Operations Manager, Gigasite Projects Team
About The Position
Valar's operating model is built for replication. The Gigasite Projects Team runs as a small, autonomous pod — owns the project from site identification through Final Investment Decision (FID), handing off to Delivery for construction and commissioning — and the operating system that runs Pod 1 has to run Pod 2 without re-inventing the wheel each time. The Operations Manager builds and maintains that operating system: the procedures, policies, and team-to-team interfaces that turn ad hoc work into repeatable practice. You'll write lightweight procedures that scale; where nuclear-grade rigor is required (Part 53, QA, ITAR), you'll harden specific procedures to that standard. You'll mesh pod policy with MSG (supply chain, real estate, BI, finance), Delivery (Gate-3 handoff), Engineering (ICDs, design freezes), and Licensing — and own the team-to-team handoffs that fall between the cracks today.
Requirements
- 3–5 years total, with at least 2 years building operations at a real startup from zero or near-zero.
- Strong technical writing — your procedures get executed without follow-up questions.
- Comfort with ambiguity; bias toward action (v1 in a week, then iterate).
- Judgment on when not to write a procedure — premature standardization is a real cost.
- Experience with SharePoint, Office 365, Palantir Foundry, and Anthropic products (Claude, Claude Code).
- U.S. person status (ITAR-gated).
Nice To Haves
- Military operations officer background — Navy nuclear or Air Force maintenance officers translate strongly.
- Experience with lightweight QMS / document control (Slab, Notion-based QMS, Greenlight Guru, or similar).
- Exposure to regulated industries (FAA, FDA, aerospace, defense, nuclear) — rigor mindset is what we're looking for.
- Familiarity with nuclear procedure conventions (10 CFR 50 App B, ASME NQA-1) — useful but trainable.
Responsibilities
- Build the pod operating system from zero — observe ad hoc work, codify what's repeatable, resist premature standardization on what isn't.
- Author lightweight procedures that scale, hardened to nuclear-grade (Part 53, QA, ITAR) where required, in partnership with Licensing and QA.
- Mesh pod policy with MSG (supply chain, real estate, BI, finance), Delivery (Kip Mock org — Gate-3 handoff), Engineering (Mark Mitchell org — ICDs, design freezes), and Licensing.
- Own team-to-team handoffs — Gate-3 to Delivery is currently informal and not yet written; this role drafts the spec.
- Collate data across functions (Finance, Engineering, Licensing, MSG) for pod-level reporting; partner with MSG-OSE on data infrastructure as it builds out.
- Version, change-manage, and retire procedures. Procedures that aren't being used get killed, not left to rot.
Benefits
- Competitive base salary
- Equity ownership in a rapidly growing advanced energy company
- Comprehensive medical benefits
- Free daily lunch and dinner provided onsite
- 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
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Mid Level
Education Level
No Education Listed
