Office Director

Department of Health and Human Services

Food and Drug Administration

Center for Drug Evaluation and Research

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 6, Band G.
.

This job is open to

The public

U.S. Citizens, Nationals or those who owe allegiance to the U.S.

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

Directs budget planning, resource allocation, and fiscal oversight for office programs. Reviews funding and staffing needs, recommends budget actions, and ensures efficient, cost-effective operations aligned with organizational priorities.
Serves as senior advisor on epidemiology, drug safety, and population health. Develops policy, resolves complex issues, and advises FDA leadership and external partners on regulatory and public health matters.
Directs analysis and implementation of new laws, regulations, and policies affecting office programs. Recommends organizational and operational changes to strengthen the Office's mission and regulatory effectiveness.
Leads high-priority drug safety initiatives and special projects that advance postmarket surveillance, regulatory science, and public health objectives.
Oversees postmarket drug safety programs and multidisciplinary staff conducting safety analyses using FAERS and other data sources to identify, assess, and address safety concerns.
Provides executive leadership for FAERS enhancements and electronic reporting. Advises on regulatory issues, supports compliance activities, and represents OSE on key pharmacovigilance and labeling workgroups.
Reviews epidemiologic study designs, protocols, reports, and datasets submitted by industry to ensure scientific rigor and support evaluation of postmarket drug safety.
Oversees review of adverse event reports and collaborates with CDER offices to evaluate marketed drug safety and recommend appropriate regulatory actions.
Partners with OSE leadership to develop strategic plans, allocate resources, and guide decisions affecting office programs, priorities, and operations.
Represents OSE with Congress, federal agencies, industry, professional organizations, and other stakeholders. Directs preparation of responses on Office programs, policies, and activities.
Directs communication, research, and management of drug safety risks. Coordinates with FDA offices to provide timely safety information to healthcare professionals and the public.
Represents OSE on CDER workgroups addressing clinical, regulatory, postmarket safety, and real-world evidence initiatives.

Requirements

Conditions of employment

Ethics Clearance Requirements
This position requires financial disclosure reporting and will be subject to FDA's prohibited financial interest regulation. If you are hired, you may be required to divest of certain financial interests. You are advised to seek additional information on this requirement from the hiring official before accepting any job offers. For more information, please visit the FDA Ethics web page: https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/jobs-and-training-fda/ethics.

Qualifications

In order to qualify for the Office Director position which falls under the 0602 occupational Series, you must meet the following requirements by 11:59 pm EST on 08/13/2026:

The candidate must meet the following qualifications for this Title 21 position:

Scientific, Technical, and/or Professional Fields
Qualified and Outstanding Candidates

a. Qualified applies to all candidates for Cures appointments. The FDA OTS will use the technical qualifications defined below as a baseline for comparing experience levels and other candidate attributes for relevant positions

b, Outstanding candidates can be defined by existing outstanding work experience, outstanding performance rating, or both.

Technical Qualifications: Candidates do not need to provide narrative responses. However, the technical qualifications must be reflected within the candidate's two-page resume.

At least 3 years experience in managing a multi-disciplinary professional staff that is responsible for developing and using epidemiologic and other evidence to assess the effectiveness and safety of human drug and therapeutic biologic products and making recommendations on actions to improve patient safety and protect and promote the public health.
Demonstrated ability in providing authoritative and professional expertise in health sciences, including epidemiology, drug safety and population health issues related to the regulation of human drug and therapeutic biological products to internal and external stakeholders.
Demonstrated ability in providing critical reviews in the study design and methods of epidemiologic and other study protocols relevant to the assessment of post-marketing drug safety submitted by the pharmaceutical industry.

Desired Qualifications:

Experience applying the Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act, regulations, policies, and procedures related to the regulation and evaluation of drugs and biologic products.

This position is designated as an SES Equivalent position and is covered under the FDA Title 21 Executive Performance Management System and identified as a public filing position for ethics purposes. NOTE: Applicants must submit all relevant transcripts that demonstrate you possess the required education to meet the Basic Qualifications.

Supervisory Responsibilities:

The incumbent provides occupational specific technical and administrative direction 25 percent or more of the time to three or more subordinate employees performing the work and functions of the organization.
Obtains resources and identifies strategic objectives for the organization.
Defines jobs, selects employees, and assigns work; defines technical work requirements and milestones; evaluates the organization and employee accomplishments by accepting or rejecting work products; and presents and defends organization and employees work to senior management and other offices.
Recommends employee promotions and recognition; approves leave; implements performance modifications and takes corrective actions as appropriate.
Provides employees with resources and information that ensure a safe and healthy work environment.

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.
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.
All applicants tentatively selected for this position will be required to submit to urinalysis to screen for illegal drug use prior to appointment and be subject to random, reasonable suspicion, and post-accident drug testing upon hiring.
Appointment to the position will be contingent upon a negative applicant drug test result.
Probationary periods are required for new employees appointed to competitive service positions for the first time; or reinstated employees who return after a break in service of 30-days or more and who have not completed a probationary period.
Pre-employment physical required: No
Drug testing required: No
License required: No
Mobility agreement required: No
Immunization required: No
Bargaining Unit: No
Telework eligible position: Telework is at the discretion of the supervisor.
Ethics preclearance/OGE-278, required: Please be advised that this position is 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.
Financial disclosure statement, required: This position requires financial disclosure reporting and will be subject to FDA's prohibited financial interest regulation. If you are hired, you may be required to divest of certain financial interests. You are advised to seek additional information on this requirement from the hiring official before accepting any job offers.
Employment is subject to the successful completion of a background investigation, verification of qualifications, completion of onboarding forms, submission of required documents, and any other job-related requirement before or after appointment.

Applicants must meet all qualification requirements by the closing date of this announcement.

Education

Education Requirements:
Degree: Doctor of Medicine, Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine or equivalent from a school in the United States or Canada. This degree must have been accredited by the Council on Medical Education of the American Medical Association(external link); Association of American Medical Colleges(external link); Liaison Committee on Medical Education(external link); Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation of the American Osteopathic Association(external link), or an accrediting body recognized by the U.S. Department of Education(external link) at the time the degree was obtained.

Degree from Foreign Medical School: A Doctor of Medicine or equivalent degree from a foreign medical school must provide education and medical knowledge equivalent to accredited schools in the United States. Evidence of equivalency to accredited schools in the United States is demonstrated by permanent certification by the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates(external link), a fifth pathway certificate for Americans who completed premedical education in the United States and graduate education in a foreign country, or successful completion of the U.S. Medical Licensing Examination.

Licensure

For all grade levels and positions, applicants must possess a current, active, full, and unrestricted license or registration as a Physician from a State, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, or a territory of the United States.

https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-standards/0600/physician-series-0602/

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.

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:

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 Information:

Incentives may be authorized; however, this is contingent upon funds availability. If authorized, certain incentives will require you to sign a service agreement to remain in the Federal government for a period of up to 3 years. Note: This statement does not imply nor guarantee an incentive will be offered and paid. Incentives include the following: moving expenses, recruitment or relocation incentive; student loan repayment, superior qualifications appointment, creditable service for annual leave for prior non-federal work experience or prior uniformed military service, etc.
If you are serving, or have served in the last 5 years (from 08/13/2026) 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.
Active-duty U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps Officers are encouraged to apply. If selected, officers may either (1) remain on active duty assigned to the designated billet for PHS assignment, or (2) separate or retire from the Commissioned Corps before entering a Title 21 civilian appointment.
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 (08/13/2026); only education and experience gained by this date will be considered. You must continue to meet all requirements throughout the entire hiring process.

Please note: This position is being advertised in both the 601 and 602 series. To be considered for both series you must apply to both announcements. The 601 series can be found on usajobs.gov, Vacancy Number: 12996361

Candidates should be committed to improving the efficiency of the Federal government, passionate about the ideals of our American republic, and committed to upholding the rule of law and the United States Constitution.

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.

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.

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.

USAJobs - What to Include
USAJobs - Page Limit

Your two (2) page RESUME showing all relevant work experience (paid and unpaid) including: duties performed; full name and address of each employer; start and end dates (month/day/year); work schedule (part-time, full-time, number of hours if intermittent); salary; and any completed education and training (program title, subject area, number of hours completed, and completion date).

Transcripts (Required): 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
Other supporting documentation not listed above
Resume
Separation Notice (RIF)
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

In accordance with Executive Order 14170, applicants are encouraged to respond to the four short, free-response, essay questions in the questionnaire. Answers to these questions are optional and will not be scored or rated. Your answers will be reviewed by the hiring manager and agency leadership if you are referred for selection consideration. You will be asked to certify that your responses are written in your own words and that you did not use a consultant or artificial intelligence (AI) tool (such as ChatGPT or Copilot).

Candidates should be committed to improving the efficiency of the Federal government, passionate about the ideals of our American republic, and committed to upholding the rule of law and the United States Constitution.

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, 08/13/2026. 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://help.usajobs.gov/how-to. Additionally, if you need technical assistance with USAJOBS (such as account issues) please visit the main USAJOBS Contact us at: USAJOBS - Contact us 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 you encounter any difficulty with the site, we recommend that you visit the Applicant HELP Site at:

https://appsupport-usastaffing.opm.gov/hc/en-us

. 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 ERIC@fda.hhs.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) 12996554 so that we may assist you faster.

Agency contact information

FDA Applicant Help Desk

Phone: 866-807-3742
Email: eric@fda.hhs.gov

Address: FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research
10903 New Hampshire Ave
Silver Spring, MD 20993
US

Next steps

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

Office Director Job in Silver Spring, MD