ATCS System Engineer -II-III-IV; Advanced Train Control Systems); Alaska Railroad

Job Description PURPOSE OF POSITION:

The primary responsibility is to support the Alaska Railroad's Advanced Train Control Systems department and its safety systems to ensure safe, stable and efficient operations. This position is fundamentally a systems integrations position requiring a deep understanding of computing and networking technology, data and database systems, systems design, systems engineering, and systems validation and systems testing methodologies.

The successful candidate will have a comprehensive background that allows for multidisciplinary systems design, implementation and validation. This background will be focused on supporting the Alaska Railroad’s implementation of Positive Train Control (PTC) and its auxiliary subsystems. Additionally, this position participates in a rotating on-call after-hours support rotation and will be subject to the Alaska Railroad’s Hours of Service program.

This tiered position allows for career advancement through personal, technical, and professional skills acquisition and development. Each tier represents a milestone in technical competency, accountability, and responsibility in not only modern information systems technologies but also in Positive Train Control systems and its auxiliary subsystems.

Tier

High-level Work Scope Definition

Education

Work Exp.

PTC Exp.

I

(NR08)

The successful candidate will have a background that demonstrates a fundamental understanding of modern computing technologies (i.e. Workstations, Servers, switched networking, TCP/IP troubleshooting, messaging systems, database systems, etc.), or a sufficient background to develop the necessary skills in these technologies and the ability to apply that knowledge to solve technical issues.

The scope of responsibilities for this tier will primarily be focused on the automated testing environments to support the positive train control acceptance testing. This position will work under more senior technical team members to support the needs of the department.

Personal progression in acquiring fundamental skills in PTC is expected.

AS

BS

2

0

0

0

II

(NR08)

In addition to Tier I scope, the skill competency for this level will be higher to reduce the active work-task oversight by other members of the team. Work will be expected to be completed independently within the candidate’s established scope of duties with an eye on accuracy. Additionally, the candidate will be encouraged to continue to develop skills in preparation for the next tier of responsibilities.

The scope of responsibilities will be expanded to cover the larger end-to-end test labs as well as the smaller test environments. More emphasis will be placed on technical competency, inter-team communication and system validation.

Personal skills development is expected to continue and should demonstrate measurable progress in PTC Core competencies for qualification to the next tier.

AS

BS

MS

5

3

1

0

0

0

III

(NR09)

In addition to Tier II scope, the skill competency for this level is higher and the employee in this position will be expected to mentor others in their areas of expertise. Additionally, candidates in this tier will be expected to apply system knowledge to gather requirements, design systems and manage the implementation and validation of those systems.

The scope of responsibilities will be expanded to include working with oversight in the production PTC systems. The advancement of working within this space will necessitate enrollment in Hours of Service rules and adhering to stricter procedures to ensure smooth, stable and safe system deployments while maintaining railroad operational continuity.

Personal skills development is expected to continue and should demonstrate measurable progress in PTC Core competencies for qualification to…