Principal Nuclear Instrumentation & Controls Engineer - Hardware

valaratomics; Torrance (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Valar Atomics is seeking Principal Nuclear I&C Engineers to own the technical direction of nuclear instrumentation plant design for its high-temperature gas-cooled reactor program. You will define the reactor measurement architecture, apply qualification standards, and provide technical leadership across safety-critical instrumentation domains.

You will work with a cross-disciplinary team including I&C, electrical, reactor physics, and thermal-hydraulics engineers to ensure measurement quality

Qualifications

• Expertise in nuclear instrumentation and measurement architecture.

Responsibilities

• Define reactor measurement architecture across startup, intermediate, and power ranges.
• Develop instrumentation design basis, qualification framework and safety cases.
• Lead vendor selection and qualification strategies for detectors and sensors.
• Set standards, governance, and design authority for instrumentation within the program.
• Evaluate emerging measurement technologies and decide deployment.

Job description

About Valar Atomics

At Valar Atomics, we're redefining what's possible in energy. Our mission is to make clean, high-temperature nuclear power scalable-unlocking abundant energy for industry, hydrogen, and next-generation manufacturing. We are a team of builders, engineers, and operators who believe nuclear energy should be fast to deploy, factory-made, and built for the real world. Our first pilot plant in Orangeville, Utah will demonstrate how advanced nuclear systems and fuel fabrication can power the future. Joining Valar Atomics means becoming part of a company where autonomy, ownership, and impact exist at every level.

The Team

You will be joining Valar Atomics' Instrumentation, Control & Electrical (IC&E) organization, working on the Reactor side of the program. Nuclear I&C Hardware Engineers own the instruments that measure the reactor itself neutron flux across startup, intermediate, and power ranges, core and primary loop temperatures and pressures, and radiation levels throughout the plant along with the signal chains that carry those measurements to the protection and control systems. You will work alongside I&C, electrical, reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, and nuclear safety engineers in a hands-on environment where measurement quality directly supports reactor safety. As a principal engineer, you will be among the discipline's most senior technical voices: an architect of its measurement systems, a final checker of its highest-consequence work, and a standard-setter for the engineers who will build their careers here. The team values technical depth, disciplined documentation, and a safety-first culture.

The Role

Valar Atomics is seeking Principal Nuclear I&C Engineers to own the technical direction of nuclear instrumentation plant design for our high temperature gas-cooled reactor program. The role spans the full domain neutron flux detection, radiation monitoring, reactor protection system sensors and signal chains, and process instrumentation in nuclear service, but at the level of measurement architecture, application and qualification strategy, and design authority rather than routine design execution. The focus is the application of vendor-supplied instrumentation in plant design, not instrument or detector development. This is a principal position: you will define the reactor measurement architecture and instrumentation application strategy for a first-of-a-kind reactor, hold final technical approval within assigned domains for safety-significant instrumentation designs and qualification bases, direct the resolution of the hardest measurement application problems in the program, represent the discipline in licensing and regulatory engagements, and build the engineering capability of the organization around you. Where a Staff Engineer owns the discipline's design bases and quality, the Principal Engineer owns where the discipline is going.

Key Responsibilities

Measurement Architecture and Technical Strategy

• Define and own the reactor measurement architecture across the program: the neutron flux measurement strategy across startup, intermediate, and power ranges, the reactor protection system sensor architecture, radiation monitoring architecture, and the measurement strategy for primary-loop process variables in high-temperature helium service.


• Author and own the discipline's philosophy and basis documents: instrumentation design basis, signal chain design philosophy, setpoint and uncertainty methodology basis, and the environmental and radiation qualification program basis that constrain and guide all downstream instrumentation engineering.


• Own the instrumentation application strategy for first-of-a-kind reactor conditions: technology and vendor selection across available detector and sensor platforms, application-specific qualification strategy, standardization across the plant and future units, and supply continuity and obsolescence strategy for critical instruments.


• Own the discipline's standards program within assigned domains: set the framework and priorities for design bases and standards, delegate authorship to staff and senior engineers, and approve them for release; drive convergence across the program.


• Evaluate emerging, commercially maturing measurement technology, advanced detectors, distributed and optical sensing, digital signal processing platforms, and decide what is adopted into plant design, what is piloted, and what is excluded, balancing capability against qualification burden, licensing risk, and long-term supportability.

Design Authority and Technical Governance

• Serve as a discipline design authority: hold final technical approval, within assigned domains, for safety-significant instrumentation designs, qualification bases and dispositions, deviations from design bases, and concessions; adjudicate technical disputes within the discipline and represent it in cross-discipline conflicts at program level.


• Own the technical integrity of reactor protec