Principal Software Engineer

Valar Atomics•Torrance, CA

2d•Onsite

About The Position

Valar Atomics is hiring a Principal Software Engineer to own the technical architecture of its software platform, including telemetry systems for reactor and fuel test data, streaming infrastructure, simulation platforms, and enterprise systems. The role sets technical direction for the software engineering team, tackles complex engineering problems, and works closely with reactor and fuel engineers, systems engineering, licensing, manufacturing, supply chain, and operations to build tools that support their work. The position is based in Torrance, California, with regular travel to the pilot plant in Orangeville, Utah. The software engineering team builds internal platforms and tools for reactor design, fuel manufacturing, licensing, and plant operations, partnering across engineering, manufacturing, and operations to deliver full-stack software, integrate enterprise systems, and maintain traceability from requirement to as-built.

Requirements

10 or more years of relevant experience writing and deploying production software, including significant experience as the technical owner of a platform or major system.
Demonstrated experience designing and operating high-volume telemetry or time-series systems, such as instrumentation, test, industrial, or vehicle systems.
Demonstrated experience with high-volume streaming and event-driven architectures, including throughput, backpressure, ordering, and replay concerns.
Experience building or operating simulation, modeling, or scientific computing platforms, including computational code orchestration, batch and distributed compute, and reproducible results management.
Experience building enterprise and engineering software, including full-stack services, web interfaces, and integrations with commercial systems of record.
Demonstrated skill in both typed languages, such as Java, C#, Go, C++, or Rust, and untyped languages, such as Python or JavaScript.
Proven ability to drive architecture and technical decisions across multiple teams and stakeholders.
Working experience with cloud and containerized deployment, infrastructure as code, and CI/CD.
Deep understanding of computer science fundamentals, including algorithms, data structures, distributed systems, and data modeling.
Hands-on experience shipping production work with AI coding agents and assistants, and the judgment to verify their output.
Strong communication skills, openness to others' opinions, willingness to propose creative solutions, and readiness to own and rectify mistakes.
Bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, mathematics, or a scientific discipline, or equivalent professional experience.
Must be legally authorized to work in the United States as a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident.

Nice To Haves

Experience at a hardware, manufacturing, aerospace, energy, or heavy-industrial company where software served a physical system and downtime had physical consequences.
Familiarity with industrial data sources and protocols, including historians, OPC UA, MQTT, and Modbus, and with security boundaries between operational and enterprise networks.
Experience with HPC scheduling, GPU compute, or large-scale batch orchestration.
Familiarity with regulated or quality-controlled environments and the software implications of NQA-1, GAMP 5, or 21 CFR Part 11.
Experience integrating PLM, ERP, MES, LIMS, or document control systems, and a healthy skepticism about vendor claims.
Experience with Git, Docker, Kubernetes, and deployment to cloud and on-premises infrastructure.
Experience building with LLMs and agents, including retrieval over technical documents, agentic workflows, evaluation harnesses, or tool integrations.
Experience growing a software team or function from its early stages, including hiring and mentorship.
A point of view on where AI-assisted development helps, where it does not, and how to verify agent output in an environment where records may be reviewed by regulators.

Responsibilities

Own the end-to-end architecture of the software platform across telemetry, streaming, simulation, and enterprise systems, including build-versus-buy decisions.
Design and build high-volume telemetry ingestion for reactor test stands, fuel manufacturing, and instrumentation while preserving timestamps, units, quality, and ordering.
Architect the streaming backbone for operational data and engineer it for throughput, backpressure, replay, and recovery.
Support simulation and modeling platforms, including campaign management, compute scheduling, and reproducible, traceable results.
Architect and build full-stack services and web interfaces for engineers, operators, and technicians.
Integrate commercial company systems, including PLM, ERP, MES, and document and records management, using REST, GraphQL, and event-driven interfaces.
Design data models, interfaces, and access boundaries that keep engineering, manufacturing, test, and quality records consistent, auditable, and usable.
Establish deployment, observability, testing, on-call, and software quality practices appropriate to a regulated environment.
Use AI coding agents and assistants as a core part of the work and set standards for verifying their output.
Set technical direction, lead design and code reviews, and mentor engineers as the software organization grows.

Benefits

Competitive base salary
Equity ownership in a rapidly growing advanced energy company
Comprehensive medical benefits
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
Opportunity to help build and scale transformative energy technology from the ground up