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Are you ready to start your career in a Federal Agency that consistently ranks high as a best place to work? Do you want to make a difference designing and overseeing construction of roads, bridges, and trails in National Parks, Forests, Wildlife Refuges, and Recreation Areas?

Since the early 1900’s our mission at the Office of Federal Lands Highway (FLH) of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has been to build safe, reliable, equitable, and resilient access to our Nation’s treasures! Our partners rely upon us to solve and manage unique program and project challenges that are wide-ranging in environment, geography, and complexity, through engineering solutions that are sensitive to the context of the land. For more information, visit https://highways.dot.gov/federal-lands/careers. We Work Where You Play!

The interns will be assigned to the Central Federal Lands Highway Division, which covers 14 central and western states including Hawaii.  The work will primarily be completed in the office, located in Lakewood, CO, with site visits to projects within the area of jurisdiction. Interns will be assigned to one of the following teams: Bridge, Geotechnical, Highway Design, Hydraulics, Pavements/Materials, or Safety. Through this internship, you will gain practical skills and experience in civil engineering that will be the foundation of your career!

The Pathways Student Trainee (Civil Engineering) will intern in one of the following areas:

Bridge Design and Inspection

  • Perform quantities and basic engineering calculations.
  • Operate bridge inspection equipment, take and record data, develop sketches and prepares required reports.
  • Perform structures inventory at sites and evaluate data.
  • Use Computer Aided Design (CAD) software to prepare bridge plan sheets.
  • Assist in development and review of Plans, Specification, and Estimate (PS&E) packages.

Geotechnical

  • Perform geotechnical design calculations and technical reports.
  • Perform project site geological and geotechnical mapping, logging, borehole data and samples; sketch details of test pit investigations; obtain data from geotechnical instrumentation; operate hand tools for field investigations; collect, bag, and label soil and rock samples in preparation for shipping; and perform other geotechnical field assistance.
  • Enter field data into Geotechnical software programs.
  • Assist in development and review of Plans, Specification, and Estimate (PS&E) packages.

Hydraulics

  • Perform Hydrologic and Hydraulic design calculations.
  • Assist in developing drainage design.
  • Prepare technical reports and cost estimates.
  • Assist in development and review of Plans, Specification, and Estimate (PS&E) packages.

Highway Design

  • Develop roadway design packages that include horizontal and vertical alignment, superelevation, 3-D modeling of the project, and creation of surfaces.
  • Perform project site visits to review preliminary designs.
  • Create construction plans and quantity calculations using Computer Aided Design (CAD) software.
  • Assist in development and review of Plans, Specification, and Estimate (PS&E) packages.

Pavements/Materials

  • Prepare design and construction recommendations for new and rehabilitation pavement projects.
  • Conduct pavement field investigations.
  • Log in samples, prepare samples for testing, monitor testing procedures, and record data of materials such as concrete, soils, asphalt, and roadway aggregates.
  • Retrieve and compile data.
  • Research past mix designs and compile comparison data.
  • Assist in development and review of Plans, Specification, and Estimate (PS&E) packages.

Safety

  • Perform safety calculations.
  • Perform project site visits to review highway safety.
  • Research safety countermeasures and provide recommendations to Highway Design.
  • Assist in development and review of Plans, Specification, and Estimate (PS&E) packages.

Project Delivery Support

  • Duties include a variety of activities in Project Delivery.
  • Review technical civil engineering project design documents and submittals, identify civil engineering problems and provide recommendations for corrective actions.
  • Update GIS maps and figures for research tasks.

The ideal candidates are current students pursuing a degree in Civil Engineering, or related engineering fields, who have the desire to learn about the design and construction of highways and bridges.

Internships Summer 2025 Opening Soon!

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