Nuclear Quality Lead: Build Scalable, Safe Systems

Blackwing; Torrance, Northern (CA, KY); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive pay

Equity

Medical benefits

Lunch onsite

Autonomy

Career growth

Collaboration with experts

Impactful work

Job summary

Valar Atomics is seeking a founding Quality Lead to establish and scale the Quality organization in a fast-moving R&D-to-commercial setting. You will own critical quality problems, partner with engineering teams, and define a roadmap for a future world-class QMS from day one.

This leadership role emphasizes defensible compliance, risk-informed controls, and mentoring of the team as the company grows, balancing pace with safety and regulatory rigor.

Qualifications

• Prior experience in nuclear quality assurance (R&D, commercial, or both) sufficient to innovate responsibly.
• Broad quality engineering background spanning design, manufacturing, suppliers, and testing.
• Experience building or significantly reshaping quality systems, not just operating mature ones.
• Demonstrated ability to execute with minimal direction in incomplete systems.
• Strong pattern recognition and judgment under pressure.
• Comfort working in high-intensity, rapidly changing environments.

Responsibilities

• Act as a solutions owner for quality-related challenges across R&D and early commercial activities, embedding directly with teams to understand real constraints and enable compliant execution at speed.
• Develop creative, defensible approaches to demonstrating compliance without unnecessary drag.
• Co-architect Valar's Quality Management System from the ground up, defining near-term quality fundamentals and a roadmap for scaling rigor as Valar transitions from R&D to commercial execution.
• Build prevention-focused systems that scale cleanly rather than inspection-heavy controls that calcify.
• Apply nuclear quality assurance principles with judgment, distinguishing between regulatory intent and historical habit.
• Serve as a credible technical interface with regulators, auditors, and external stakeholders.
• Leverage modern tools, data, automation, and AI responsibly to increase speed and rigor simultaneously, treating quality as an information system as much as a compliance system.
• Operate as a servant leader, anchoring every decision in Valar's mission, investing in the team, and ensuring quality serves as an enabler of safe execution.
• Mentor others and help lay the foundation for a future Quality organization as Valar scales.

Skills

Quality strategy

Nuclear QA background

Systems thinking

Regulatory understanding

Judgment under pressure

Ambiguity management

Job description

Valar Atomics is seeking a founding Quality Lead to establish and scale the Quality organization in a fast-moving R&D-to-commercial setting. You will own critical quality problems, partner with engineering teams, and define a roadmap for a future world-class QMS from day one.

This leadership role emphasizes defensible compliance, risk-informed controls, and mentoring of the team as the company grows, balancing pace with safety and regulatory rigor.