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Fire Protection Engineer

National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Langley Research Center

Summary

You will serve as the Fire Protection Engineer / Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ) and will be responsible for the prevention, identification, mitigation, and investigation of fire hazards on people, structures, and commodities in order to ensure continuity of operations at NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC).

Overview

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Accepting applications
Open & closing dates
01/09/2026 to 01/15/2026
Salary
$108,019 to - $165,945 per year
Pay scale & grade
GS 13 - 14
Location
1 vacancy in the following location:
Langley Research Ctr
Hampton, VA
Remote job
No
Telework eligible
Yes—as determined by the agency policy.
Travel Required
Occasional travel - You may be expected to travel for this position.
Relocation expenses reimbursed
No
Appointment type
Permanent
Work schedule
Full-time
Service
Competitive
Promotion potential
14
Supervisory status
No
Security clearance
Secret
Drug test
Yes
Position sensitivity and risk
Noncritical-Sensitive (NCS)/Moderate Risk
Trust determination process
Financial disclosure
Yes
Bargaining unit status
No
Announcement number
LaRC-26-IMP-12861335-SF
Control number
853980500

This job is open to

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Clarification from the agency

Current NASA federal employees serving on a career, career-conditional, VRA (GS-13 Only), Schedule A for individuals with disabilities, or NASA term appointment that provides eligibility to convert to a permanent appointment.

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Duties

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  • Duties described below are at the highest grade advertised. Duties assigned at lower grade levels will be of more limited scope, performed with less independence and limited complexity; duties will be commensurate with the grade of selected employee.
  • Serves as the Fire Protection Engineer/Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ) reporting to the Chief of Protective Services.
  • Documents and implements a Center Fire Protection and Life Safety Program designed to protect human life and property from the risk of fire-related hazards.
  • Interprets, adapts, and applies numerous codes, regulations, guidelines, precedents and engineering principles and practices to determine most feasible design or possible alternative solutions.
  • Approves the work of civil servants, contractors and commercial partner engineers, fire department and other specialists in the planning, directing, and coordinating activities for the Fire Protection Program.
  • Examines the nature and characteristics of fire phenomena and how fires originate, spread, and are detected, controlled, and extinguished. Conducts investigations into post-fire incidents and predicting fire behavior to protect life and property.
  • Reviews and approves building construction and fire protection features and ensures they are in place to minimize danger to life from the effects of fire.
  • Provides and maintains fire protection and life safety systems and procedures in accordance with National Fire Protection Associate requirements, the International Building Code, and the Agency Standard for Fire Protection and Life Safety.
  • Serves as Contracting Officer Representative (COR)/technical representative for assigned contracts.

Requirements

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Conditions of employment

  • Current Federal employees must meet qualifications, time in grade, and 90 days after competitive appointment requirements by the closing date of the announcement.
  • Position subject to pre-employment background security investigation.
  • If selected, you will be required to complete a financial disclosure statement.

Qualifications

Specialized experience is experience that has equipped you with the particular ability, skill, and knowledge to successfully perform the duties of this position and is typically in or related to this line of work.


To qualify for GS-13, you must have one year of directly related specialized experience equivalent to the GS-12 level:

  • Monitoring fire safety, building safety, and life safety systems, ensuring compliance with federal/state building and fire codes;
  • Working with building code inspectors to help ensure mandated fire protection principles are applied throughout the Center for fire control and suppression systems;
  • Utilizing risk management principles to identify and help mitigate hazards related to fire response, such as facility loss prevention control practices, ignition source controls, inspection, testing, and maintenance of protective systems, fire investigation procedures, and related fire prevention best practices.

To qualify for GS-14, you must have one year of directly related specialized experience equivalent to the GS-13 level:
  • Overseeing fire safety, building safety, and life safety, ensuring compliance with federal/state building and fire codes;
  • Working with building code enforcement to ensure mandated fire protection principles are applied throughout the Center for fire control and suppression systems;
  • Utilizing risk management principles to identify and mitigate hazards and make recommendations related to fire response, such as facility loss prevention control practices, ignition source controls, inspection, testing, and maintenance of protective systems, fire investigation procedures, and related fire prevention best practices.


Your resume must include a clear and detailed narrative description, in your own words, of how you meet the required specialized experience. Experience statements copied from a position description, vacancy announcement or other reference material constitutes plagiarism and may result in disqualification and losing consideration for the job.

NASA prohibits the use of artificial intelligence (AI) or AI-assisted tool in drafting application and assessment responses. Please visit https://www.nasa.gov/careers/how-to-apply/#Artificial-Intelligence to review NASA's guidance on the use of AI tools during the application process.

Education

Basic Requirement:

You must have successfully completed a full 4-year course of study in an accredited college or university leading to a bachelor's or higher degree that included a major in engineering. To be acceptable, the program must: (1) lead to a bachelor's degree in a school of engineering with at least one program accredited by ABET; 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
Have 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 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:

  1. 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 individuals 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 individual who attains registration through a State Board's eminence provision as a manufacturing engineer typically would be rated eligible only for manufacturing engineering positions.
  2. Written Test -- Evidence of having successfully passed the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) examination or any other written test required for professional.
  3. Specified academic courses -- Successful completion of at least 60 semester hours of courses in the physical, mathematical, and engineering sciences and that included the courses specified in the basic requirements.
  4. 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 you have 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-type experience. (The above examples of related curricula are not all inclusive.)
U.S. degrees must have been awarded from colleges or universities that are accredited by recognized accrediting organizations. For a list of schools that meet this criteria, go to http://ope.ed.gov/accreditation/.

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. These education credentials must be 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: https://sites.ed.gov/international/recognition-of-foreign-qualifications/.

All degrees must have been received in the year of, or any year subsequent to the original date of accreditation.

Additional information

Additional selections may be made for similar positions across NASA within the local commuting area(s) of the location(s) identified in this announcement. By applying, you agree to have your application shared with interested selecting official(s) within NASA. CTAP/ICTAP will be cleared for any additional selection from this announcement.

If you are a current federal employee, you must meet applicable time-in-grade requirements to be considered eligible for this position. To be eligible, you must have completed a minimum of 52 weeks in a position no more than 1 grade lower than the advertised position. (Please submit your SF-50 that shows Time-in-Grade eligibility and reflects your title, series, and grade. If your eligibility for both merit promotion and/or time-in-grade cannot be determined, your application will be rated ineligible.)

Note: Time-in-grade requirements also apply to applicants who have held a non-temporary, competitive service GS position in the past year.

If you have special priority selection rights under the Agency Career Transition Assistance Program (CTAP) or the Interagency Career Transition Assistance Program (ICTAP), you must:
- Indicate your eligibility when applying for a position. The questionnaire asks you to identify your ICTAP/CTAP eligibility.
- Be well qualified for this position to receive consideration. Candidates rated in the 'Best Qualified' category are considered well-qualified. Please see 'How You Will Be Evaluated' for more information.
- Submit proof that you meet the requirements for CTAP/ICTAP as indicated in 'Required Documents'

For additional information about CTAP/ICTAP eligibility, click here - https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/workforce-restructuring/employee-guide-to-career-transition/#ictap.

Qualified NASA term employees who have term conversion eligibility (Term Appointments | NASA) under the NASA Flexibility Act of 2004 will be referred and considered equally with other NASA permanent employees under internal competitive placement procedures.

Per Executive Order 14343, this position is not part of a bargaining unit.

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.

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 position based on how well you meet the qualifications and eligibility requirements outlined in this vacancy announcement. Your resume and supporting documentation will be reviewed in conjunction with your responses to the assessment questionnaire. As part of the assessment, your responses to the Written Interview prompts will be scored and used to place you into one of three quality groups. These scores, along with your qualifications and supporting materials, will determine your referral status. Please ensure your application materials and responses accurately reflect your experience and competencies, as misrepresentation may result in removal from consideration.

Assessment preview link: https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/12861335

These competencies will be assessed using technical assessments. They may also be evaluated during a structured interview:

  • Fire Protection Engineering
  • Workplace Safety
  • Fire Management
  • Technical Competence
  • Compliance
  • Attention to Detail

NASA considers paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religious; spiritual; community, student, social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience.

Under NASA's quality grouping process, applicants will be assessed on the position competencies and placed in one of three groups identified and defined below:
  • Best Qualified Group - Applicants who demonstrate a superior level of all evaluation criteria.
  • Highly Qualified Group - Applicants who demonstrate a satisfactory level of the evaluation criteria.
  • Qualified Group - Applicants who demonstrate the basic qualifications, with general knowledge, skills, and abilities.
Candidates eligible for ICTAP/CTAP, reemployment priority or priority consideration will be referred before other candidates, as necessary. If no such candidates apply or are eligible to be referred, the following candidates will be sent to the hiring official for employment consideration:
  • Best Qualified merit promotion candidates. Highly Qualified merit promotion candidates may also be referred, if additional candidates are needed.
  • Qualified candidates eligible for consideration under Schedule A or VRA in accordance with veterans' preference rules, as applicable.
  • Qualified candidates that are eligible for special hiring authorities or non-competitive hiring authorities.
NASA will not ask you to disclose criminal history record information during the application process or before we make a conditional/tentative offer of employment. If you apply for this position and are selected, NASA will conduct a suitability/security background investigation after you accept a tentative job offer. If you feel you are asked to disclose your criminal history before you accept a tentative offer and wish to file a complaint within 30 days, please contact: Agency-FCCJ@NASA.gov.

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