Qualifications
To qualify for a Quality Assurance Engineer, your resume and supporting documentation must support:
A. Basic Requirement: A Bachelor's Degree or higher in professional engineering. To be acceptable, the program must:(1) be in a school of engineering with at least one program accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) as a professional engineering curriculum; 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
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 professional 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:
A. 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. 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.
B. 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.
C. Specified academic courses -- Successful completion of at least 60 semester hours of courses in the physical, mathematical, and engineering sciences and in engineering that included the courses specified in the Basic Requirements above. The courses must be fully acceptable toward meeting the requirements of a professional engineering curriculum as described in the Basic Requirements above.
D. 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 of type experience, e.g., in interdisciplinary positions.
AND
A. Specialized Experience: One year of specialized experience that equipped you with the particular competencies to successfully perform the duties of the position and is directly in or related to this position. To qualify at the GS-11 level, applicants must possess one year of specialized experience equivalent to the GS-09 level or equivalent under other pay systems in the Federal service, military or private sector. To qualify at the GS-12 level, applicants must possess one year of specialized experience equivalent to the GS-11 level or equivalent under other pay systems in the Federal service, military or private sector. Applicants must meet eligibility requirements including minimum qualifications, and any other regulatory requirements by the cut-off/closing date of the announcement.
Creditable specialized experience includes:
- GS-11: Using engineering concepts, principles, and practices applicable to quality engineering assignments; Providing quality engineering technical support to the administration of contracts; Assigning quality surveillance to manufacturing functions.
- GS-12: Providing advice to resolve complex technical problems associated with surveillance for acquisition contracts; Establishing lessons learned and improving processes for reduction of critical and complex non-conforming material control; Analyzing performance data for trends and evaluating supplier performance; Developing and providing guidance for reliability and maintainability surveillance plans; Evaluating adequacy of contractor quality assurance systems and processes to include control of subcontractor quality and effective contractor control of scrap, rework and repair.
OR
B. Education Substitution: Such education must demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to do the work. Education must be from a college or university accredited by an organization approved by the U.S. Department of Education. See http://ope.ed.gov/accreditation/Search.aspx. If using education to meet basic qualifications, YOU MUST SUBMIT A TRANSCRIPT as supplemental documentation. To qualify based on education in lieu of specialized experience, you must possess:
- GS-11: a Ph.D. or equivalent doctoral degree or 3 full years of progressively higher level graduate education leading to such a degree.
- GS-12: You cannot substitute education for experience at this grade level.
OR
C. Combination: Combinations of successfully completed post-high school education and experience may be used to meet total qualification requirements for grade levels GS-AA and GS-BB, and may be computed by first determining the applicant's total qualifying experience as a percentage of the experience required for the grade level; then determining the applicant's education as a percentage of the education required for the grade level; and then adding the two percentages. The total percentages must equal at least 100 percent to qualify an applicant for that grade level. Only graduate education in excess of the amount required for the next lower grade level may be used to qualify applicants for positions at grade GS-11.
Education
If the position has a minimum education requirement you MUST provide transcripts (unofficial are acceptable at the time of application) to support your educational claims. Or, if you are using education to qualify in lieu of specialized experience you MUST provide transcripts (unofficial are acceptable at the time of application) to support your educational claims. The transcripts must include your name, the name of the college or university, class/course list, completed number of credits/hours, and the date degree conferred (if applicable). Education must be accredited by an accrediting institution recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. Licenses must be current at time of application.
GRADUATE EDUCATION: One academic year of graduate education is considered to be the number of credits hours that your graduate school has determined to represent one academic year of full-time study. Such study may have been performed on a full-time or part-time basis. If you cannot obtain your graduate school's definition of one year of graduate study, 18 semester hours (or 27 quarter hours) should be considered as satisfying the requirement for one year of full-time graduate study.
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.