Design Control Lead

TerraPower•Bellevue, WA

1d•Onsite

About The Position

TerraPower is seeking a Design Control Lead to develop, implement, and maintain its design-control processes and procedures. This role will provide oversight and guidance to engineering teams, suppliers, and contractors to ensure design traceability, verification, and change control. The Design Control Lead will also support audits, training, and coordination across Configuration Management, Quality Assurance, Licensing, and Digital Engineering.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in nuclear, mechanical, electrical, chemical, civil, systems, or another relevant engineering discipline from an accredited university.
At least 10-15 years of relevant engineering experience, including significant experience performing or overseeing design activities in nuclear power, Department of Energy facilities, or another highly regulated and technically complex industry.
Demonstrated experience implementing nuclear design control under 10 CFR Part 50, Appendix B; ASME NQA-1; or an equivalent quality assurance framework.
Strong working knowledge of design inputs, design outputs, design analysis, design verification, design changes, design interfaces, configuration management, and design records.
Experience developing, revising, or implementing engineering and design-control procedures.
Experience reviewing complex engineering work products such as calculations, analyses, specifications, drawings, design basis documents, system descriptions, and engineering change packages.
Demonstrated ability to lead resolution of multidisciplinary engineering-process and technical-governance issues.
Experience evaluating the adequacy of design verification and the qualification and independence of design verifiers.
Ability to interpret regulatory and quality requirements and translate them into practical engineering processes.
Strong understanding of the relationship among design control, configuration management, quality assurance, licensing, procurement, supplier oversight, construction, testing, and operations.
Experience leading audits, surveillances, self-assessments, root-cause evaluations, or corrective-action activities.
Demonstrated ability to influence engineering behavior and process implementation without relying solely on direct organizational authority.
Excellent technical writing, communication, facilitation, mentoring, and presentation skills.
Ability to communicate complex requirements clearly to engineers, managers, quality personnel, suppliers, and project stakeholders.
Ability to work independently, exercise strong engineering judgment, and manage multiple high-priority issues in a first-of-a-kind project environment.
The successful candidate will demonstrate a high degree of trust and integrity, communicate openly, show respect for others, and actively foster teamwork.
Candidates must meet the minimum education and experience criteria applicable to the role, including relevant nuclear industry experience where required.
Verification of data will be part of the hiring process.

Nice To Haves

Advanced degree in engineering or a related technical field.
Commercial nuclear power plant design-engineering, systems-engineering, engineering-programs, or design-authority experience.
Experience with NRC inspections, audits, licensing reviews, or regulatory interactions involving design control.
Experience implementing or assessing ASME NQA-1 Requirement 3 and associated nonmandatory guidance.
Familiarity with NRC Regulatory Guides 1.28, 1.64, 1.187, or other regulatory guidance applicable to quality assurance and design control.
Experience with first-of-a-kind reactor development, advanced reactor licensing, risk-informed design, or the Licensing Modernization Project methodology.
Experience overseeing architect-engineering firms, suppliers, contractors, or partner design organizations.
Familiarity with engineering change-control, requirements-management, product-lifecycle-management, document-management, and configuration-management systems.
Experience integrating design-control requirements into digital engineering environments and automated engineering workflows.
Experience developing engineering qualifications, training programs, performance metrics, and management-review processes.
This position is subject to qualification requirements in accordance with ANSI/ANS 3.1.

Responsibilities

Lead the development, implementation, maintenance, and continuous improvement of TerraPower design-control processes, procedures, guidance, tools, templates, and performance measures.
Provide technical oversight of contractors performing design control process development work including but not limited to Contract Technical Representative role.
Define and maintain methods for demonstrating traceability between design inputs, analyses, design decisions, design outputs, verification activities, and configuration-controlled records.
Provide guidance on verification rigor, verifier independence, interdisciplinary review, assumptions management, and the resolution of verification comments.
Lead development and implementation of design-change-control methods covering problem identification, technical evaluation, affected-document determination, interface evaluation, risk assessment, approval, implementation, verification, and closure.
Establish and maintain criteria governing temporary changes, field changes, nonconformances, deviations, waivers, substitutions, supplier changes, and other conditions that may affect the approved design.
Support or lead Engineering Change Control Boards and other governance forums responsible for significant design decisions and changes.
Provide design-control oversight and guidance to engineering organizations, projects, suppliers, contractors, and partner design organizations.
Support development of design-control requirements for contracts, statements of work, procurement specifications, and supplier quality requirements.
Evaluate supplier and partner design-control processes and support audits, surveillances, assessments, and corrective actions.
Work with Configuration Management leadership to ensure that approved design information, configuration baselines, changes, implementation status, and configuration records remain aligned.
Work with Digital Engineering and product-development teams to define system requirements, workflows, controls, reports, and data relationships needed to support design control.
Support integration of requirements management, document management, configuration management, engineering change control, design verification, and technical decision records within TerraPower’s digital engineering environment.
Develop and deliver design-control training, mentoring, qualification guidance, and practical implementation support for engineering personnel.
Support qualification programs for design engineers, design verifiers, approvers, responsible engineers, and other personnel performing design-control functions.
Perform or lead design-control audits, surveillances, self-assessments, effectiveness reviews, and process-health evaluations.
Develop and monitor design-control performance indicators, recurring-issue trends, corrective actions, and organizational improvement initiatives.
Support corrective-action investigations.
Interface with Quality Assurance, Licensing, regulators, customers, and external reviewers on design-control program implementation and performance.
Promote nuclear safety culture, technical rigor, conservative decision-making, continuous learning, and application of nuclear-industry best practices.