Construction Engineer at Department of State, Overseas Buildings Operations

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This position is located in the Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations, Construction, Security Management Directorate, and may be assigned to any branch of either the Europe and Eurasia, Near Eastern, South and Central Asia, and Western Hemisphere Area Branches. 

This is a Non-Status, Non- Permanent position. You do not acquire a competitive or excepted service status from this position.

As a Construction Engineer assigned to a domestic duty post, the contractor performs a wide range of engineering functions in support of planning, implementation, and oversight of assigned project(s). The incumbent provides engineering expertise to and works with assigned project team members to achieve the highest possible priority and effectiveness in meeting the scope, schedule, and cost goals of the OBO Construction Management projects.  The incumbent also develops a working knowledge of all technical requirements of projects, including requirements related to other engineering disciplines and architecture, as well as the full range of administrative requirements of projects.  In furtherance of these responsibilities, the contractor performs tasks and assignments that include, but are not necessarily limited to, the following:

• Participates in pre-qualifying potential bidders, bid evaluations and contract award meetings, and ensures that an architectural review of the construction documents have been performed.


• Ensures that an appropriate safety and accident prevention plan is implemented on each project contract.


• Evaluates Contractors' proposed submittal substitutions with engineering implications and makes recommendations to the Branch Chief/Senior Construction Executive.


• Prepares, coordinates and monitors Construction Management Project Supervision Budgets related to assigned projects.


• Supports the Branch Chief/Senior Construction Executive in all contract administration matters dealing with architecture, including negotiation of modifications and/or claims and interpretation of contract requirements.

Basic Requirements:

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)2 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.)

Note: An applicant who meets the basic requirements as specified in A or B above, except as noted under B.1., may qualify for positions in any branch of engineering unless selective factors indicate otherwise.

Applicants must meet all the required qualification requirements, including education, and any selective placement factors described below by the closing date of this announcement. Education may only be substituted in accordance with the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Qualification Standards Handbook. Education must be accredited by an accrediting institution recognized by the U.S. Department of Education in order to be credited towards qualifications. Education completed in foreign colleges or universities may be used to meet the education requirements if you can show that the foreign education is comparable to that received in an accredited educational institution in the United States. It is your responsibility to provide such evidence when applying. Click on the link for a list of accredited organizations recognized as specializing in interpretation of foreign education credentials.

IN ADDITION to the Basic Requirements above, you MUST also have 1 year of specialized experience that is related to the work of the position, is equivalent to at least the GS-13 level in the Federal service, and demonstrates the following:

***Experience in providing concepts, principles, and practices of professional engineer sufficient to anticipate, investigate, evaluate, and resolve engineer problems and issues arising from the conduct of overseas facility construction projects.

***Experience in applying engineering principles and practices related to the design and construction of overseas facilities.

***Experience in applying planning techniques and processes as they relate to management of planning, design, and construction of a wide range of facilities overseas.

***Experience with commercially available construction management software, including, but not limited to: Kahua, Primavera, Aconex, Autodesk Construction Cloud, Revit, or equivalent platforms.

*** Proficiency in in using basic office automation and productivity tools, including word processing, spreadsheets, and presentation software. Ability to conduct simple data analysis in Excel and/or utilizing data visualization tools, such as, but not limited to: Power BI.