Healthcare Engineer (Network Engineer)
What you'd do
The Network Engineer at Robley Rex VAMC serves as the authoritative technical expert responsible for the architecture, engineering, cybersecurity, and sustained operation of special purpose networked systems that are mission critical to patient care, life safety, and regulatory compliance within a complex medical center environment.
Major duties
Duties are as listed but are not limited to: Engineers, administers, and sustains dedicated on-premises and virtual servers supporting special purpose healthcare systems, including temperature monitoring, pharmaceutical storage compliance, laboratory environments, blood banks, operating rooms, and data centers. Designs high-availability and fault-tolerant architectures ensuring continuous monitoring and alerting to protect medications, biologics, vaccines, and patient-critical assets. Integrates special purpose servers with enterprise network services (Active Directory, DNS, DHCP, VLANs, firewall rules, NAC, and secure remote access) in compliance with VA and federal cyber security standards. Performs advanced troubleshooting of complex, multi-layer system failures involving network hardware, virtual environments, databases, sensors, and application interfaces. Serves as the technical lead for TempTrak system infrastructure, ensuring reliable connectivity between sensors, gateways, application servers, and alerting mechanisms. Configures and maintains secure network pathways to support real-time monitoring, alert escalation, historical data retention, and regulatory reporting. Coordinates system upgrades, patches, firmware updates, and server lifecycle management to minimize downtime and maintain continuous compliance with Joint Commission, FDA, CDC, and VHA requirements. Provides expert consultation to Pharmacy, Laboratory, Engineering, Logistics, Biomedical Engineering, and Patient Safety stakeholders regarding system capabilities, limitations, and risk mitigation strategies. Implements and maintains Defense-in-Depth strategies for special purpose servers, including segmentation, access controls, encryption, logging, and monitoring. Ensures systems comply with VA cybersecurity policies, NIST, FISMA, and Authority to Operate (ATO) requirements. Participates in vulnerability management, incident response, and remediation activities specific to clinical monitoring platforms. Develops and maintains documentation, diagrams, and SOPs required for audits, inspections, and accreditation surveys. Designs and supports enterprise network solutions that integrate special purpose systems without degrading performance or security of the broader hospital network. Leads network changes impacting clinical infrastructure, including firewall changes, routing updates, switch configurations, and wireless connectivity required for monitoring devices. Collaborates with regional and national OIT teams to align local implementations with enterprise architecture standards. Acts as the subject matter expert (SME) for special purpose systems during construction, renovation, equipment replacement, and system expansion projects. Leads or supports multidisciplinary teams during system outages, environmental excursions, or emergent risk scenarios. Provides mentoring and technical guidance to lower-graded engineers and IT staff. Communicates complex technical information to clinical and executive leadership in a clear, actionable manner. Work Schedule: Monday-Friday 0800-1630 Telework: Not Available Virtual: This is not a virtual position. Functional Statement #: 41192-F Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized Paid Time Off: 37-50 days of annual paid time offer per year (13-26 days of annual leave, 13 days of sick leave, 11 paid Federal holidays per year) Parental Leave: After 12 months of employment, up to 12 weeks of paid parental leave in connection with the birth, adoption, or foster care placement of a child. Child Care Subsidy: After 60 days of employment, full time employees with a total family income below $144,000 may be eligible for a childcare subsidy up to 25% of total eligible childcare costs for eligible children up to the monthly maximum of $416.66. Retirement: Traditional federal pension (5 years vesting) and federal 401K with up to 5% in contributions by VA Insurance: Federal health/vision/dental/term life/long-term care (many federal insurance programs can be carried into retirement)
What you need to qualify
Basic Requirements: US Citizenship: Non-citizens may only be appointed when it is not possible to recruit qualified citizens in accordance with VA Policy. Education: (1) Bachelor's degree or higher in Engineering or Architecture. To be acceptable, the curriculum must be from a school with at least one curriculum accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, Engineering Accreditation Commission (excludes engineering technology) or National Council of Architectural Registration Boards curriculum. Exp of acceptable engineering and architectural degrees include, but are not limited to: Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Biomed Engineering, Civil Engineering, Architecture and Architectural Engineering. Titles may vary; OR (2) Evidence of passing the Fundamentals of Engineering Examination with a bachelor's degree. Evidence can be in the form of an Engineering in Training certificate issued from any State, the District of Columbia, Guam or Puerto Rico, or test results from the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) identifying a passing score; OR (3) Evidence of current professional registration or licensure as a Professional Engineer or Architect. Evidence of current professional registration or licensure can be from any State, the District of Columbia, Guam or Puerto Rico. May qualify based on being covered by the Grandfathering Provision as described in the VA Qual Standard for this occupation (only applicable to current VHA employees who are in this occupation and meet the criteria): All individuals employed in VHA in this occupational series or in another occupational series performing the duties as described in the qualification standard on the effective date of this qualification standard, are considered to have met all the qualification requirements for the grade held including positive education that is part of the basic requirements of the occupation. For employees who do not meet all the basic requirements of this standard, but met the qualifications applicable to the position at the time they were appointed to the position, the following provisions apply: (1) Employees may be reassigned, promoted up to and including the full performance (journey) level or changed to lower grade within the occupation, but may not be promoted beyond the journeyman level or placed in supervisory or managerial positions. (2) Employees in an occupation that requires a licensure/certification/registration only at higher grade levels must meet the licensure/certification/registration requirement before they can be promoted to those higher grade levels. (3) Employees who are appointed on a temporary basis prior to the effective date of the qualification standard may not have their temporary appointment extended or be reappointed, on a temporary or permanent basis until they fully meet the basic requirements of the standard. (4) Employees who are converted to title 38 hybrid status under this provision and subsequently leave the occupation lose protected status and must meet the full VA qualification standard requirements in effect at the time of reentry to the occupation. (5) Employees initially grandfathered into this occupation, who subsequently obtain additional education and/or licensure/registration that meet all the basic requirements of this qualification standard must maintain the required credentials as a condition of employment in the occupation. Grade Determinations GS-12:In addition to the basic requirements outlined in paragraph 3, the following criteria must be met when determining the grade of candidates. Experience. One year of experience equivalent to the next lower grade GS-11. Knowledge, Skills and Abilities (KSAs). In addition to meeting the experience requirements for this grade level, the candidate must fully demonstrate the following KSAs: (a) Knowledge of mechanical, electrical, structural, civil and other engineering/architectural principles, practices and their applications in the healthcare environment. (b) Knowledge of healthcare industry standards and related regulatory agency and organization (including, but not limited to The Joint Commission (TJC), Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA), etc.) regulations, requirements, guides, policies, procedures, directives, standards and general medical program requirements as they relate to healthcare engineering. (c) Knowledge of construction standards, methods, practices and techniques, materials and equipment to determine compliance with engineering regulations and standards. (d) Skill in researching and analyzing information, conditions, human factors and projections to make sound engineering and business recommendations and decisions to proactively identify problems and develop innovative solutions within the context of applicable rules, regulations and procedures. (e) Ability to plan and execute complex, multi-faceted projects and inspections while prioritizing resources against approved scopes of work, contract documents and budgets. (f) Ability to organize and lead multi-disciplinary task forces with members from different departments and divisions, as well as design and construction firms. Reference: For more information on this qualification standard, please visit https://www.va.gov/ohrm/QualificationStandards/. The full performance level of this vacancy is GS-12. Physical Requirements: Primarily sedentary, although some physical effort may be required, e.g., walking, standing, climbing ladders, stooping, kneeling, and carrying light items such as manuals or briefcases, or driving or traveling by motor vehicle.
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