FUL - Mechanical Engineer

Summary

This position is in Grand Coulee Power Office of the Bureau of Reclamation, within the Department of the Interior. The incumbent serves as an experienced mechanical engineer, providing mentorship and technical expertise for a variety of complex projects and activities at Grand Coulee Dam, the nation's largest hydropower facility, and the source of water for the Columbia Basin Project, serving irrigation water to more than 670,000 acres in Eastern Washington State.

Duties

Some of the major duties you will perform include but are not limited to the following: Investigating generator performance and resolving operational issues associated with inadequate lubrication or excessive vibration. Designing modifications to auxiliary pump and piping systems that support hydropower generators with capacities of up to 805 MW, modernizing equipment and facility systems to improve facility reliability. Conducting inspections and diagnostic testing during routine maintenance outages to assess equipment condition and continuously improve maintenance processes. Performing acceptance testing for new equipment and overseeing maintenance testing before equipment is returned to service following routine outages, resulting in reliable operation throughout the equipment life cycle. Serve as project manager and/or contracting officer's representative for smaller projects. Represent facility needs in the role of subject matter expert for and product manager for larger and more complex projects managed by a dedicated project manager. Duties will be developmental in nature when filled below the full performance level. This is an open continuous vacancy announcement. The first cut-off date is 11:59 pm ET, 10/27/2026. Initial consideration will be given to candidates whose applications have been received before the first cut-off date. Qualification and/or eligibility requirements must be met for those applications submitted by the first cut-off date. Applicants will be referred periodically throughout the announcement period. . Final application disposition will be completed once all positions have been filled or the announcement reaches the end of the open period stated in the announcement.

Qualifications

Requirements Continued... Under applicable law, the employment of an individual serving a probationary or trial period automatically terminates when that period ends unless the agency affirmatively certifies, in writing, that the individual's employment should continue and that their appointment should be finalized. In the absence of agency action to affirmatively certify continued employment beyond the probationary or trial period, such appointments are terminated. Upon completion of your probationary period your employment will be terminated unless you receive certification, in writing, that your continued employment advances the public interest. All qualifications must be met by the closing date of this announcement-11/11/2026-unless otherwise stated in this vacancy announcement. All candidates must also meet Time-in-Grade requirements. To receive credit for experience, your resume MUST state either "full-time" (or "40 hours a week") or "part-time" with the number of hours worked per week to ensure proper crediting of specialized experience. Failure to adequately provide information needed to determine number of hours worked in each position may result in that time not being credited when evaluating qualifying experience. For periods of time that reflect military service, the DD-214 or Statement of Service is sufficient to meet the full and/or part-time hours requirement as the service dates will be reflected. Minimum Qualification Requirements: To qualify for this position, you must meet the following minimum qualifications: Basic Educational Requirement AND/OR Specialized Experience for the series to which you are applying. Basic Education Requirements; Successfully completed a bachelor's or higher degree in Engineering in a school of engineering with at least one program accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET). OR Successfully completed a bachelor's or higher degree in Engineering that included 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 A 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)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. 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. 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. 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.) -AND- To qualify for this position at the GS-09 grade level: Specialized Experience Requirement: you must possess at least one full year of specialized experience equivalent to the GS-07 level in the Federal service (obtained in either the public or private sectors). Specialized experience is defined as demonstrated experience: Provide support to higher-graded engineers in reviewing inspection data of equipment/systems; knowledge of mechanical engineering concepts; experience developing mechanical engineering designs and plans for mechanical utility systems using computer software. You must include hours per week worked. -OR- Educat