Back-to-Basics: Engineering and Technical Management

The Department of Defense is modernizing its implementation of the Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act to better align its acquisition workforce resources. The updated certification framework will significantly empower the workforce with options to be more flexible, agile, and mobile. The Engineering and Technical Management Functional Area merged three career fields: Engineering; Science & Technology Management; and Production, Quality & Manufacturing; in addition to some workforce members from the Information Technology career field. As the largest acquisition body in the Department of Defense, this new Functional Area includes over 72,000 workforce members. ETM acquisition professionals serve in a wide variety of roles from designing software, weapons systems, and structures; to conducting scientific research; to overseeing quality assurance efforts in contractors’ manufacturing facilities.