U.S. Office of Personnel Mgt.

United States Office of Personnel Management

Operating Manual

Qualification Standards for General Schedule Positions

Individual Occupational Requirements for

GS-802:    Engineering Technician Series

The text below is extracted verbatim from Section IV-B of the Operating Manual for Qualification Standards for General Schedule Positions (p.IV-B-130), but contains minor edits to conform to web-page requirements.

Use these individual occupational requirements in conjunction with the "Group Coverage Qualification Standard for Technical and Medical Support Positions."

Specialized Experience (for positions at GS-4 and above): Examples of occupations that may have provided qualifying specialized experience include: draftsperson, surveying technician, construction estimator, physical science technician, or mathematical technician.

Experience in a trade or craft may be credited as specialized experience when the work provided intensive knowledge of engineering principles, techniques, methods, and precedents. Examples are trade positions with substantial developmental, test, or design responsibilities such as:

  • Planner and estimator who analyzed designs for production purposes.
  • Instrumentmaker or modelmaker who performed design or development work on devices fabricated.

OR

Education and Training:

For GS-3: Successful completion of l year of study that included at least 6 semester hours in any combination of courses such as engineering, engineering or industrial technology, construction, physics, drafting, surveying, physical science, or mathematics.
For GS-4: Successful completion of 2 years of study that included at least 12 semester hours in any combination of courses such as those shown above for GS-3.
For GS-5: Successful completion of a full 4-year course of study leading to a bachelor's degree (a) with major study in an appropriate field of engineering, construction, or industrial technology; or (b) that included at least 24 semester hours in any combination of courses such as those shown above for GS-3.

Certification: Engineering technicians may be certified by the National Institute for Certification in Engineering Technologies, an organization sponsored by the National Society of Professional Engineers. Certification by the Institute will be helpful as a measure of the technician's quality of experience.

Page created 22 March 1999