Summary The Boiler Plant Operator is responsible for general, operation, maintenance, and repair requirements as established by the Chief, Facilities Management Service, for the Seattle, American Lake & all associated CBOC's and clinics of VA Puget Sound Health Care System. Responsibilities Duties include but are not limited to: Possess skill in adjusting various combustion settings to compensate for varying qualities or condition of fuel when needed to maintain efficiency. Ability to determine the treatment and chemicals to be used to control chemical concentrations, remove impurities and entrapped gases, or stabilize fluctuating water conditions in the boiler. Basic working knowledge of mechanical systems and devices sufficient to install, maintain, troubleshoot, and repair various @types of equipment. Operate and maintain boiler auxiliary equipment with manual and automatic controls to produce saturated steam with dual fire boilers, burning natural gas or #2 diesel fuels. Operates forced draft blowers, heat exchangers, diesel fuel pumps, control valves, strainers, relief valves, safety valves, water softeners and similar equipment. Regulate fuel and feed water levels, maintains required steam pressures, tests and treats boiler water and condensate returns to prescribed limits. Select common hand tools such as screwdrivers, pliers, wrenches, wire cutters, strippers, hammers, and wrenches needed to perform tasks. Select powered equipment such as power drills, rotor-hammers, band saws, and cut off saws needed to perform tasks. Use Boiler Plant systems trade tools such as a pipe threader, taps, dies, drill press, and gear/bearing pullers, multi meters, emissions monitoring tools. Work is assigned to the incumbent by supervision and others through logbooks, work orders, engineering drawings, wiring diagrams or oral. Consistently communicates and treat customers (veterans, their representatives, visitors, and all VA staff) in a courteous, tactful and respectful manner. Handles conflict and problems in dealing with the customer constructively and appropriately. Maintains close communication with supervision on progress reporting resource requests, and conflict resolution. Works in areas where certain potentially harmful physical and/or treatment chemical are present. Working in confined spaces. Work Schedule: 12 Hour Shifts, rotates every 4 months(7am - 7pm; 7pm - 7am) Position Description Title/PD#: Boiler Plant Operator/PD40885A Physical Requirements: Frequently work in confined area in and around boilers. Requires moderate to strenuous effort and long periods of walking, standing, climbing, bending and crouching. Frequently lifts and carries boiler parts and chemical supplies weighing up to 50lbs unassisted. May install, troubleshoot and repair equipment or components from ladders, platforms and scaffolding and in cramped hard to reach areas. This can require walking long distances, prolonged standing, stooping, bending and climbing in uncomfortable or tiring positions. Requirements Conditions of Employment You must be a U.S. citizen to apply for this job Subject to a background/suitability investigation Selective Service Registration is required for males born after 12/31/1959 A complete application package; including Resume, Transcripts, etc. is required Selected applicants will be required to complete an online onboarding process. Acceptable form(s) of identification will be required to complete pre-employment requirements (https://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central/form-i-9-acceptable-documents). Pre-employment Physical required. Effective May 7, 2025, driver's licenses or state-issued identification cards that are not REAL ID compliant cannot be utilized as an acceptable form of identification for employment. Beginning September 27, 2025, Federal agencies will only accept resumes up to two pages in length to comply with the Merit Hiring Plan. Resumes longer than two pages will result in ineligibility for further consideration for the position. USAJOBS will not allow you to upload or build resumes longer than two pages, and you will need to update the resumes in your profile before applying for a job. Resumes should include information relevant to the knowledge, skills, abilities, and competencies of the position to which you are applying. VA is unable to make assumptions about qualifications if not clearly listed. Resumes must be legible so they can be reviewed for eligibility, minimum qualifications and other position requirements listed in the job announcement. Your resume must be 5MB or less. We recommend saving and uploading your resume as a PDF to maintain formatting and number of pages. We also accept GIF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, RTF, TXT, PDF, ODT or Word (DOC or DOCX). We do not accept PDF portfolio files. We recommend using a sans-serif font size like Lato, if available. Other widely available options are Calibri, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, Open San Source Sans Pro, Roboto or Noro Sans. Make your page margins 0.5 inches. Consider using 14-point size font for titles and 10-point for the main text in your resume. The resume builder can help you create a resume using these recommendations and uses the information in your USAJOBS profile to help you get started. Qualifications To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements within 30 days of the closing date of this announcement. EXPERIENCE: A specific length of training and experience is not required, but you must show evidence of training or experience of sufficient scope and quality of your ability to do the work of this position. Evidence which demonstrates you possess the knowledge, skills, and ability to perform the duties of this position must be supported by detailed descriptions of such on your resume. Applicants will be rated in accordance with the OPM Federal Wage System Qualification Standards. SCREEN-OUT ELEMENT: Your qualifications will first be evaluated against the prescribed screen out element, which usually appears as question 1 in the on-line questionnaire. Those applicants who appear to possess at least the minimal acceptable qualification requirement are considered for further rating; those who do not are rated ineligible and are eliminated. The potential eligibles are then rated against the remainder of the Job Elements: Dexterity and Safety Equipment Assembly, Installation, Repair Interpret Instructions, Specifications (other than blueprint reading) Operation of Equipment/Machinery Technical Practices Without more than normal supervision English Language Proficiency In accordance with 38 U.S.C. 7402(d), No person shall serve in direct patient care positions unless they are proficient in basic written and spoken English. You must be proficient in English language. Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religions; 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. Note: A full year of work is considered to be 35-40 hours of work per week. Part-time experience will be credited on the basis of time actually spent in appropriate activities. Applicants wishing to receive credit for such experience must indicate clearly the nature of their duties and responsibilities in each position and the number of hours a week spent in such employment. Education Additional Information Under the Fair Chance to Compete Act, the Department of Veterans Affairs prohibits requesting an applicant's criminal history prior to accepting a tentative job offer (TJO). Please visit the Human Resources and Administration/Operations, Security, and Preparedness (HRA/OSP), va.gov/EMPLOYEE/docs/The-Fair-Chance-to-Compete-Act.pdf for more information. The Interagency Career Transition Assistance Plan (ICTAP) and Career Transition Assistance Plan (CTAP) provide eligible displaced VA competitive service employees with selection priority over other candidates for competitive service vacancies. To be well-qualified, applicants must possess experience that exceeds the minimum qualifications of the position including all selective factors if applicable, and must be proficient in most of the requirements of the job. Information about ICTAP and CTAP eligibility is on OPM's Career Transition Resources website which can be found at https://www.opm.gov/. Receiving Service Credit for Earning Annual (Vacation) Leave: Federal Employees earn annual leave at a rate (4, 6 or 8 hours per pay period) which is based on the number of years they have served as a Federal employee. VA may offer newly-appointed Federal employee's credit for their job-related non-federal experience or active duty uniformed military service. This credited service can be used in determining the rate at which they earn annual leave. Such credit must be requested and approved prior to the appointment date and is not guaranteed. This job opportunity announcement may be used to fill additional vacancies. If you are unable to apply online or need an alternate method to submit documents, please reach out to the Agency Contact listed in this Job Opportunity Announcement. As a condition of employment for accepting this position, you will be required to serve a 1-year probationary period during which we will evaluate your fitness and whether your continued employment advances the public interest. In determining if your employment advances the public interest, we may consider: your performance and conduct; the needs and interests of the agency; whether your continued employment would advance organizational goals of the agency or the Government; and whether your continued employment would advance the efficiency of the Federal service. Upon completion of your probationary period, your employment will be terminated unless you receive certification, in writing, that your continued employment advances the public interest.
