Recycling Operations Engineer Lead

Oklo Inc; Santa Clara (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Oklo Inc. is seeking an Operations Engineering Lead to establish the operating model for its nuclear fuel recycling facility in California.

You will translate operational, safety, safeguards, regulatory needs into design requirements and readiness criteria, coordinating with process, controls, safety, licensing, and maintenance teams. The role demands leading a multidisciplinary team through design reviews, commissioning, startup, and ramp-up, ensuring operability, safety, and reliability in a

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant engineering discipline or equivalent.
• 10+ years in nuclear fuel-cycle or similar industrial process environment.
• Experience in facility operations, commissioning, startup, maintenance, or operational support.

Responsibilities

• Lead development of the operating model and readiness criteria for the facility.
• Translate operational, safety, safeguards, and regulatory needs into design requirements.
• Represent operations across design to ensure safety, operability, and maintainability.
• Oversee operability, maintainability, accessibility, and failure-recovery reviews.
• Review PFDs, P&IDs, and system descriptions from an operations perspective.
• Develop staffing, procedures, training, maintenance, and ramp-up plans.
• Coordinate turnover, pre-operational testing, and readiness reviews.
• Participate in design reviews, hazard analyses, and management-of-change activities.
• Coordinate with maintenance and reliability teams on equipment criticality and spare parts.
• Build and lead the operations engineering organization as the project matures.

Skills

Nuclear facility ops

Design-to-ops translation

Multidisciplinary leadership

Technical writing/communication

Regulatory understanding

Education

Bachelor's degree in chemical/nuclear/mech/electrical/industrial engineering

Tools

PFDs & P&IDs review

Job description

Thanks for your interest in Oklo! We are searching for anOperations Engineering Leadto join our engineering team.

Position Description

The Operations Engineering Lead is responsible for establishing the operating model and operations engineering basis for Oklo’s nuclear fuel recycling facility. This person will represent facility operations throughout design, construction, commissioning, startup, and ramp-up to ensure the facility is safe, secure, operable, maintainable, testable, and capable of meeting its performance objectives.

The Operations Engineering Lead will translate operational, safety, security, safeguards, material control and accountability, and regulatory needs into traceable design requirements, operating philosophies, system boundaries, operating sequences, preliminary operating limits, procedures, training programs, and readiness criteria. This role will work closely with Process Engineering, Instrumentation and Controls, Systems Engineering, Safety, Licensing, Regulatory, Security, Safeguards, Material Control and Accountability, Quality, Maintenance, Construction, and Project Management to integrate these needs into the facility design.

The ideal candidate has significant experience designing, commissioning, starting up, or operating nuclear fuel-cycle facilities. Candidates with substantial experience in complex chemical, petrochemical, refining, or similar process facilities will also be considered, particularly those who have supported both greenfield projects and brownfield modifications.

Specific responsibilities may include:

• Lead development and configuration control of the facility concept of operations, including normal operation, startup, shutdown, standby, maintenance, upset, degraded, and emergency operating modes.
• Translate operational, safety, security, safeguards, material control and accountability, and regulatory needs into traceable design requirements, operating philosophies, system boundaries, operating sequences, preliminary operating limits, and acceptance criteria, in coordination with the responsible functional owners.
• Represent operations throughout facility and system design to ensure equipment and systems are safe, secure, operable, maintainable, accessible, testable, and suitable for remote and radiological environments.
• Complete documented operability, maintainability, accessibility, remote-handling, operator-task, human-factors, and failure-recovery reviews, with identified actions assigned and tracked through disposition.
• Review PFDs, P&IDs, equipment specifications, layouts, control narratives, alarm strategies, human-machine interfaces, system descriptions, and safety-related design inputs from an operations perspective.
• Lead development of preliminary staffing, procedure, training, maintenance, commissioning, startup, facility-turnover, and production-ramp-up plans with defined interfaces, milestones, responsibilities, and acceptance criteria.
• Establish requirements for system turnover, walkdowns, pre-operational testing, cold commissioning, integrated testing, initial material introduction, and operational-readiness reviews.
• Participate in design reviews, hazard analyses, safety reviews, human-factors evaluations, maintainability reviews, readiness reviews, configuration management, and management-of-change activities.
• Coordinate with maintenance and reliability teams to define equipment criticality, preventive maintenance, spare parts, vendor support, work controls, and asset-management needs.
• Build and lead the operations engineering organization as the project matures, while communicating readiness status, risks, decisions, and unresolved design actions to project and technical leadership.

Minimum Qualifications:

• A bachelor’s degree in chemical, nuclear, mechanical, electrical, industrial, or another relevant engineering discipline, or equivalent directly applicable experience.
• 10 or more years of experience in nuclear fuel-cycle, nuclear, chemical, petrochemical, refining, specialty chemical, or another complex industrial process environment.
• Significant experience in facility operations, commissioning, startup, maintenance, or operational support, combined with experience supporting facility design or capital projects.
• Experience with greenfield facility development, brownfield modifications, or both.
• Demonstrated experience developing or implementing commissioning, operational-readiness, procedure, training, maintenance, or startup programs.
• Ability to translate engineering designs into practical operating requirements, test plans, procedures, staffing needs, and acceptance criteria.
• Experience reviewing engineering documents such as PFDs, P&IDs, equipment specifications, control narratives, and system descriptions.
• Demonstrated ability to lead multidisciplinary teams, manage interfaces, and deliver work in an evolving project environment.
• Strong technical writing, communication, organization, and decision-making skills.

Bonus Qualifications:

• Experience designing, commissioning, starting up, or operating a nuclear fuel-cycle or radioactive-material processing facility.
• Experience with nuclear fuel recycling, pyroprocessing, molten salts, remote handling, hot cells, radiological ventilation, or radioactive waste treatment.
• Experience delivering a first-of-a-kind nuclear, chemical, or industrial process facility.
• Knowledge of NRC, DOE, or comparable nuclear regulatory requirements and operational practices.
• Experience with operational-readiness reviews, pre-startup safety reviews, HAZOPs, human-factors evaluations, or process hazard analyses.
• Experience with control systems, alarm management, computerized maintenance systems, equipment reliability, or operator training programs.
• Experience building or leading an operations engineering, commissioning, startup, or plant technical-support team.

Competencies

We are looking for an Operations Engineering Lead that is:

• Technically grounded in the design, commissioning, startup, and operation of complex nuclear or industrial process facilities.
• Able to integrate operational, safety, security, safeguards, material control and accountability, and regulatory needs into traceable and practical design requirements.
• Skilled at converting a developing facility design into controlled operating concepts, system boundaries, operating sequences, preliminary operating limits, procedures, training, test plans, and readiness criteria.
• Capable of identifying operability, maintainability, accessibility, human-factors, remote-handling, and failure-recovery risks early enough to influence the design.
• Able to collaborate effectively with Safety, Licensing, Security, Safeguards, Material Control and Accountability, Engineering, Maintenance, Construction, and Commissioning organizations while maintaining clear ownership and interfaces.
• Practical and field-oriented, with the judgment to distinguish between a design that works analytically and one that can be safely operated, maintained, tested, and recovered in the field.
• Capable of balancing safety, security, reliability, facility performance, schedule, and cost when evaluating technical decisions.
• A strong multidisciplinary leader who establishes clear ownership, manages interfaces, mentors others, and drives actions through documented disposition.
• Comfortable navigating ambiguity, documenting assumptions, and making informed decisions with incomplete or evolving design information.
• A clear and effective communicator who can explain complex operational and technical issues verbally and through well-written, active-voice documents.
• Collaborative, detail-oriented, self-motivated, and accountable for delivering high-quality results.
• Passionate about clean energy and making advanced fission and nuclear fuel recycling a reality.
• Comfort