Senior Director, Power Plant Engineering

Kairospower; Alameda (CA); On-site; USD 210,000 - 320,000; Full time

Job summary

Kairos Power seeks a Senior Director of Power Plant Engineering to lead the technical adequacy, maturity, and execution of plant designs. This hands‑on senior leadership role requires accountable decision authority and active engagement in design reviews and issue resolution.

The role drives technical direction across Reactor Systems, balance of plant, and safety objectives, ensuring designs meet stringent codes, standards, and program commitments.

Qualifications

• Senior-level engineering leadership with nuclear power experience.
• Demonstrated design authority and decision-making responsibility.
• Strong background in systems engineering and safety focus.
• Experience handling risk, margins, and technical baselines.

Responsibilities

• Provide strategic leadership and oversight for Plant Engineering, including Reactor Systems and Balance of Plant.
• Set technical direction and ensure high-quality, standards-compliant designs.
• Manage technical risks, margins, and critical design decisions with delegated authority.
• Ensure designs meet safety, licensing, and program commitments.
• Oversee documentation, design reviews, and cross‑disciplinary coordination.
• Maintain capability and decision authority for effective engineering execution.

Skills

Engineering Leadership

Design Authority

Systems Engineering

Risk Management

Education

B.S. or M.S degree in Nuclear Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, or a related engineering discipline

Job description

Company Overview

Kairos Power is a new nuclear energy technology and engineering company whose mission is to enable the world's transition to clean energy, with the ultimate goal to dramatically improve people's quality of life while protecting the environment. This goal will be accomplished through the commercialization of the fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactor (FHR) that can be deployed with robust safety, affordable costs, and flexible operation to accommodate the expansion of variable renewables.

Job Summary

The Senior Director of Power Plant Engineering is the senior technical and organizational leader accountable for the technical adequacy, maturity, integration, and execution of the designs produced by the Power Plant Engineering organization. Reporting to the Vice President of Engineering Design, this position holds final design decision authority for the Power Plant Engineering organization.

The position ensures that the organization produces technically sound, mature, coordinated, and executable designs that meet established plant requirements, design criteria, codes and standards, safety objectives, and program commitments. This is a working senior leadership role requiring hands‑on technical experience and active engagement. The Senior Director establishes technical direction, assigns clear decision authority within the organization, and ensures that consequential engineering decisions have an adequate technical basis and are made by qualified decision‑makers. The Senior Director holds leaders accountable while personally engaging in consequential technical decisions, design reviews, issue resolution, and recovery of critical engineering work when necessary.

Responsibilities

• Provide strategic leadership and oversight for the Plant Engineering department which includes Reactor Systems, Pebble Handling and Storage Systems, Reactor Coolant Auxiliary Systems, Instrumentation, Control, and Electrical Systems, and the Balance of Plant Systems.


• Establish technical direction, maintain engineering standards, and ensure consistent execution of high-quality engineering products in accordance with the Design Control Program and systems engineering practices established by Design Assurance.


• Ensure that system and discipline designs satisfy applicable requirements, codes and standards, safety functions, and are aligned with program objectives.


• Ensure that design assumptions, margins, uncertainties, limitations, and technical risks are identified, documented, communicated, and appropriately managed.


• Make or approve technical decisions and accept technical risk within delegated authority.


• Hold senior technical leaders accountable for the technical quality, maturity, timeliness, and completeness of their organizations’ work.


• Resolve technical disagreements that cross system or discipline boundaries.


• Ensure that Power Plant Engineering provides technically complete and timely inputs to plant layout, process design, plant design, design analysis, licensing, procurement, construction, testing, commissioning, and operations activities.


• Maintain visibility of significant technical risks, decisions, assumptions, margins, interfaces, and unresolved issues across the organization and ensure they are communicated to affected stakeholders.


• Ensure the integrity and controlled evolution of the plant design and technical baseline, including appropriate incorporation of approved technical decisions and design changes.


• Ensure significant technical decisions, design changes, and issue resolutions are appropriately documented, traceable, and incorporated into affected engineering products and requirements.


• Ensure appropriate technical review and escalation of issues that could materially affect plant safety, licensing basis, design requirements, or overall plant integration.


• Maintain the technical capability and decision-authority structure necessary to support effective engineering execution across the organization.


• Other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

• B.S. or M.S degree in Nuclear Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, or a related engineering discipline


• 20+ years of engineering experience supporting nuclear power generation, nuclear design, analysis, licensing, construction, or plant operations.


• 10+ years of progressive engineering leadership experience, including managing large, multidisciplinary engineering organizations, typically comprising 100 or more employees.


• Prior experience serving as a Chief Engineer, Design Authority, Engineering Director or comparable senior technical leadership capacity.


• Demonstrated expertise in one or more core engineering disciplines including Mechanical, Civil/Structural, Nuclear, or other disciplines relevant to nuclear power plant design, with working knowledge across major nuclear engineering disciplines/workstreams.


• Demonstrated experience applying design control, configuration management, and technical baseline management pri