Associate Investigator Job

Vacancy No. FDA-OII-25-T21-12571680-DY Department Food and Drug Administration
Salary $55,924.00 to $74,155.00 Grade 00 to 00
Perm/Temp Permanent FT/PT Full-time
Open Date 10/28/2024 Close Date 11/8/2024
Job Link Apply Online Who may apply Public
Locations:
Chicago, ILMinneapolis, MNPittsburgh, PA


Summary

This position is being filled under a stream-lined hiring authority, Title 21 of the United States Code (21 US Code 379d-3a) as amended by the 21st Century Cures Act of 2016, section 3072 and the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, Section 3624. The candidate selected for this position will serve under a career or career-conditional appointment and be paid under the provisions of this authority. This position is being recruited based on the Title 21 Pay Table 1, Band W (GS-7 equivalent).

This job is open to

Clarification from the agency

You must be a U.S. Citizen or U.S. National. Foreign nationals or legal permanent residents are not eligible for consideration. This is a 21st Century Cures Act authority announcement. Traditional federal rules regarding rating, ranking, and veterans' preference do not apply.

Duties

Office of Medical Device and Radiological Health Inspectorate Associate Investigator assignments involve a combination of scientific and regulatory responsibilities which usually call for routine inspections or investigative approaches to be applied to a wide variety of regulatory functions or scientific evaluations and include basic sample collections, medical device establishment inspections, and investigations. Incumbent performs analyses and evaluation on data samples and documented information gathered during inspections and investigations to ensure that documentation and practices are in compliance with Federal laws, rules, and regulations.

Inspections and Investigations

  • Receives advanced training, through classroom and on-the-job instruction, to provide a more thorough understanding of and exposure to FDA laws and regulations, administrative policies, manufacturing processes, good manufacturing practices, and the various methods employed in the conduct of Remote Regulatory Assessments (RRAs), medical device establishment inspections, sample collections, entry review, filer audits and special investigations.
  • Independently carries out the more common and ordinary medical device inspectional assignments in which the employee has received specific or related training. These assignments vary according to the Program to which the employee is assigned but typically are restricted to application of well-defined guidelines to unsophisticated operations to assess the degree of consistency with Good Manufacturing Practices and efficacy of quality controls.
  • Collects samples and conducts field analyses involving environmental sampling and assessment, review for compliance with good manufacturing practices, records review, etc. Traces involved transactions and establishes identity and jurisdiction of transactions not covered by existing records. The incumbent must be familiar with sampling schedule guides and billing and shipping procedures of transportation companies and business firms.
  • Accompanies senior consumer safety officers in the conduct of more complex RRAs, inspections, and investigations. Such assignments involve learning complex manufacturing practices, a broad variety of raw materials, advanced instrumentation and complex assembly line operations, diverse manufactured products, and complicated paperwork; each of which requires separate manufacturing and inspectional techniques. The primary purpose of such inspections are directed toward data integrity and evaluation of quality controls employed by the regulated industries to prevent mix-ups, cross-contamination, and resultant health hazards.
  • Independently investigates routine consumer complaints. Assists other consumer safety officers in the investigation of unusual consumer complaints, e.g., contaminated products, foodborne outbreaks, etc. which are under FDA jurisdiction.
  • Performs other duties as assigned.
Analysis and Reporting
  • Obtains, documents and organizes all required evidence, data and other information to support inspectional or investigational findings, sample collections, and RRAs.
  • Prepares written reports showing results of the inspection/investigation/RRAs and submits to the supervisor or higher graded investigator for review and evaluation.
  • Accompanies experienced inspectors to gain exposure in providing professional testimony in court cases in support of legal action.
Supervisory Responsibilities: This is a non-supervisory role.

Requirements

Conditions of Employment

  • U.S. Citizenship requirement or proof of being a U.S. National must be met by closing date.
  • The candidate selected for this position will serve under a career or career-conditional appointment within the competitive service.
  • Direct Deposit: You will be required to have all federal salary payments electronically deposited into a bank account with a financial institution of your choice.
  • FDA participates in e-Verify: All new hires must complete the I-9 form; this information will be processed through e-Verify to determine your employment eligibility. If a discrepancy arises, you must take affirmative steps to resolve the matter.
  • Males born after December 31, 1959, must be registered with the Selective Service. Please go to http://www.sss.gov for more information.
  • One-year probationary period may be required.
  • Financial Disclosure may be required.
  • Ethics Clearance may be required.
  • Background Investigation Requirement: All employees must pass a security investigation. Failing to pass the background check may be grounds for removal or legal action. If hired, you may be subject to additional investigations at a later time.
  • Certification of Accuracy: All information concerning eligibility and qualification is subject to investigation and verification. False representation may be grounds for non-consideration, non-selection, or appropriate legal action.
  • This position requires the incumbent to have the following current license and/or certification: Must possess a valid driver’s license to drive a government or privately owned motor vehicle.
  • Position requires occasional lifting of heavy objects up to 50 lbs and may require work to be performed in extreme environmental conditions such as dust, cold, hot, noise, etc., extended periods of time.
  • Travel approximately 25-50 percent of the time, which may require the investigator to be away from the duty station for up to two to three weeks at a time.
  • Position may include shift work and/or weekend work.

Qualifications

In order to qualify for the Associate Investigator position which fall under the 0696 Series, you must meet the following requirements by 11:59pm EST onannouncement close date.

Basic Qualification Requirements:
This Investigator job family covers professional positions that conduct inspections in FDA regulated industries and prepare and submit reports accompanied by supporting evidence documenting violations of the FD&C Act and other laws, regulations, and requirements administered by FDA. The position investigates and/or inspects FDA-regulated industry globally and evaluates compliance with U.S. laws and regulations in order to promote a culture of safety and quality with the objective of preventing unsafe, ineffective and/or defective products from becoming available to patients and consumers or used in clinical trials while facilitating appropriate development of novel products. FDA's enforcement of the laws and regulations protects patients and consumers from products that are impure, unsafe, ineffective, improperly or deceptively labeled or packaged, or in some other way dangerous or defective. Investigators routinely examine products; collect samples; conduct inspections of establishments that design, make, process, hold, or distribute FDA-regulated products; and otherwise gather information and evidence to document objectionable conditions and assess compliance with U.S. law and regulations. Investigators apply critical thinking to evaluate manufacturing processes, design practices, facility and material controls, supply chains, quality management systems, laboratory analyses, and clinical investigation programs to assess compliance with U.S. laws and regulations and to support advancements and innovations. Investigators continuously maintain required certification and credentials; provide internal and external stakeholder outreach, assistance, and education; and may mentor less experienced personnel. These positions require knowledge of various scientific fields such as biochemistry, biology, biotechnology, chemistry, data science, digital health, engineering, epidemiology, food engineering, food processing technologies, food safety, healthcare, medical technology, microbiology, nutrition, pharmaceutical science, pharmacology, public health, quality assurance, and quality management.

Education/Experience Requirement: Candidates must meet one of the following:

Education: A bachelor's degree or higher in quality assurance/management, data science, statistics, computer forensics, epidemiology, pharmacy, public health, engineering, food science, law or regulations, or related healthcare or science field. The degree must be from an accredited program or institution; -OR-

Experience: Without a related degree, candidate must have at least two (2) years of comparable experience.

Comparable experience is defined as experience with FDA, a state or federal partner agency, or in an FDA-regulated industry or organization providing investigative or compliance services to an FDA-regulated industry, focused on evaluating or ensuring compliance with FDA or related public health laws and regulations.

Desired Experience:
  • Knowledge and skill in applying critical thinking as it pertains to a range of professional theories, concepts, principles, and methods to determine, execute, and explain actions standard practices, equipment, devices, processes, and well-known techniques and resolve a wide variety of complications and constraints contained in traditional projects.
  • Ability to use computer applications to accomplish projects, designs, plans, and reports; to perform and interpret analyses and computations for unknown factors; and to define relationships in factual matters involving well-understood issues.
  • Skill in conducting and performing investigations using the scientific method including performance monitoring and quality assurance principles and conducting research by applying accepted and relevant business, and organizational practices.
  • Ability to receive training in Food and Drug Program Division operations, including Food and Drug laws and regulations, their application and enforcement, import operation practices employed in the regulated industries, investigation and inspection methods and techniques designed to assess the degree of compliance with import and applicable domestic laws and regulations, good manufacturing practices, quality controls, laboratory operations, etc., enforcement policy and philosophy, the rules of evidence, and basic requirements for observing and recording, with emphasis on clear and concise report writing.
NOTE: Applicants must submit all relevant transcripts that demonstrate you possess the required education to meet the Basic Qualifications.

Education

Pay careful attention to the Qualifications and Education sections to identify vacancies where a transcript is required. Even if you hold a similar position or are a current employee, you are not exempt from transcript requirements.

TRANSCRIPTS: Positions which are scientific or technical in nature often have very specific educational requirements. You must submit an official transcript, unofficial transcript, or a list including courses, grades earned, completion dates, and quarter and semester hours earned.

Education must be accredited by an accrediting institution recognized by the U.S. Department of Education in order for it to be credited towards qualifications. Therefore, provide only the attendance and/or degrees from schools accredited by accrediting institutions recognized by the U.S. Department of Education.

If you are using education completed in foreign colleges or universities, see the Foreign Education section below for additional requirements.

Electronic Transcript Caution: If you have obtained your transcripts electronically, the file might contain security measures that could prevent our application system from reading the file. Therefore, you should consider asking the institution to provide the file in a non-secured electronic format. Alternatively, you could scan or take a photo of the printed copy of the transcript. If your uploaded transcript cannot be read by our system, you may receive consideration and credit for the information we can access.

See the Application Manager Documentation for tips on submitting your paper-based documents.

Foreign Education: If you are using education completed in foreign colleges or universities to meet the qualification requirements, you must show that the education credentials have been evaluated by a private organization that specializes in interpretation of foreign education programs and such education has been deemed equivalent to that gained in an accredited U.S. education program; or full credit has been given for the courses at a U.S. accredited college or university. For further information, visit the U.S. Department of Education website for Foreign Education Evaluation.

To be acceptable, the foreign credential evaluation must include/describe at a minimum, the following information: (1) The type of education received by the applicant; (2) The level of education in relation to the U.S. education system, and state that its comparability recommendations follow the general guidelines of the International Evaluation Standards Council; (3) The content of the applicant's educational program earned abroad, and the standard obtained; (4) The status of the awarding foreign school's recognition and legitimacy in its home country's education system; and (5) Any other information of interest such as what the evaluation service did to obtain this information, the qualifications of the evaluator, and any indications as to other problems such as forgery.

Note: Some positions require the completion of specific courses or a specified number of credit hours. Therefore, the foreign credential evaluation should provide information similar to that of an official transcript, to include a list of the courses taken, quarter and/or semester hours awarded, the cumulative grade point average (GPA), honors received, if any, date degree awarded.

Applicants can request an evaluation from a member organization of one of the two national associations of credential evaluation services listed below:

  1. National Association of Credential Evaluation Services (NACES)
  2. Association of International Credentials Evaluators (AICE)
Credential evaluations are not free, and applicants are responsible for the cost of the selected service.

For more information about this requirement, please visit the U.S. Department of Education website for Foreign Education Evaluation.

Additional information

Additional Conditions of Employment:

  • Pre-employment physical required: No
  • Drug testing required: No
  • License required: Yes, valid driver's license
  • Mobility agreement required: No
  • Immunization required: No
  • Bargaining Unit: Yes, National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) or American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE)
  • Telework eligible position: Determined upon selection and is at the discretion of the supervisor.
  • Remote eligible position: No
  • Financial disclosure statement, OGE-450, required: Please be advised that this position may be subject to FDA's prohibited financial interest regulation and may require the incumbent of this position to divest of certain financial interests. Applicants are advised to seek additional information on this requirement from the hiring official before accepting this position. For more information please visit the FDA Ethics web page: https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/jobs-and-training-fda/ethics.
Additional Information:
  • Additional selections may be made for similar positions within the commuting area(s) of the locations listed through this vacancy announcement.
  • If you are serving, or have served in the last 5 years (from 11/08/2024) as an Executive Branch political, Schedule C, or Non-career SES appointee, HHS/FDA may be required to obtain approval by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) prior to beginning employment. You can find out if you have held one of these appointment types by looking at your Standard Form 50s in your Electronic Official Personnel Folder (eOPF), in Section 5 where the legal authorities are listed. If you have served or are currently serving, you must provide a copy of your SF-50, Notification of Personnel Action, documenting this appointment. In addition, you will be required to respond to the question in the assessment and certify your responses to the questionnaire. See Political Appointee FAQ - OPM for more.
Applicants selected for this position will be subject to reasonable suspicion and post-accident drug testing upon hiring. To demonstrate commitment to the HHS goal of a drug-free workplace and to set an example for other Federal employees, employees not in a testing designated position may volunteer for unannounced random testing by notifying their Drug-free Federal Workplace Program Point of Contact upon hiring.

All requirements must be met by the closing date of this announcement (11/08/2024); only education and experience gained by this date will be considered. You must continue to meet all requirements throughout the entire hiring process.

Benefits

A career with the U.S. government provides employees with a comprehensive benefits package. As a federal employee, you and your family will have access to a range of benefits that are designed to make your federal career very rewarding. Opens in a new windowLearn more about federal benefits.

Eligibility for benefits depends on the type of position you hold and whether your position is full-time, part-time or intermittent. Contact the hiring agency for more information on the specific benefits offered.

How You Will Be Evaluated

You will be evaluated for this job based on how well you meet the qualifications above.

This is a Title 21 announcement. Traditional rating and ranking of applications, and veterans' preference does not apply to this vacancy. You will be evaluated against the basic qualifications and if found qualified, you will be referred to the Hiring Manager for consideration.

If you are referred to the hiring manager for consideration, you may be further evaluated based on an interview; review of requested work samples, writing samples, most recent performance evaluation(s), or professional references; or results of an oral presentation or work-related test.

Failure to comply with any of the additional assessment requirements will result in removal from further consideration.

Please follow all instructions carefully. Errors or omissions may affect your eligibility.

Required Documents

Resume: At a minimum, your resume should list the position title, employer name, start and end dates (including month and year), salary (or grade and step), hours worked per week, and a list of duties performed or accomplishments, for EACH position listed. A CV (curriculum vitae) may not contain enough information to meet these resume requirements.

Transcripts: If the position has an education requirement or you are qualifying based on education, unofficial transcripts or a list of courses must be provided. See the Qualifications and Education Requirements section of this announcement.

Additional Documents (if applicable):
  • Cover Letter
  • DD-214/ Statement of Service
  • Disability Letter (VA)
  • Other supporting documentation not listed above
  • Resume
  • SF-15
  • SF-50/ Notification of Personnel Action
  • Transcript

Failure to provide all of the required information as stated in this vacancy announcement may result in an ineligible rating or may affect the overall rating.

If you are relying on your education to meet qualification requirements:

Education must be accredited by an accrediting institution recognized by the U.S. Department of Education in order for it to be credited towards qualifications. Therefore, provide only the attendance and/or degrees from schools accredited by accrediting institutions recognized by the U.S. Department of Education.

Failure to provide all of the required information as stated in this vacancy announcement may result in an ineligible rating or may affect the overall rating.

How to Apply

To apply for positions with the Food & Drug Administration, you must have a https://secure.login.gov/ account, and be signed in to that account, before you click "Apply Online". See the USAJOBS Help Site article "How does the application process work?" for more on this process. Additionally, you must provide a resume and any required supporting documentation listed on the announcement, and you must complete all assessment questionnaires BEFORE 11:59 pm Eastern Time on the closing date of this announcement, 11/08/2024. We recommend that you start the application process early enough that you can complete and submit your application before this deadline.

Please note that you cannot submit documentation or make changes to your application after the close date.

If you would like to learn how to use USAJOBS including: accessing and managing your account, adding saved documents, building a resume, or starting an application; we recommend you visit the USAJOBS How To site, and read up on any topic that you need help with. This site is located at: https://www.usajobs.gov/Help/how-to/. Additionally, if you need technical assistance with USAJOBS (such as account issues) please visit the main USAJOBS Help site at: https://www.usajobs.gov/Help/. FDA's Applicant Help Desk is not able to support USAJOBS-related issues.

The Food & Drug Administration uses a system called Application Manager (USA Staffing) to post jobs and accept applications. If you are not familiar with Application Manager or encounter any difficulty with the site, we recommend that you review the Applicant HELP Site at: https://help.usastaffing.gov/Apply/index.php?title=Applicant. This help site contains step-by-step instructions for completing the application process, submitting documentation, and completing questionnaires, and should be very helpful to you!

You are encouraged to apply online. Applying online will allow you to review and track the status of your application. The FDA will provide reasonable accommodation to applicants with disabilities who are not able to apply online. If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the application process, please contact the Applicant Help Desk. Decisions on granting a reasonable accommodation will be made on a case-by-case basis.

If after reviewing the USAJOBS and Application Manager help sites, you're not able to find the answer to your question or concern, or if you wish to request a reasonable accommodation, please contact the FDA Applicant Help Desk at 866-807-3742, or e-mail QuickQuestions@fda.gov.
The Applicant Help Desk is staffed between the hours of 7am and 6pm Eastern Time, Monday through Friday, except for government holidays. If you contact the Applicant Help Desk, please provide the following Vacancy Identification Number (VIN) 12571680 so that we may assist you faster.

Agency contact information

FDA Applicant Help Desk
Address
FDA Center Office of Inspection and Investigation
10903 New Hampshire Ave
Silver Spring, MD 20852
US
Learn more about this agency

Next steps

Once the online questionnaire is received you will receive an acknowledgement email that your submission was successful.

You will receive application status updates via email and via USAJOBS as the process unfolds.


Note: We cannot accept applications on behalf of Federal Agencies. Application instructions are listed within the Job Description.


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