Civil Engineer at Forest Service — Ault, CO

This posting is part of a Forest Service National Hiring effort, meaning the announcement covers multiple vacancies across several potential duty locations and the specific assignment — here tentatively Ault, Colorado — is not locked in until an offer actually goes out, a hiring pattern agencies use to fill dispersed, similar positions faster than running a separate competitive announcement for every location. The role itself is a full-performance-level civil engineer position spanning design and inspection: preparing designs, drawings, and specifications for roads, trails, bridges, and other forest facilities; advising on and helping resolve issues during construction contracts; and conducting safety inspections and condition surveys of buildings, water and wastewater systems, and utilities, with some limited supervisory duties layered on top. That combination — road and bridge design plus facility safety inspection plus construction contract advisory — is broader than most private-sector civil engineering roles, which tend to specialize in one of those three areas rather than rotate through all of them depending on what a given forest unit needs that season. A Professional Engineer license, earned through the standard FE exam, four years of qualifying experience, and the state PE exam, is the credential that unlocks stamping authority over the designs this role produces and becomes increasingly relevant as engineers here move from entry-level design support into independent design and inspection responsibility. Northern Colorado's Forest Service civil engineering work is shaped by high-elevation infrastructure challenges — freeze-thaw damage to roads and bridges, water system reliability in remote recreation sites, and wildland-urban interface pressure on forest facilities — that differ meaningfully from the growth-driven municipal engineering market along Colorado's Front Range corridor a short distance away.