Director of Engineering & Chief Engineer - Recycling

U.S. Fusion Energy; Shine (NC); On-site; USD 175,000 - 225,000; Full time

Job summary

SHINE Technologies, LLC in Janesville, WI seeks a Director of Engineering & Chief Engineer - Recycling to lead the UNF Recycling program, build the core team, and carry a nuclear process design from concept through licensing and construction. The role requires driving design, safety, and regulatory alignment for a pilot facility and advocating for robust engineering standards.

You will own scope, schedule and budget, set technical standards, mentor senior engineers, and coordinate with licensing

Qualifications

• Proven ability to build and lead technical teams.
• Strong understanding of nuclear safety and regulatory frameworks.
• Experience designing or commissioning facilities in harsh environments.

Responsibilities

• Build and lead the core Recycling engineering team and set the technical standard to which it works.
• Own engineering scope, schedule and budget for the Pilot facility.
• Collaborate with multi-disciplinary teams to progress design and licensing.

Skills

Leadership

Nuclear Engineering

Chemical Engineering

Regulatory understanding

Risk assessment

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Nuclear Engineering, Chemical Engineering, or related discipline

Job description

Director of Engineering & Chief Engineer - Recycling

Janesville, WI

Full-time

The base salary range for this position is $175,000 - $225,000 per year plus a comprehensive compensation package. Our salary ranges are determined by role, level, and location.

SHINE is seeking the engineering leader for our used nuclear fuel (UNF) Recycling product line. The US has more than 95,000 metric tons of used nuclear fuel and nowhere to put it. The Director of Engineering & Chief Engineer - Recycling leads the engineering necessary to turn it back into energy: both building the team and carrying a nuclear process design from preliminary stage through detailed design, NRC licensing, procurement, and construction. The process, liquid-liquid separation, has been commercialized before, but we are integrating new technologies to improve proliferation resistance and maximize recovery.

The person in this role is responsible for building and leading the core Recycling engineering team. They will own hiring, development and performance for the engineers and discipline leads who design the facility, and set the technical standard to which it works. This leader attracts senior engineers who have other options, develops them, and grows the next level of technical leadership beneath them.

The Director of Engineering & Chief Engineer - Recycling owns the requirements set for the Recycling facility: applying a graded approach, removing what cannot be justified, and defending the result while meeting our safety goals. They weigh risk against benefit and defend the reasoning.

Duties and Responsibilities of the Director of Engineering & Chief Engineer - Recycling

Build and Lead the Team

• Build and lead the core Recycling engineering team and set the technical standard to which it works.
• Own engineering scope, schedule and budget for the Pilot facility.
• Set the tone for a challenging program. Bring resilience and levity, and judgment about which fights are worth winning.
• Own the integrity of the baseline design and hold the team to it.
• Collaborate with a multi-disciplinary team to progress design and licensing of the Recycling Pilot facility.

Own the Engineering and Design

• Serve as Chief Engineer for the Pilot facility.
• Make the final call on cross-discipline technical trade-offs.
• Own the requirements strategy. Set and defend the approach to codes and standards, seismic design, and application of nuclear quality requirements, applying a first-principles, graded approach, and removing any requirements that cannot be justified.
• Explicitly weigh risk against benefit on engineering decisions.
• Understand regulatory margin.
• Hold technical positions under pressure when the evidence supports it.
• Partner with licensing to develop defensible regulatory positions, propose creative alternatives, and carry them to the NRC.
• Set the technical standard for equipment specification and vendor requirements. Hold the team and design partners to it.
• Set direction, review and when necessary perform nuclear analyses in areas such as radionuclide inventories, dose rates, biological shielding and waste classification.
• Lead hazard and operability studies (HAZOPs) and design reviews.
• Own equipment layout decisions that maximize process efficiency, factoring in operation, maintenance, and safety considerations.
• Identify and evaluate key technical project risks, develop solutions, and communicate to senior management.
• Ensure the appropriate level of documentation is maintained.

Success In The First Eighteen Months

• A core engineering team is hired, retained, and operating to a defined technical standard.
• The baseline design has reached an agreed maturity and is under configuration control.
• The requirements set has been reduced to a defensible minimum, with the reasoning documented.

Requirements

• Evidence of building a technical team from a small core: senior engineers this person recruited personally, who had other options, and who stayed.
• Evidence of holding a hiring bar under pressure—a seat left open rather than filled with the wrong person.
• Demonstrated judgment on regulatory conservatism: has challenged a default requirement and found a path that was as safe or safer, and materially faster or less expensive.
• Ability to critically evaluate information, and the confidence to ask questions when things do not make sense.
• Ability to think strategically and take decisive action once the necessary information has been gathered.
• Energized by solving interesting design engineering challenges.
• Willingness to learn and understand new technology and technical processes.

Experience designing or selecting equipment for operation in harsh environments.

• Ability to navigate a large, interconnected set of design and regulatory requirements and identify which of them can be removed.
• Ability to manage multiple activities, prioritizing them in a way that contributes most to Company success.
• Bachelor’s degree in Nuclear Engineering, Chemical Engineering, or related discipline.
• Ten years or more of relevant engineering experience, including experience leading engineering teams.

Preferred Qualifications

• Knowledge of nuclear fuel cycle processes.
• Nuclear safety analysis experience.
• Experience with chemical process technology transfer.
• Experience scaling from Pilot to Commercial facilities.
• Familiarity with facility design, licensing, and construction under any part of 10 CFR, 10 CFR Part 50 or equivalent DOE regulations.
• Experience interacting directly with a regulatory body, such as NRC.

Eligibility for employment is conditioned on the applicant’s ability to qualify for access to information subject to U.S. Export Controls. Additionally, applicant’s eligibility may be conditioned based upon meeting the Nuclear Regulatory Commission requirements for access to Safeguards Information, which typically requires a pre-employment drug screen, fingerprinting and criminal background check.

SHINE values diversity in all its forms as a critical component of innovation, which is fundamental to our success. Every member of the SHINE community benefits from the talents and experiences of our peers, from the mutual respect we exercise, and from the responsibility we take for our actions.

SHINE Technologies, LLC maintains affirmative action plans for individuals with disabilities and protected veterans. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or protected veteran status.

Pay Transparency Policy

Employee Rights Under the NLRA

Equal Opportunity Employment

E-Verify