Technical Fellow Software

Summary

The NASA Technical Fellows Program recognizes Agency-wide technical excellence and leadership, with Fellows serving within the NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC); advising the Office of the Chief Engineer, NASA programs and Mission Directorates. Also serves as a voting member on the NESC Review Board. Fellows perform value-added testing, analysis, and assessments of NASA's high-risk projects to ensure safety and mission success.

Duties

The Technical Fellow Software: Serves as the Agency's authoritative technical resource in software, applying advanced engineering theory and operational expertise, frequently leading teams and providing the technical foundation for evaluating and reducing mission risk. Provides Agency-wide technical leadership and collaboration in software, leading independent assessments and partnering with recognized researchers and engineers across NASA centers, academia, national laboratories, industry, and the Department of Defense to conduct and sponsor work that informs Software mission risk. Communicates and fosters software knowledge, publishing engineering findings through NASA channels, journals, seminars, NESC Academy courses, or domestic/international universities; serves as an invited presenter at conferences and promotes participation in engineering academies. Provides senior technical leadership for independent technical reviews, serving as the national/international expert in software. Establishes, leads, and stewards a Technical Discipline Team (TDT) of the Agency's foremost software experts, and augmented by external specialists-to support independent assessments and ensure discipline stewardship across NASA. Provides expert engineering support for the design, implementation, analysis, maintenance, verification, and validation of mission critical software and related computational hardware across flight, ground, science, operations, scheduling, and subsystem domains. Conducts cross-project studies to analyze anomalies, data, metrics, and trends, and develops reliable, secure, fault-tolerant software, algorithms, and tools that support spacecraft subsystems and mission performance. Advances software quality, security, standards, development environments, and knowledge management while applying advanced computing methods (AI, neural networks, expert systems, fuzzy logic) to enhance mission capabilities. Designs, analyze, integrate, and evaluate software systems across key subdisciplines - including but not limited to flight software, ground system software, science data processing software, operations, scheduling, and flight dynamics software, electrical ground support equipment software, simulators, emulators, test systems software, subsystem software and algorithms - to ensure safe, reliable, mission ready power capabilities. Leads Agency-wide Software discipline stewardship activities, including technical workshops, knowledge-sharing forums, identification and cataloging of critical skills and facilities, assessment of emerging technical challenges, and periodic reporting of discipline health, capability, and risk to Agency leadership. Qualifications

SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE: Candidates must be a recognized subject matter expert with at least 1 year of directly related experience equivalent to the GS-15 level in leading independent technical reviews and serving as a recognized expert in mission-critical software for high-risk programs. Must have experience in developing, evaluating, and applying advanced software architectures, algorithms, and tools-integrating AI or other advanced methods-to strengthen mission performance and reduce risk. Must also demonstrate national leadership through collaboration across NASA, industry, or academia, including technical knowledge sharing. 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 position. Please visit https://www.nasa.gov/careers/how-to-apply/#Artificial-Intelligence to review NASA's guidance on the use of artificial intelligent (AI) or AI-assisted tools during the application process. To meet the minimum qualification requirements for this position, your resume must also address both Senior Level (SL) Evaluation Criteria listed below. Failure to address these criteria will result in your application being rated ineligible. SL EVALUATION CRITERIA: 1. Technical Competence and Leadership Led technical/discipline teams to advance or enable state-of-the-art solutions in science, engineering, or mission enabling functions. Developed or implemented innovative methodologies or technologies to solve complex scientific, engineering or mission enabling problems. Led or supported collaborative partnerships with industry, academic, or government organizations to advance scientific, engineering, or mission enabling technical capabilities at national or international levels. 2. Professional Contributions and Influence Leveraged expertise and integration skills to resolve technical/discipline challenges for complex systems. Demonstrated impact in technical discipline to solve issues or improve operational effectiveness. Chaired or presented at professional conference sessions or technical forums to share expertise and influence field development. Developed or mentored students or professional practitioners in scientific, engineering or mission enabling communities. Shared technical knowledge or innovations that were adopted by outside organizations with documented results. Please refer to the "How you will be evaluated" section for a list of competencies that you will be evaluated on.

Education

This position has a positive education requirement. To be eligible, you must clearly state in your resume the following: degree, major and/or minor, and college/university. A college or university degree generally must be from an accredited (or pre-accredited) college or university recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. For a list of schools which meet these criteria, please refer to Department of Education Accreditation page. An official transcript will be required if you are selected. A bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university with major study in engineering, physical science, mathematics, life sciences, computer science, or other field of science. SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR 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. 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, click here. How You Will Be Evaluated

All qualifications requirements must be met by the closing date of the announcement. Applicants that meet minimum eligibility requirements outlined in the Qualifications and Education (if applicable) sections of the vacancy announcement will be referred to an executive panel for further evaluation. The panel reviews and evaluates the candidate's resume against each SL criterion. Candidates may receive an interview for further evaluation and/or be asked to provide a list of references. The panel will make a recommendation to the appropriate approving authority. These competencies will be assessed using technical assessments. They may also be evaluated during a structured interview: Creativity and Innovation Developing Others Leadership Oral Communication Partnering Problem Solving Software Engineering Teamwork Technical Competence Technical Management Technical Work and Team Management Other Information

NASA may discuss and consider candidate duty station location after selection, which means that the duties can be performed at any NASA location. The selected candidate will need to relocate and report to an on-site NASA location or duty station, which may be different from where he/she currently resides.