Senior Neutronics Engineer – Advanced Nuclear Cores

Aalo Atomic; Austin (TX); On-site; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health, Dental, and Vision Insurance

Paid Time Off

Job summary

Aalo Atomics, based in Austin, TX, is seeking a Nuclear Analysis Engineer to advance core design, safety analysis, and licensing for modular sodium-cooled reactors. You will perform neutronics analyses and develop 3D reactor models using Serpent, MCNP, OpenMC, and SCALE.

This role collaborates across fuel design, thermal-hydraulics, safety analysis, and licensing teams to support design decisions and regulatory submittals.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Nuclear Engineering, Physics, Mechanical Engineering, or a closely related technical discipline.
• 5+ years of experience performing reactor physics or neutronics analyses for nuclear reactor systems.
• Strong grounding in neutron transport, reactor physics, criticality, and nuclear engineering fundamentals.
• Experience with continuous-energy Monte Carlo methods and codes.
• Experience with deterministic reactor physics methods or tools, including diffusion theory, discrete ordinates, nodal methods, or fast reactor analysis methods.
• Proficiency in Python for engineering analysis, automation, scientific computing, or data processing.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Perform neutronics and reactor physics analyses in support of the design, evaluation, and optimization of advanced reactor cores.
• Develop high-fidelity three-dimensional reactor models using Monte Carlo transport tools such as Serpent, MCNP, OpenMC, and SCALE.
• Perform deterministic reactor physics calculations and develop reduced-order models, as appropriate, to support design iteration, scoping studies, and coupled analyses.
• Evaluate core criticality, neutron flux and power distributions, power peaking, control rod worth, shutdown margin, excess reactivity, and other key nuclear design parameters.
• Perform fuel depletion and fuel cycle analyses, including evaluation of fuel burnup, isotopic evolution, fission product poisoning, reactivity swing, activation, decay heat, and fuel management strategies.
• Support multiphysics analysis by coupling neutronics models with thermal-hydraulics, fuel performance, and thermo-mechanical analysis tools.
• Evaluate reactivity coefficients and feedback mechanisms, including fuel temperature (Doppler), moderator temperature, coolant temperature and density effects, voiding, and other temperature-dependent material effects.
• Calculate reactor kinetics parameters, including delayed neutron fraction, neutron generation time, and related quantities needed for reactor dynamics and safety analysis.
• Perform activation, radiation source term, and shielding analyses as needed to support reactor design, operations, maintenance, and safety evaluations.
• Prepare clear, well-organized technical reports, presentations, and supporting documentation for design reviews, safety analyses, and licensing activities.
• Communicate methods, assumptions, uncertainties, limitations, and design implications effectively to both technical and cross-functional stakeholders.

Skills

Reactor physics

Neutronics analyses

Monte Carlo methods

Python

Deterministic reactor physics

Technical writing

Collaboration & communication

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Nuclear Engineering

Master’s degree or PhD in Nuclear Engineering

Tools

Serpent

MCNP

OpenMC

SCALE/KENO

Griffin

DIF3D

Job description

Aalo Atomics, based in Austin, TX, is seeking a Nuclear Analysis Engineer to advance core design, safety analysis, and licensing for modular sodium-cooled reactors. You will perform neutronics analyses and develop 3D reactor models using Serpent, MCNP, OpenMC, and SCALE.

This role collaborates across fuel design, thermal-hydraulics, safety analysis, and licensing teams to support design decisions and regulatory submittals.