Civil Engineer (Direct Hire) at Federal Aviation Administration — Atlantic City, NJ

Airport pavement engineering, the specialty behind this FAA posting, is a narrow but well-defined corner of transportation engineering focused on the structural design, materials, and performance testing of the pavement that aircraft operate on — a discipline distinct from roadway pavement engineering because aircraft loading, gear configurations, and failure modes differ from vehicle traffic. This role sits inside the FAA's Airport Technology Branch at the National Airport Pavement Facility in Atlantic City, described by the agency as the world's largest enclosed full-scale airfield pavement test facility, and the work spans research and development of improved pavement designs, technical report writing on pavement materials and performance, budget and procurement management for R&D projects, and briefing FAA leadership and international aviation organizations on findings. A Professional Engineer license in civil or transportation engineering is a strong asset for this kind of federal research-and-standards role, since the position's output — technical recommendations and pavement design guidance — ultimately shapes standards used by airports and the broader aviation industry, though extensive applied-research experience can substitute for some of that credentialing weight in an R&D-heavy federal posting like this one. Atlantic City's transportation engineering market is unusual in that it is dominated by this single federal facility rather than a broad private-sector transportation engineering scene the way a major metro area would be; the William J. Hughes Technical Center concentrates FAA aviation research activity in one location, making it one of the only places in the country to build a career specifically in airport pavement research rather than airport pavement design and construction, which is the more common private-sector transportation engineering path found at airports and consulting firms nationwide.