[Remote] Thermal-Hydraulics and Safety Analysis Engineer - Isotopes

Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Oklo Inc. develops advanced fission power plants, domestic radioisotope supply chains, and nuclear fuel recycling technologies. The Thermal-Hydraulics and Safety Analysis Engineer will own thermal-hydraulic safety analysis for isotope production facilities by developing transient models, evaluating reactor and plant behavior, supporting licensing, and producing auditable technical documentation.

Responsibilities

• Develop, maintain, and execute systems-level thermal-hydraulic models of reactor and plant behavior using RELAP5 or comparable analysis codes
• Analyze normal operating conditions, anticipated operational occurrences, design-basis events, and selected beyond-design-basis conditions relevant to the thermal-hydraulic safety case
• Develop event-specific analysis plans, including initial and boundary conditions, assumptions, acceptance criteria, figures of merit, and treatment of uncertainties
• Develop and document thermal-hydraulic safety-analysis methods, modeling guidance, and engineering practices appropriate to advanced reactor licensing
• Establish and justify code, model, and correlation applicability for the physical phenomena and operating regimes being evaluated
• Perform model verification, validation, sensitivity studies, uncertainty analyses, scaling evaluations, and comparisons with experiments, benchmarks, hand calculations, or higher-fidelity analyses. Identify gaps in available methods, data, and validation evidence, and define practical plans to close those gaps
• Translate regulatory requirements and safety acceptance criteria into defensible analysis requirements and technical evaluation strategies
• Prepare high-quality calculation packages, methodology documents, safety-analysis reports, licensing-application content, and responses to regulator questions
• Evaluate design changes and provide timely feedback on their effects on transient response, safety margins, system performance, and the licensing basis
• Collaborate with reactor physics, fuel, controls, mechanical, thermal-hydraulics, safety, and licensing engineers on coupled analyses and interface conditions
• Develop scripts and automated workflows for model generation, execution, post-processing, regression testing, and configuration control
• Review safety analyses and models prepared by internal contributors, vendors, and external partners

Skills

• The isotope engineering team is a small but growing team, so the candidate must be capable of operating in a highly iterative and independent environment
• * Bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degree in nuclear, mechanical, chemical, or aerospace engineering, or a closely related technical field
• * Five or more years of relevant experience in reactor thermal-hydraulics, nuclear safety analysis, reactor transient analysis, or a closely related field. A relevant advanced degree may substitute for a portion of the professional experience
• * Demonstrated experience developing and executing systems-level transient models using RELAP5
• * Strong foundation in heat transfer, fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, and reactor thermal-hydraulics
• * Experience defining and analyzing reactor transients or accident scenarios, including initial conditions, boundary conditions, equipment response, operator or control actions, and acceptance criteria
• * Experience evaluating the reasonableness and applicability of models, correlations, assumptions, and results rather than treating analysis software as a black box
• * Experience documenting engineering analyses in clear, reviewable technical reports or calculation packages
• * Ability to work independently while collaborating effectively across engineering and licensing disciplines
• * Experience with verification and validation, uncertainty quantification, sensitivity analysis, scaling, bias evaluation, or code applicability assessments
• * Familiarity with experiment design, separate-effects and integral-effects testing, benchmark problems, and the use of test data to validate analytical methods
• * Skilled at developing and interpreting systems-level reactor transient analyses
• * Able to connect thermal-hydraulic behavior, safety functions, acceptance criteria, and licensing conclusions
• * Methodical about verification, validation, uncertainty, configuration control, and technical documentation
• * Comfortable making conservative but technically defensible assumptions when information is incomplete
• * Able to distinguish important safety drivers from modeling detail that does not materially affect a conclusion
• * Comfortable explaining model limitations and uncertainty to designers, reviewers, and regulators
• * Collaborative and effective at working across safety, licensing, design, reactor physics, and analysis teams
• * An excellent writer who can write in a modern active voice, and able to communicate technical content and results verbally
• A startup person: You aren't driven by titles or hierarchy, and prefer efficiency to excess process. You don't need or expect to have a lot of guidance but you enjoy working in a fast-paced team
• Motivated: You are self-motivated
• A team-player: Oklo genuinely is a team. We aren't about taking credit for ourselves, and we aren't about pushing blame to others. We do incredible things because we work as a team
• An excellent communicator: We need a person who is not only technically competent but also a clear and upbeat communicator
• Creative: Being creative means that when things fall outside clear scopes or processes or problems arise without clear solutions, you are able to identify it as well as invent ways to solve a problem or fill a need without micromanagement. The successful person in this job will not only be creative, but also enjoy being creative and solving open-ended problems which may change day-by-day
• Detail-oriented: This focus is a big part of excellence, consistency, and quality. Excellent grammar and spelling matter for both good communication as well as the image of the company that we put forward
• Only applicants who meet the definition of a U.S. person under applicable laws may be eligible
• * Experience supporting NRC or DOE licensing applications, audits, topical or methodology reports, requests for additional information, or other regulatory interactions
• * Fluency with Python or another language used for model automation, data analysis, visualization, and quality checks
• * Competency with modern software engineering practices, including version control, automated testing, reproducible computing environments, and continuous integration
• * Experience working under a nuclear quality-assurance program or with safety-related analysis software and records
• * Experience mentoring other analysts or providing technical review of safety-analysis work

Benefits

• Flexible time off
• Equity
• Bonuses
• 401(k)
• Health insurance (with employer contribution)
• HSA
• FSA
• Flexible work hours
• Wellness credits

Company Overview