs Act, may submit a written complaint to FEMA

DHS uses E-Verify, an internet-based system, to confirm the eligibility of all newly hired employees to work in the United States.

Learn more about E-Verify, including your rights and responsibilities.

The Department of Homeland Security encourages persons with disabilities to apply, to include persons with intellectual, severe physical or psychiatric disabilities, as defined by 5 CFR § u), and/or Disabled Veterans with a compensable service-connected disability of 30 percent or more as defined by 5 CFR § Veterans, Peace Corps/VISTA volunteers, and persons with disabilities possess a wealth of unique talents, experiences, and competencies that can be invaluable to the DHS mission.

If you are a member of one of these groups, you may not have to compete with the public for federal jobs.

To determine your eligibility for non-competitive appointment and to understand the required documentation, click on the links above or contact the Servicing Human Resources Office listed at the bottom of this announcement.

A one-year probationary period is required for new Federal competitive service employees and new supervisors and managers.

Applying to this announcement certifies that you give permission for DHS to share your application with others in DHS for similar positions.

During the application process, you will have an option to opt-in to make your resume available to hiring managers in the agency who have similar positions.

Opting in does not impact your application for this announcement, nor does it guarantee further consideration for additional positions.

This is a Bargaining Unit position.