Valaratomics
Director, Fuel Equipment Engineering, Valarin (Fuel Plant)
Torrance, California, United States. Posted 3 days ago
The role
The Director of Fuel Equipment Engineering owns the end to end design of TRISO fuel fabrication equipment. This person leads the equipment engineering organization from early skid design through commissioning and handover to operations.
What you will do
- Own the equipment design basis for the full TRISO fabrication flow
- Oversee technical leads for each equipment family
- Define skid architecture standards
- Partner with process engineering to translate process recipes into equipment requirements
- Ensure equipment designs meet safety and protection requirements
- Lead equipment scope for development rigs, pilot lines, and production lines
- Own fabrication oversight, factory acceptance testing, site acceptance testing, and equipment commissioning
- Drive scale-up from laboratory and pilot equipment to production throughput
- Establish equipment reliability, maintenance, and spare parts strategies
- Build, lead, and mentor the fuel equipment engineering team
Required qualifications
- 10+ years of engineering experience designing process equipment for chemical, materials, or high temperature manufacturing systems
- 5+ years of experience managing engineering teams
- Demonstrated hands-on experience with equipment similar to TRISO production equipment
- Experience leading equipment lifecycle from design through to commissioning
- Strong foundation in process equipment design principles, including pressure vessels, piping, gas delivery, heat transfer, materials selection, and effluent treatment
- Experience scaling processes from pilot to production
- Experience managing vendor relationships across multiple project phases
Nice to have
- Experience managing engineering teams in a start-up or high growth environment
- Direct experience with TRISO or other coated-particle fabrication
- Direct experience with Uranium conversion
- Experience with fluidized-bed CVD, and precursors such as methyltrichlorosilane
- Familiarity handling hazardous material, including gloveboxes, confinement, and nuclear criticality safety
Benefits
- Competitive base salary
- Equity ownership
- Comprehensive medical benefits
- Unlimited PTO
- Free daily lunch and dinner provided onsite
- Generous PPE stipend
Before you apply
- Applicants must be legally authorized to work in the United States as a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident (green card holder)
About the company
Valar Atomics aims to make clean, high-temperature nuclear power scalable. The company is building a pilot plant in Orangeville, Utah to demonstrate advanced nuclear systems and fuel fabrication.