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Last month I was given a "tentative offer" of employment in the DoD's Keystone program as a Computer Engineer. It's a position that starts GS7 with a GS12 target grade after 3 years of training. The way it was worded was that it was a "tentative" offer that would become "firm" upon completing the Secret Security Clearance process. I've filled out all the forms, and though there was a strange delay in getting my fingerprint cards, I got that done and taken care of last week finally. But now I'm getting kind of nervous. There's been all this talk about the Defense Sequester in Congress, so apparently the DoD has decided "to lay off all 46,000 it's temporary and contract workers" as a preliminary step to make sure they can find the money if the sequester happens. I haven't even gotten my firm offer yet since I'm still waiting on security clearance. Am I screwed? Is there even anyone I can ask? Or are my fears completely unfounded?
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Jan 28, 2013 18:52
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grover posted:DoD has enacted an across-the board hiring freeze; existing offers for permanent positions are being honored, but temp positions are not, and no new offers can be made. If you were given a formal offer, you're in. If there was no formal offer in writing... check with your HR rep. Since they brought you in to do the security clearance process, I'm thinking you're OK. Cool. I think I'll be fine then. I do have an offer in writing. I even had to sign it, scan it, and send it back. That's a huge load off my mind. Thanks!
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Jan 29, 2013 08:00
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psydude posted:I don't even want to imagine the kind of meltdown that would happen here if State laid off all of its contracted employees, since over 3/4 of my department is made up of contractors. Thankfully, I don't think that's gonna happen. AFAIK, it's only the Pentagon laying off contractors, and only because Congress decided to punt on the sequester for two months. It's good to know that as a Federal employee, I won't be the most expendable part of Defense. (though I must admit, I wish they'd defund over-wrought programs like the F-35 before laying off any personnel.)
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Jan 29, 2013 18:27
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On Wednesday, I got an e-mail telling me that I had gotten my security clearance, my effective starting date is March 25th, and to call if I had any questions...and that's it. I'm still living in a different state from where I'd be working, and haven't even begun packing yet, so that's a little rough! The first time I called the number (around 1PM the day I got the e-mail), I got a secretary (the guy himself was apparently "gone for the day") who told me she would forward a request for a later starting date, but it would have to be approved, and that I would get a final offer soon, and would be put in touch with a liaison in the target city who would tell me where to go, how to dress, and where I should look for a place to live. I haven't heard anything since. I've tried calling a few other times, and left voice mail messages, and I've tried e-mailing him, and now I'm quite nervous. Should I be worried? I've been trying to think of a contingency plan. Like, if I can't get ahold of anyone by Tuesday afternoon, go ahead and schedule PODS to get me moved out of my current place on Saturday, and put my stuff in long-term storage. Then, get an extended-stay place for a month while I start working the next Monday (hopefully by which point someone has at least told me where I need to go) while trying to find a place to live and get moved in. Am I over-reacting?
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Mar 16, 2013 19:31
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Manifest Dynasty posted:How long does it usually take to hear something back after accepting a tentative offer? FWIW, having just gone through this, I got my tentative offer in the first week of December, and I just finished my security clearance and got my EoD last week. My understanding is that this is a bit faster than average, but not particularly unusual. It was only about a week from my accepting the tentative offer before I was filling out the security clearance paperwork. EDIT: Just got notice that my official start date is April 22nd! I've got plenty of time to move and get settled in. Huzzah!
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Mar 18, 2013 23:19
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grover posted:Of course, with the rapid GS-7-9-11 plan, they'd still end up at GS-11 step 1 in 18 months, same as before, but between that and paying off student loads (at $6k/year) in exchange for a 3-year retention agreement, it helped considerably. Then the economy tanked, and everything went back to GS-7 step 1 and gently caress you, be happy you got an offer at all. I start my computer engineer position in a couple of weeks (GS-7 step 1 with a 7-9-11-12 plan over three years). This is my second job out of college, but I still have about $18k in student loan debt. I don't suppose there's any chance they'll still help me with that. $6k a year towards it would be really cool! I'm not even sure how I could bring it up though, and I'm guessing I probably shouldn't. I'm excited about being a Fed. I think it'll be a good change of pace for me. Every single job I've ever had as an adult (with the exception of a few years I worked for Radio Shack as a music student) were for companies smaller than 10 people. And while working for tiny operations has benefits, it doesn't have BENEFITS, if you know what I mean, and at 33 years old I am so over that! I think it'll also be a good change of pace from my first engineering job, where I was the only electrical engineer and did all the firmware design, circuit layout, simulation, prototyping, etc. etc. for new product R&D all by myself with no help from anyone, and OH GOD IF YOU DON'T GET THAT poo poo FIGURED OUT LIKE YESTERDAY THEN THIS COMPANY IS hosed AND IT'S YOUR FAULT  . I'm hoping that this will be a bit less stressful!
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Apr 3, 2013 17:36
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sbaldrick posted:I got started in my civil service too late, I can't even early out till I'm 60 You're telling me. I started two weeks ago, and apparently I get to be on FERS-RAE, which came with a nice two page note full of flowery language, that to me appeared to be explaining in a very long-winded way that it's the exact same annuity system, but I have to pay in four times as much! Ugh! (I mean really? Or am I missing something here?) Since we're on the topic of retirement anyways, does someone wanna explain the phased retirement option that just got signed into law? Is it you can choose to go part time for your last 5 years, and work 20 hours a week while collecting half your annuity?
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May 1, 2013 02:02
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Of course that's better then after the reforms where it's 35 years and the age of 65.
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Quarex posted:sorting through thousands of job postings and slowly getting a sense for what the job descriptions actually mean.
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May 11, 2013 03:59
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Quarex posted:I am curious as to what a 7/9/11/12 internship means--just one that is open to four different grades, or one where you start at 7 and expect to be at 12 by the time you finish? That latter sounds pretty dumb when I type it, but how would I know?
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May 26, 2013 14:45
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My agency just hired someone from TSA, FWIW...but to be fair, for him it was a part-time job while he finished his computer engineering degree, and now my agency has hired him as a computer engineer.
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May 30, 2013 19:00
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Operating Rod posted:Welp, two of my applications to jobs with the Defense Contract Management Agency have been referred to the selection official. I actually started last month as a DCMA keystone. Unfortunately, there's no way to really predict lag in the process. It can vary a lot from one office to the next. When I applied, I applied to four keystone positions at different offices all at the same time. One of them, in Carson CA, rejected me outright, but it took a couple of months for the status to update to reflect that. The second, in Denver CO, let me know I had an interview after only a week! The interview happened about 3 weeks after that, and I was rejected about a month later. The next fastest one was Tucson AZ, which is where I work now. Took about 3 weeks to get the interview set up and I had the interview about a month after that, then two weeks before I got a tentative offer...then I was waiting about three months to get my security clearance before setting my start date and getting a final offer. The slowest was Indianappolis IN. Took well over two months before I was contacted for an interview and then another two months when I had the interview (this was while I was in the middle of getting the security clearance, and I just wanted to keep as many balls in the air as I could, just in case). They actually DID make me a tentative job offer...but I had already moved to Tucson and had been working for about a week by the time they had gotten sufficiently in gear! Anyways, I'm a computer engineer keystone for DCMA Raytheon Tucson, so I could probably answer any questions you have about it, or could at least easily find out for you.
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Jun 3, 2013 20:33
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I wouldn't hold your breath. We're not really made privvy to hiring details from other offices. However, as chance would have it, I am going to visit the MA office for training at the end of August. So if it's still an open question by then, I may be able to ask around for you. I'd still not count on it though. Honestly I meant more if you had questions about the DCMA in general more than that kind of specific insider information.
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Jun 3, 2013 22:05
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Artificer posted:I hope this is the right thread for this. If it's not please tell me and I'll scoot off somewhere else. I don't know about long term, but one of my coworkers at the DCMA started out working part time for TSA as airport security for four years while he was still in school. Even though he was part time, he still got full benefits, and they even counted all four years, non-prorated, towards his pension and retirement. Plus the fact that he already had his foot in the door with the gov really helped him get his current position.
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Jun 12, 2013 20:52
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Evil SpongeBob posted:Shotgun any Federal job you are willing to do. It is much easier to lateral over after you get career status. Veterans do not get preference in status employee only jobs. Glad you said this, as it is germane to my own situation. I'm settling nicely into my first public sector job. It's low stress, the benefits are fantastic, and the pay is...enough. It's clearly the best job I've ever had. So naturally, my ungrateful gen Y rear end is already starting to think about the next step. My internship period with the DCMA is three years long, and I'll be coming out of it as a GS-12 by May 2016. If I'm still single (or at least similarly geographically mobile) either then, or one year after that when I could start qualifying for a GS-13 position, then it occurs to me that I might very much like to try something else at that time. I could stick to the DCMA. If I want to move to Virginia, there are some cush sounding GS-13/14 positions that revolve around statistical analysis. But really, I'm bringing it up here and now because staying in my agency is the obvious choice, and I'd really like some suggestions that I might not have thought about. I think it would be kind of nice to get away from the military industrial complex for one. That's not gonna be easy because the gov doesn't give a poo poo about my original career (music), and they only rarely ever seem to hire people in my current career (computer engineering, though I really do software quality assurance for the DCMA) for agencies that aren't involved in building weapons. So part of why I'm asking NOW years before I'll make any kind of move is because at this point, I still have some time to get some relevant experience or rack up the right Graduate education credits if there's a super cool (non blowing-people-up related) government career path I could start to aim my nose at. Other things that would be nice: not needing a security clearance (that poo poo makes me nervous that I'll gently caress up and get fired), and tangentially, a position that doesn't require random drug testing. I'm not a junkie or anything, I just hate peeing in a cup. It's a violation of my privacy I'd rather not tolerate. Even if I do only get randomly pulled once every ten years, it just burns me up that they can do that and hold my career hostage to it! Oh, and while being able to get to a higher pay certainly wouldn't suck, I'm not willing to accept a super stressful job for it, so probably not interested in the SES track, though I'm not necessarily opposed to leadership or management. Other than that, I'm not putting any limits on a potential career path at this point. I'm even totally willing to go back to school and get another degree in something completely unrelated if I think it'll get me a cooler job eventually. My personal career choice was being a musician, so once I realized that I couldn't do that without tolerating unacceptable pay for almost literal slavery (or getting lucky, which I'm not), I utterly ceased to give a single poo poo about what I do for a career as long as its not stressful. tl;dr - I've got my foot in the door, and I've got years to make a plan. Now what?
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Jul 4, 2013 23:11
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gimme the lute posted:If you're doing software QA, there are tons of jobs in the DC area. I'm currently a contractor with the National Cancer Institute, and my colleagues have done similar work at NTSB, the Census, and a few other places. I'm assuming getting in on the federal side (not a contractor) will be trickier since there are a lot fewer positions, but the jobs definitely do exist. quote:e: How did you land the job? Did you apply through USAJobs or was it a special program? I'd love to make the jump to the fed side. You got it! I just applied through USAJobs. It's a special internship program the DCMA does. They call it a "keystone internship". I was lucky and applied when there were like 20 different computer engineer positions they were trying to fill. They actually hire way more general engineers, (normal) QAs, contract administrators, and industrial specialists.
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Jul 5, 2013 06:08
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Delorence Fickle posted:For DoD employees the furlough is over, but apparently RIF's are on the table if this sequestration nonsense doesn't get sorted out. Well, I got hired with them 4 months ago, along with like 12 other people at our office. Also, a quick look at USAjobs shows that they're still hiring for about 150 positions.
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Aug 26, 2013 05:42
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A number of them are, yeah. But there's still a pretty significant amount open to "US Citizens", about 50. And there's an equally significant number that are "from other Federal Agency".
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Aug 26, 2013 14:42
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For what it's worth, I did my first day as a Fed right at six months ago. But I was brought on as an engineer for the department of defense, and started low (GS-7) despite years of private sector experience.
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Nov 11, 2013 20:37
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Declan MacManus posted:Also, are there any other tips you guys might have? Try and figure out the keywords that'll score your application higher. They'll be the words that stand out in the job description and OPM.gov's description of the job series. Make sure these appear somewhere in your application package. On a cover letter and/or in the descriptions in your job history or special skills.
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Dec 22, 2013 16:16
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Deeters posted:I just got an offer from the Norfolk shipyard for a mechanical engineering position. I really got caught off guard by the offer since I wasn't expecting anything the week of Christmas, and I only had about a 10 minute phone "interview" with someone. I'm not even 100% on the department since I've talked to guys from both combat systems and refueling. I at least think I understand the pay grades. I'm a GS-0854 computer engineer with the Defense Contract Management Agency, and this is more or less how it worked for me. I applied for the job on USAjobs.gov some time in October 2012, had the 10 minute phone interview at the tail end of November, and had a tentative job offer sometime the week before Christmas, and began the security clearance process. Got my clearance near the end of March, and moved across the country, and started my job April 20th. They literally never met me in person before I was already on the payroll. So, anything in particular you'd like to know? "General information" is a bit broad.
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Dec 29, 2013 00:30
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Question: I'm currently most of the way through the first year of a three-year internship program with the Defense Contract Management Agency as a software specialist (doing contract software surveillance). Part of the internship is doing a three-month rotation during the third year. The agency encourages people to rotate to preferably a different DCMA office that can still be driven to (so that they don't have to pay for a TDY), and possibly even staying at the same office but just trying out a different discipline (such as systems engineering). However, I've recently found out that technically, one could rotate outside the agency if the employee is able to do the footwork to get communication going. I'm really interested in doing this. I've found out that the FDA has a position at the Office of Device Evaluation that is fairly similar to my job description now. Basically, it's doing software surveillance as part of the approval process for new hospital equipment (rather than lifecycle contract management of new DoD weapons systems as I do now). So, my question is: How might I go about reaching out to the FDA and the Office of Device Evaluation? I've tried googling it, and haven't been successful at finding any sort of contact information. There was a generic e-mail on the USAjobs.gov job listing that I tried contacting months ago (for questions regarding the listing), but I haven't heard back yet in the last three months.
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Jan 2, 2014 18:48
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JohnnyHildo posted:It looks like Office of Device Evaluation is an office within the FDA's Office of Medical Products and Tobacco, Center for Devices and Radiological Health. The ODE management phone directory is at the link below. Wow! That is really cool! Thanks a ton. And yes, I do feel quite particularly enterprising.
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Jan 3, 2014 06:11
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I'm willing to bet he'll be fine as long as he's entirely honest on the security app. I copped to drug use on mine, and basically included a short paragraph saying how it was something I did in college, am not addicted, and was at negligable risk of doing it again, and I sailed right through.
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Jan 23, 2014 00:58
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Artificer posted:It is for the FBI. They absolutely do. I got a secret-level for my DoD job that took about 4 months. My buddy who got top secret to be an intelligence officer for the Marines took the better part of a year to get his.
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Feb 5, 2014 18:01
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Do background checks vary in length depending on position and clearance needed, or are they all horribly long?
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Radio Talmudist posted:So it's not poor form to have lengthy resumes, as long as they clearly elucidate my skills and experience? I've always been taught to keep everything to a single page and I've followed this rule like doctrine, but this was for private sector gigs. You are correct on both counts. 1 page résumés are a good doctrine for private sector (entry level) jobs. For public sector, you wanna fluff em up as much as possible. Nf3 posted:What kind of job , if any, should I be applying for with almost little to no actual work place experience? GS-5/7 listings are a good place to start if you've got a college degree. GS9 for masters, GS11 for a doctorate.
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Feb 21, 2014 18:25
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Thought this might be a good place to post this: http://www.cbo.gov/publication/42921 It's a couple of years old, but still fairly relevant. And quite interesting. There is a reputation that although the benefits are better in the public sector, the private sector offers greater compensation for similar jobs. While that may have been true at one point, this report clearly demonstrates it's not true anymore. You can see that compensation (minus benefits) is EXACTLY THE SAME for someone with a bachelor's degree, and ACTUALLY GREATER for someone below that level. At the master's level, the compensation is just a smidge higher, but is still dwarfed by the massive difference in the value of benefits. You only get a significant boost to total compensation at the PhD level. And there's two important things to note. First, the analysis does not consider availability of work. If you've got a doctorate in anything besides medicine, good freaking luck getting a private sector job anywhere close to this level of compensation, or anywhere other than the massively oversaturated and underpaid university job market for that matter. Second, from the article: quote:Even among workers with similar observable characteristics, however, employees of the federal government and the private sector may differ in other attributes, such as motivation or effort, that are not easy to measure but that can matter a great deal for individuals' compensation. This all just reinforces my already-held belief that federal government work is the best deal in America. Although it's a somewhat older article, just something fun for those of you seeking public sector work to drool over, and those of us already in the service to  about.
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Feb 26, 2014 23:32
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Aerofallosov posted:How soon should I start applying for a job? My master's course ends in September and I don't mind taking a month or so off, but more than that and it'll get pretty dicey. I just don't want to start before I can list my dissertation project and skills from it. I realize biology (and lordy, Marine Biology) are in a bit of a pinch... If you want a Federal job lined up by September, you need to start applying...last month. It took me 6 months from the time I applied for my job until my first day of work, and I understand that my case was in fact unusually fast. If you've only got a little leeway before things become "dicey", you may wanna line up some other gig while applying for the public sector.
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Feb 28, 2014 22:42
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I suppose this is as good a place to ask as any. I'm facing a bit of an unusual situation. You see, I've decided that I'm going to try to scrimp and save, and try to retire early, in about 9 years, at age 43. Every time I try to search for information on things like benefits for retiring early, I only find the usual stuff about "voluntary early retirement" which only kicks in if you are at least 50 with 20 years of creditable service and there's a RIF going around. I won't reach 20 years until ANOTHER 10 years, at age 53, so this does me poo poo all good. I was finally able to figure out basic things like what happens to my sick leave (I'm SOL on it unless I return to federal service later) and my annual leave (it's paid out in a lump sum) only by framing my google search as if I intended to simply leave the public sector for private sector employment. Clearly, I won't be counting on any sort of pension for supplemental retirement income. As I will have 10 years of creditable service when I separate, I will only secure 10% of my top-3, deferred until I am age 62. So my plan centers around having sufficient investments to live off of the 4% safe withdrawal rate. If possible, I'd like to make tiny strategic withdrawals from TSP a part of this strategy, as the TSP is an untaxed account with infinitessimally small adminstrative overhead. While investment options aren't SUPER robust compared to say investing in index funds, I believe the base funds provide enough flexibility to garner a 4% safe withdrawal rate in keeping with the terms of the Trinity Study, and the aforementioned non-taxed status of these funds and tiny overhead more than make up for the lack of revenue from "riskier" investments. What I'm not sure about are some of the precise dynamics of making these kinds of withdrawals from TSP. The language I've found only talks about the typical choices of A) withdrawing a lump sum, B) scheduling regular payments based on a life expectancy, or C) purchasing a single/joint life annuity. What I'm REALLY interested in would be something like withdrawing 0.33% of the account once a month, so I'm not sure either of those three options really cut it. C definitely doesn't (life annuities are a rip-off), and B probably doesn't (even if I could frame my life expectency is such a way to equal 4% a year, it wouldn't remain accurate with the fund's growth or inflation over the years). A...might work? The only language I've seen regarding lump sum withdrawals mentions withdrawing either a "full withdrawal" or a "partial withdrawal". So, what I'm interested in is a "partial withdrawal" that happens to equal 0.33% of the sum once every month...but the language makes it sound more like the spirit of a "partial withdrawal" is more like "You've got $200,000 in your account. You can take $100,000 out now, and leave the rest to compound until you're 71 1/2 at which point you withdraw the rest."...but I can't find anything explicitly forbidding what I'm talking about doing either. Anyone have a clue on this?
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Mar 13, 2014 17:50
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JohnnyHildo posted:A TSP partial withdrawal is a one-time only event. In addition to income tax, your withdrawal would be subject to a 10% early withdrawal penalty. Right, only one partial withdrawal allowed. I finally saw that verbiage. The second one would need to clean the account out. However, all my investments have been Roth. I'm not penalized when I withdraw the principal, but I do take the 10% penalty on the nose on the growth if removed before 59 1/2. The agency matches are traditional, so they work as you say, though I may be able to dodge the 10% at least by rolling the non-penalized parts into a Roth IRA, paying the taxes that year on the agency matching part, and then vesting for five years. I'm still looking into that.
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Mar 16, 2014 00:23
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psydude posted:So, I'm curious: how many of you have federal coworkers (miltechs and contractors don't count) under the age of 40? Reason I ask is that I recently read an article talking about how the average age of a federal employee was 56 and, excepting FSOs, at State I knew a grand total of 2 federal employees under the age of 40, both of whom were 24. Here in Afghanistan it seems to be even worse - I've yet to see a DoD/DA/USACE civilian who looks to be under 45. Well I work for the DoD and I'm 34. But I'm definitely on the younger end of things. I've got a couple 27 year old coworkers, a couple of 30 year olds, and then like 150 people older than me, about 100 of which are either eligible for full retirement or will be within three years. It's a giant problem government wide, but especially at the DoD.
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Mar 20, 2014 04:23
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Nf3 posted:What kind of jobs would you expect those grade scales to have? What if its just a bachelors? I "just have a bachelors", and I got my entry level government position starting April last year. It's a GS-12 position that is structured as a GS-7 internship with a career ladder. I think those are pretty much the best deal for "just a bachelors". I'm looking forward to my automatic promotion to GS-9 next month, and I'll be a GS-12 in a little over two more years! The best part is that I'm only expected to do a tiny part of the actual work as an "intern", and have a virtual free pass on gently caress-ups until I get the GS-12...not that there's really a lot to gently caress up. For as well as it pays, the job is one of the easiest I've ever had! e: laxbro posted:Would a masters in teaching qualify me for a gs9 if the position wasn't related to education? I have some inner city teaching experience and am currently in the peace corps. I plan to apply to a wide variety of jobs using my non competitive eligibility when my service ends. Yes, if you also meet the other requirements in the listing.
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Mar 20, 2014 19:13
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Stolennosferatu posted:What are those positions called? Is there a standard name for them (like how Pathways means 'recent graduate')? Sadly, there is no standard name. Different agencies offering these kind of career ladders have different names for it. You can generally tell when you've found one if the listing lists a "promotion potential" that is higher than the grade of the listing. For instance, the listing for my job is a GS5/7 with a promotion potential of 12. For what it's worth, I work for the DCMA (Defense Contract Management Agency) and our program is called the Keystone program. e: I know that the Air Force has a civilian internship program that's similar called Palace Acquire.
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Mar 21, 2014 01:29
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Wizard of Smart posted:I recently became a job seeker again, and I'd really like to get a job in government. I've applied to most applicable usajobs openings, and I'm just wondering if anyone in the Washington state/pnw region in general might be able to help me get an actual interview. I am not at all sure if that's appropriate to ask in the thread but I'm rapidly getting closer to destitution here, and something has to give. You should keep applying for government work, because it's awesome and stable. However, if you're truly approaching destitution, you need to be putting far more effort elsewhere. It took me almost 6 months from the time I applied for my job until I was able to start, and I understand that that's kind of on the fast side for a job requiring security clearance. The process for a job without clearance usually takes 2-4 months on average I understand. It's not something you can count on! So what you should do is try to find something to hold you over and then put in your two weeks once you get your gov job lined up.
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Apr 17, 2014 21:47
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Hip Hoptimus Prime posted:They had me and the other candidate in the same interview. WTF mate, it was like a contest. ...wait WHAT?
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May 15, 2014 23:34
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Network42 posted:Looking to start GS-5 at Dulles as a CBP officer. How hosed am I, financially? Well the good news is that you'll get D.C.'s locality adjustment, which is one of the most generous. As far as I can tell, here's how the numbers shake out: GS-5 step 1, D.C. locality is $34,415/yr. That breaks down to $1323.65 gross income every two weeks (34,415 divided by 26). To figure out a likely net income, I could try comparing to my own situation last year. Last year I was a GS-7, contributed 5% to TSP (to take advantage of the matching), had reasonable relatively inexpensive subsidized insurance, paid union dues, and a little bit for charity. My gross was $1755 a paycheck and my net was $1191 a paycheck, meaning that my net was 67.9% of my gross. If you follow a similar pattern, your net income would be $898.27, or roughly $1800 a month. I know apartments in the Silver Spring or Bethesda areas tend to be $1100/mo for a studio or $1300/mo for a 1bd w/700 sq ft. So yeah...kinda dire, but not unworkable. I'd recommend a roommate. Maybe several roommates.
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Jul 17, 2014 00:34
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Got a question for the engineers here. I've been working a job with the Defense Contract Management Agency at the DoD for the last year and a half or so. I'm grateful to have the position, as it pays better and has benefits (my previous job had none). However, it is focused on administration and contractual oversight. Although my private sector job treated me like human garbage as an employee, I find myself missing actually doing real engineering. In my private sector job, I would design electrical circuits and simulations, would program firmware and embedded software, and would construct and troubleshoot prototypes. I really miss this kind of work, and as more time passes, would prefer it to the more administrative type of engineering. I have a friend who is an engineer for the FAA, and he tipped me off to an 0855 electronics engineer position that I've applied for and have just been notified that I have been referred to the hiring manager for. He tells me that engineers at this office actually devise solutions that involve engineering circuitry to interface aging radar and infrastructure with newer computer systems. That sounds like a blast, and I hope I get it! Well, as exciting as that is, it's just one job and one listing. So basically, does anyone here maybe know of other federal 0800-series jobs that with real, not paper-pushing engineering I could aspire to? I'm currently a GS-0854-09 with 52 in-grade completed at GS7. I've got a few years private sector experience that could defensibly be called "similar to GS-11 work" at least, and a year and half in the federal government working knee-deep in the defense acquisitions contracting world, so I've got bonifide business and legal experience too. I'm on a promotion path with my current job; this May, when I hit 52 in-grade at GS9, I'll get a promotion to 11, and then finally 12 the next year. It's tempting to tough it out for a few more years til I get 52 in-grade at 12 and then start applying for 13s elsewhere, but I feel like it may be easier to switch agencies earlier on while they still don't have to pay much for my training. And I know with the FAA, I can easily get on a path making way better money than GS-13 after a few years anyways. My dream job would be working on firmware and embedded software, as that was my favorite part of the private sector job, and the part that I was the best at.
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Aug 12, 2014 23:54
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e_wraith posted:It sounds like you are in a developmental program that is either one of the nationally sponsored AIP (whatever they are calling them now) programs or one that is modeled along those lines. DoD has a bunch of programs similar to that that might be more hands on, and that would probably be happy to have your experience working for DCMA as well. Thanks for the response. Do you know of any particular programs that are more hands-on? I'm finding it impossible to tell just from the listings. The way you worded your response, it would almost sound like any agency would have hands-on and contract-based positions and I just need to be more vocal about the kind of work I want to do. I have not found this to be the case at DCMA, which does not employ hands-on engineers. I'm guessing, for instance, that if I want to stay within DoD for instance, maybe I'd have better luck working directly for Army, Navy, or Air Force, while perhaps the fourth estate is more solidly admin-focused...but honestly, I'm just guessing. Is there any way to tell outside of trying to track down people who work at these offices and asking directly? I'm not trying to just apply for places blind here.
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Aug 13, 2014 18:06
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Beerdeer posted:The hiring here for SISOs is flying, but I'm pretty sure that's for FY purposes. Lots of SISOs with no teams yet. I've got some ABCs in my PB+J. Seriously, single-in-single-out? That's a computer buffer type, not a position. And for that matter, "here" is...?
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Sep 19, 2014 19:31
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Here's a random question. I've been an engineer with DoD for coming up on 2 years now, on a GS-5-7-9-11-12 track. In a couple of months, I'll make it to the 11 part, with one more year to go to hit the full working level of GS12. Lately, I've been feeling the siren call of the cushy PTO job, plus I like that you can live anywhere and work from home once you hit the working level? PLUS, their working level is higher - GS13. Only problem is...it seems you have to start back at GS-5! If I applied, is there any way I could do it as a lateral, or would I really have to try and survive a year in DC as a GS-5? For that matter, does anyone know if the progression works the same? Would it really take FOUR YEARS to hit GS-13?
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Dec 9, 2014 22:45
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Evil SpongeBob posted:Is it the same job series? It's not. Apparently "patent examiner" gets its whole own number, 1224. So it's not even 800-series. I'm currently an 0854, which is computer engineer. I would applying for this listing, which is for "patent examiner - computer engineering". https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/385230900
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Dec 11, 2014 05:26
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