Nuclear Fuels Engineer

Ocean Atomics

2d•$95,000 - $220,000

About The Position

Ocean Atomics (OA) is an American company designing, licensing, and assembling a standardized nuclear electric power plant and the surrounding support systems for maritime applications. We will install these plants on any vessel built to our nuclear-ready standards, and will provide end-to-end sustainment in our planned nuclear lifecycle dockyard. We will help develop the licensed operators to unlock this new capability for your energy intensive application at sea. To move fast and to lead the creation of this new market, we are leveraging the compact, proven systems enabled by water-cooled reactors. Our mission Scale nuclear energy. Power generations. Our vision A maritime commons thriving with abundant, economical, modern, and safe nuclear-powered activity — built, serviced, and staffed by re-industrialized American shipyards and people. Role Summary As Nuclear Fuels Engineer, you design and analyze fuel and control element performance under normal, transient, and accident conditions, translating pellet-level behavior — thermal response, gas production and release, swelling, cladding interaction, and burnup effects — into the margins that keep fuel within its safety and mechanical limits across its service life. You work closely with our core design, safety analysis, and procurement teams, and directly with fuel vendors, to specify, qualify, and source fuel that meets those margins for a reactor system built to operate at sea, which is where OA's fuel qualification work advances our mission to scale nuclear energy in the maritime environment. This is a role we're hiring at multiple levels (L1 through L4). The work is shared across levels; scope and accountability scale with experience. This work suits someone who treats fuel margins as something to be proven rather than assumed, and who is as comfortable working a vendor qualification review as a core safety analysis.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in nuclear engineering or related discipline, or equivalent practical experience.
Experience in nuclear fuel design, performance analysis, or fuel qualification.
Proficiency with fuel performance codes (e.g., FRAPCON/FRAPTRAN, BISON, or equivalent).
Working knowledge of fuel materials behavior, neutronics interfaces, and thermal-hydraulic boundary conditions.
Experience interfacing with vendors or procurement on technical specifications and qualification.
Early-career engineers with fuel design or performance analysis exposure through internships, research, or early-career roles in the nuclear industry (for L1-L2).
Have led at least one complete fuel qualification or design cycle through design review, in commercial nuclear, naval reactors, or comparable regulated environments (for L3-L4).

Nice To Haves

Advanced degree in nuclear engineering.
Background in reactor core design or systems integration adjacent to fuel performance.
Experience with vendor-side fuel manufacturing or supply chain qualification.
Familiarity with maritime or naval reactor applications and the dynamic loading considerations they introduce.

Responsibilities

Define fuel and control element design requirements and specifications across normal, transient, and accident conditions.
Analyze fuel and control pellet performance — thermal behavior, gas production and release, swelling, cladding interaction, and burnup effects — to verify design limits are met.
Establish fuel-related operating margins and safety criteria, and feed results into core design and safety analyses.
Work with our procurement team and fuel vendors to specify, qualify, and source fuel, supporting technical evaluations and supplier oversight.
Document fuel designs, analyses, and performance basis, and support design reviews, qualification, and licensing deliverables.
Own the fuel design basis end-to-end, leading material selection and system-level trade decisions across the fuel and control element scope (at L3-L4).
Mentor newer engineers and review their fuel performance analyses (at L3-L4).
Interface directly with our regulatory team on NRC-facing fuel qualification documentation (at L3-L4).
Drive vendor qualification strategy and supplier selection across multiple fuel suppliers (at L3-L4).