Staff OT Engineer

Valar Atomics Inc.; Torrance (CA); On-site; USD 175,000 - 230,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity ownership

Unlimited PTO

Free meals onsite

PPE stipend

Autonomy & impact

Career growth

Collaboration with operators

Job summary

Valar Atomics is a young startup redefining energy. We design and operate DOE-authorized reactor tech, delivering power infrastructure and industrial software platforms. This role turns operating needs into sound technical decisions, defines system builds, and guides verification.

You own design outcomes, explain engineering basis, and push for fast, high-quality delivery. Join a team that values autonomy, ownership, and impact, with opportunities to collaborate across disciplines and scale

Qualifications

• Authorship of technical designs, standards, or procedures used by implementation or operations teams.
• Translate operational needs into requirements, interface definitions, engineering decisions, and measurable acceptance criteria.
• Evaluate alternatives, dependencies, failure modes, security, recovery, and lifecycle consequences using evidence.
• Review work, resolve ambiguity, guide execution, and validate documentation against implementation and test results.
• Meet all requirements above and demonstrate at least one specialty below.

Responsibilities

• Translate operational needs into clear requirements, interfaces, design choices, and measurable acceptance criteria.
• Develop standards, drawings, engineering manuals, and procedures with enough detail for implementation and testing.
• Evaluate alternatives for reliability, security, compatibility, recovery, maintainability, and lifecycle needs within the assigned technical scope.
• Resolve ambiguous or conflicting requirements and document the technical basis for consequential decisions.
• Work with execution teams to answer design questions, review implementation evidence, and correct gaps in the guidance.
• Use commissioning, operational, and failure evidence to improve designs and standards.

Skills

Power distribution

Racks and cabling

Compute/storage/virtualization

Industrial software backends

Networking

Technical documentation

Windows domain administration

Access control

Central logging & authentication

Operational data systems

Job description

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

As part of the Engineering organization, Instrumentations & Controls designs the systems that monitor, automate, and protect Valar's facilities and reactor technologies. The team develops reliable control architectures that enable safe and efficient operations.

The Role

Valar Atomics is a young startup that turns ambitious engineering into working hardware. Before our third anniversary, we designed, built, commissioned, and operated a DOE-authorized research reactor outside the national laboratory system. That pace defines how we work: learn quickly, make sound decisions, and build systems that perform. Analysis must lead to decisions and delivery, and we expect people to take ownership and see their work through. If you want hard problems, real responsibility, and the freedom to build with urgency, bring your judgment and drive to Valar.

You would be turning operating needs into sound technical decisions, practical designs, and standards that execution teams can use. Define how systems should be built and verified, explain the engineering basis, and resolve questions through implementation. The role can focus on a specialty or span connected disciplines.

OT Engineering delivers power and rack infrastructure, compute, networks, identity, security (physical & cyber), operational data, and industrial software platforms (FactoryTalk). The FactoryTalk scope covers backend deployment, configuration, integration, and recovery. PLC programming and controls-code development are outside this role.

Key Responsibilities

• Translate operational needs into clear requirements, interfaces, design choices, and measurable acceptance criteria.
• Develop standards, drawings, engineering manuals, and procedures with enough detail for implementation and testing.
• Evaluate alternatives for reliability, security, compatibility, recovery, maintainability, and lifecycle needs within the assigned technical scope.
• Resolve ambiguous or conflicting requirements and document the technical basis for consequential decisions.
• Work with execution teams to answer design questions, review implementation evidence, and correct gaps in the guidance.
• Use commissioning, operational, and failure evidence to improve designs and standards.

You Will Be Successful in This Role If

• Highly organized, with disciplined task tracking, accurate documentation, clear priorities, and reliable follow-through.
• Clear engineering judgment that turns incomplete information into justified, implementable decisions.
• Precise writing and diagrams that allow another engineer to build and test the intended system.
• Ownership of design outcomes through implementation, including revising guidance when field evidence shows it needs to change.

Basic Qualifications

• Authorship of technical designs, standards, or procedures used successfully by implementation or operations teams.
• Translate operational needs into requirements, interface definitions, engineering decisions, and measurable acceptance criteria.
• Evaluate alternatives, dependencies, failure modes, security, recovery, and lifecycle consequences using evidence.
• Review work, resolve ambiguity, guide execution, and validate documentation against implementation and test results.
• Meet all requirements above and demonstrate at least one specialty below. These are alternatives; expertise across every specialty is not required.
• Power distribution and backup: Define distribution/backup requirements, load and capacity analyses, redundancy, interfaces, and acceptance tests.
• Racks and cabling: Develop rack layouts, cable specifications, separation requirements, installation details, and workmanship/test criteria.
• Compute, storage, and virtualization: Develop compute, storage, and virtualization designs covering capacity, compatibility, availability, and recovery.
• Industrial software backends: Define industrial backend architectures, integration and compatibility standards, configuration baselines, and recovery verification.
• Networking: Develop architectures, addressing/segmentation plans, firewall/interface requirements, and connectivity, isolation, and failover tests.
• Technical documentation: Author technically sound requirements, manuals, and procedures; validate them through implementation, testing, and engineering review.
• Windows domain administration: Design domain services, Group Policy baselines, trust/dependency requirements, and administration and recovery standards.
• Access control: Define role and privilege models, service-account controls, access reviews, and authorization acceptance criteria.
• Central logging and authentication: Design logging/authentication services and integration standards, including coverage, retention, failure behavior, and testing.
• Log and packet analysis: Develop diagnostic methods, capture/logging coverage, evidence requirements, and repeatable fault-isolation procedures.
• Operational data systems: Design data systems and interfaces with fidelity, retention, access, capacity, and recovery acceptance requirements.

Preferred Skills and Experience

• Experience developing technical standards used across multiple projects, programs, or sites.
• Hands-on installation, commissioning, troubleshooting, or operational support that informs practical engineering guidance.
• Experience reviewing interfaces and shared dependencies across multiple infrastructure disciplines.

What We Offer

• Equity ownership in a rapidly growing advanced energy company
• Unlimited PTO
• Free daily lunch and dinner provided onsite
• Generous PPE stipend
• High-impact startup environment with significant ownership and autonomy
• Opportunities for rapid career growth and internal advancement
• Direct collaboration with experienced operators, engineers, and industry leaders
• The opportunity to help build and scale transformative energy technology from the ground up

Equal Employment Opportunity Statement

Valar Atomics is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other protected status under applicable law.

We are committed to providing a workplace free of discrimination and harassment and will provide reasonable accommodation as required by law.

Applicants must be legally authorized to work in the United States as a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident (green card holder).

$175,000 - $230,000 USD