Field Hydrology Technician

This opportunity is open to current King County employees. We are not accepting external applications at this time.

In addition to the current opening, this recruitment may be used to establish a pool of qualified candidates to fill future Field Hydrology Technician FTE within the Water and Land Resources Division or throughout the Department of Natural Resources & Parks (DNRP) over the next 6 months.

Are you ready to use science to gather evidence for protecting and restoring our local waterways? Do you enjoy being outside and doing hands on work gathering environmental data? We have an exciting opportunity for a Field Hydrology Technician (Environmental Scientist I) to manage critical monitoring sites that support nearly 40 years of long‑term hydrology monitoring. This position utilizes some of the more innovative field technologies to monitor watersheds across King County.

The person in this position conducts field science to track weather and hydrology—important indicators of environmental change— and provide data that is used across the county’s environmental programs. Operating within the Science Section of Water and Land Resources Division (WLRD), this role is focused on achieving the goals of the county’s Clean Water Healthy Habitat (CWHH) Strategic Plan. You will help us accomplish the plan’s goals by tracking changes in weather and hydrologic conditions in the field, assessing influences of human activities, and providing data for management actions.

Your work will advance CWHH Plan goals including cleaner, controlled stormwater runoff; functional river floodplains; solving inequity in environmental monitoring; and better fish habitat. Join our team and help us achieve these goals!

As a Field Hydrology Technician, your role is to provide scientific and technical support for one of the county’s most important environmental monitoring programs. The field hydrology program supports salmon restoration projects, the management of stormwater, floodplains, and wastewater, and even our efforts to coexist with beavers. The person in this position will be in the field installing and maintaining continuous flow, stage, and rain gages as well as in the office managing the data and coordinating with clients.

This is a hands‑on field position that also reviews data quality and assists with analysis of hydrologic patterns. The distribution of workload is approximately 60% field work and 40% office work depending on storm events, stream gage maintenance needs, and yearly scheduled gage installations and decommissions.

This position follows a hybrid work model, blending remote and in‑person work.

The Science Section is a unique part of King County – where scientists help to build the scientific framework for policy and decision‑making. The Section is a Seattle-based team of more than 40 technical staff producing credible and innovative, applied science and technical guidance for the benefit of all people and the environment. The team collaborates with various county environmental programs as well as partner jurisdictions to gather long term hydrology data used to solve some of our toughest environmental questions.

We lead applied studies in environmental sciences, manage monitoring programs, deliver technical services to clients and collaborators, and inform evidence‑based policies and regulations.

The Water and Land Resources Division (WLRD) is at the forefront of King County’s efforts to protect and restore clean water and healthy habitat and strengthen the resilience of communities, environment, and infrastructure in the face of climate change. We are a dedicated workforce of more than 450 supported by an annual budget of ~$280 million. WLRD has a strong track record of developing innovative strategies to protect working farms and forests, restore habitat, improve water quality, and provide county residents with equitable access to green space.

We house the Land Conservation Initiative, which aims to preserve our last, most important lands. Our forestry and agricultural programs help individuals protect their lands and support local food production. We…