Outage Specialist

Talen Energy; Berwick (Columbia County); On-site; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Talen Energy is seeking an Outage Specialist to lead development, coordination, and implementation of outage plans for forced, planned, maintenance, and refueling outages, ensuring shutdown safety, ALARA, and regulatory compliance. You will work closely with the Outage Manager and cross-functional teams to align scope, resources, and milestones.

This role requires strong scheduling, risk management, and communication skills to drive safe, efficient, and predictable outage performance.

Qualifications

• Experience supporting outage planning, readiness tracking, and milestone management in a nuclear or high-reliability industrial environment.
• Ability to work across organizational boundaries and influence teams without direct authority.
• Knowledge of shutdown safety, outage risk management, and station outage governance.
• Strong written and verbal communication to present readiness status and actions to leadership.

Responsibilities

• Lead and coordinate development of the integrated outage plan and detailed outage schedule to ensure compliance and safe operations.
• Coordinate planners, schedulers, operations, maintenance, engineering, and support teams regarding outage preparation and execution.
• Develop and communicate Shutdown Safety Program and support outage risk management to reflect risk controls and defense in depth.
• Direct outage schedule implementation during execution, including progress updates and critical path monitoring.
• Track milestone readiness and communicate gaps, risks, and recovery actions to leadership.
• Interface with contractors and specialty teams to align plans and address execution risks.

Skills

Outage planning

Schedule management

Cross-functional coordination

Nuclear power plant experience

ALARA safety principles

Risk assessment

Education

Bachelor's degree in Business, Engineering, Science, Maintenance, or other technical discipline

Senior Reactor Operator license or certification

Associate degree in Business or technical discipline

High school diploma or GED

Tools

Primavera P6

CAP tools

NIMS

Microsoft Office

Job description

Job Summary

Job Summary: The Outage Specialist reports to the Outage Manager and is responsible for leading the development, coordination, and implementation of detailed plans and schedules for forced, planned, maintenance, and refueling outages while ensuring shutdown safety, ALARA principles, Technical Specification compliance, and adherence to station procedures and outage management processes. Under the direction of the Outage Manager, this role supports outage milestone readiness, schedule execution, forced outage planning, and shutdown risk management, and works across station organizations to align scope, resources, schedule logic, and execution priorities in support of safe, efficient, and predictable outage performance. The Outage Specialist serves as a key integrator between site departments, outage leadership, and designated team leads during both pre-outage preparation and outage execution.

Primary Responsibilities

Lead and coordinate development of the integrated outage plan and detailed outage schedule for upcoming unit outages under the direction of the Outage Manager to ensure Technical Specification compliance, shutdown safety, and alignment with station goals, milestones, and approved work scope.

• Lead or support horizontal schedule reviews, vertical slice reviews, milestone reviews, and readiness assessments to validate schedule logic, work windows, resource alignment, risk controls, and execution strategy.
• Coordinate planners, schedulers, operations, maintenance, engineering, projects, radiation protection, supply chain, training, and specialty teams regarding outage preparation, schedule alignment, and execution priorities.
• Lead, development, implementation, and communication of the Shutdown Safety Program and support outage risk management to ensure schedule decisions appropriately reflect shutdown risk controls, plant configuration requirements, and defense in depth.
• Direct outage schedule implementation during execution, including schedule maintenance, status updates, activity posting, critical path monitoring, emergent work integration, and communication of schedule impacts to the Outage Manager, station leadership, and the Outage Control Center.
• Coordinate outage risk screening and support overall outage risk management by evaluating schedule changes, emergent scope, plant conditions, and work interactions that may affect shutdown safety or execution margins.
• Develop and maintain forced outage, maintenance outage, and recovery plans, including OCC training support, tabletop drills, and preparatory communications for station stakeholders.
• Track outage milestone readiness and communicate status, gaps, risks, and recovery actions to the Outage Manager and outage leadership team.
• Support development of materials for outage readiness meetings, Outage Review Board meetings, Core Team preparation meetings, executive challenge meetings, management review meetings, and other leadership forums requiring schedule, risk, and readiness status.
• Support high impact team tracking and provide oversight of team effectiveness, readiness progress, issue resolution, and execution performance during outage preparation and execution.
• Develop or coordinate startup management and recovery meetings, as applicable, to support safe and efficient return to service.
• Conduct critiques, capture lessons learned, perform gap analyses, and update outage templates, planning tools, and standard processes to improve future outage performance.
• Interface with contractors, designated team leads, and specialty support organizations to align outage plans, support resource readiness, and address execution risks.
• Actively support corrective action, self-assessment, and continuous improvement processes, including assigned actions, readiness gaps, outage observations, benchmarking, and after-action reviews.
• Perform additional duties as assigned, including Emergency Response Organization and execution assignments for which qualified.

Basic Qualifications

Basic Qualifications Bachelor’s degree in Business, Engineering, Science, Maintenance, or other technical discipline and 8 years of power plant experience, including at least 3 years of commercial or military nuclear experience in engineering, maintenance, operations, work management, outage management, or a closely related function; or Current or previous Senior Reactor Operator license or certification and 8 years of power plant experience, including at least 3 years of commercial or military nuclear experience in engineering, maintenance, operations, work management, outage management, or a closely related function; or Associate degree in Business or a technical discipline and 10 years of power plant experience, including at least 3 years of commercial or military nuclear experience in engineering, maintenance, operations, work management, outage management, or a closely related function; or High school diploma or GED and 12 years of power plant experience, including at least 3 years of commercial or military nuclear experience in engineering, maintenance, operations, work management, outage management, or a closely related function. Demonstrated experience supporting outage planning, outage execution, readiness tracking, schedule review, milestone management, or work management in a nuclear or similarly high reliability industrial environment. Demonstrated ability to work across organizational boundaries and influence cross functional teams without direct line authority. Working knowledge of outage scheduling, work windows, critical path concepts, schedule maintenance, emergent work integration, and outage milestone processes. Working knowledge of shutdown safety, outage risk management, Technical Specification interfaces, and station outage governance applicable to outage planning and execution. Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to present readiness status, risks, and recovery actions to the Outage Manager and station leadership. Ability to maintain access authorization requirements, satisfy applicable medical or fitness for duty requirements, and support emergency response duties as qualified and assigned.

Preferred Qualifications

Preferred Qualifications Previous outage execution experience, preferably including support of multiple refueling outages. Experience leading outage schedule reviews, milestone reviews, readiness assessments, Outage Control Center support activities, or similar outage governance forums. Shutdown Safety Program and shutdown risk management knowledge. Experience with forced outage preparation, startup and recovery planning, and readiness communications to station leadership. Supervisory, team lead, or project lead experience in outage, operations, maintenance, engineering, or work management organizations. Advanced working knowledge of CAP tools, Primavera P6, NIMS, and Microsoft Office, including schedule maintenance, action tracking, readiness reporting, and presentation development. Experience conducting outage critiques, benchmarking, gap analysis, and process improvement initiatives.

About Talen

Talen is a leading independent power producer and energy infrastructure company dedicated to powering the future. We own, operate, and optimize high-quality power infrastructure across the United States. Our generation portfolio includes 15 generation locations capable of producing approximately 15.6GW of power. Talen’s fleet generates electricity using a diverse mix of fuels, ranging from zero-carbon nuclear energy—including the Susquehanna nuclear facility—to natural gas, coal, and oil. We produce and sell electricity, capacity, and ancillary services into wholesale power markets across the United States, with generation assets located in key power markets. Our team is committed to generating power safely and reliably and delivering the most value per megawatt produced. Talen is also powering the digital infrastructure revolution. We are well-positioned to capture this growing industry, as artificial intelligence data centers increasingly demand more reliable, clean power. We have an inclusive, diverse, respectful, and collaborative workplace, and a strong commitment to innovation, teamwork, and integrity.

Talen Energy is headquartered in Houston, Texas. Talen Energy is committed to providing a safe, drug and alcohol-free workplace. Consistent with applicable law and any collective bargaining agreements, positions may be subject to pre-employment, random, post-accident, and reasonable suspicion drug and alcohol testing.

Talen Energy is an equal opportunity employer dedicated to diversity and the strength it brings to the workplace.

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, age, sex, religion, national origin, veteran status, sexual orientation, genetic information, gender identity, disability, perceived disability, or any other protected characteristic as may be defined by applicable law.

For more information visit www.talenenergy.com.