Senior Director, Power Plant Engineering

Kairos Power•Alameda, CA

6d•$258,300 - $330,000•Onsite

About The Position

The Senior Director of Power Plant Engineering is the senior technical and organizational leader accountable for the technical adequacy, maturity, integration, and execution of designs produced by the Power Plant Engineering organization. Reporting to the Vice President of Engineering Design, this position holds final design decision authority for the organization. The role ensures designs are technically sound, mature, coordinated, and executable while meeting plant requirements, design criteria, codes and standards, safety objectives, and program commitments. It is a hands-on senior leadership position that establishes technical direction, assigns decision authority, and ensures consequential engineering decisions have adequate technical bases and are made by qualified decision-makers. The Senior Director holds leaders accountable and personally engages in consequential technical decisions, design reviews, issue resolution, and recovery of critical engineering work when needed. The position provides strategic leadership and oversight for Reactor Systems, Pebble Handling and Storage Systems, Reactor Coolant Auxiliary Systems, Instrumentation, Control, and Electrical Systems, and Balance of Plant Systems. It ensures coordinated engineering inputs across plant layout and design, analysis, licensing, procurement, construction, testing, commissioning, and operations. The position also maintains the integrity and controlled evolution of the plant design and technical baseline, including documentation and traceability of significant decisions, design changes, and issue resolutions. The role is based onsite at Kairos Power’s Alameda, California headquarters. Some travel may be required, up to 25%. The work may involve office, manufacturing/industrial, and prototyping/testing environments, with required use of appropriate personal protective equipment where applicable. The position may occasionally require weekend work, schedule flexibility, and extended hours to support launch and critical project timelines.

Requirements

Bachelor’s or master’s degree in Nuclear Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, or a related engineering discipline.
20 or more years of engineering experience supporting nuclear power generation, nuclear design, analysis, licensing, construction, or plant operations.
10 or more years of progressive engineering leadership experience, including managing large, multidisciplinary engineering organizations typically comprising 100 or more employees.
Prior experience as a Chief Engineer, Design Authority, Engineering Director, or in a comparable senior technical leadership capacity.
Demonstrated expertise in one or more core engineering disciplines, including Mechanical, Civil/Structural, Nuclear, or another discipline relevant to nuclear power plant design, with working knowledge across major nuclear engineering disciplines and workstreams.
Demonstrated experience applying design control, configuration management, and technical baseline management principles in a complex nuclear or similarly regulated engineering environment.
Strong understanding of regulatory requirements and their interaction with design and operations, quality assurance programs, and design control processes.
Demonstrated experience leading multidisciplinary engineering projects through multiple stages of design maturity and making consequential technical decisions.
Demonstrated success holding senior engineering leaders and organizations accountable for technical quality, ownership, and follow-through across multiple geographic locations.
Knowledge of nuclear power plant design and operation, including nuclear safety principles, safety classification, defense-in-depth, reactor design and analysis, accident and transient response, and radiological design.
Knowledge of the functions and interactions of major power plant systems and how detailed system design relates to plant safety, performance, operability, reliability, maintainability, and constructability.
Knowledge of system and discipline design development from conceptual and preliminary design through detailed design, procurement, construction, testing, commissioning, and operation of large, complex industrial plants.
Knowledge of engineering decision-making, technical authority, design reviews, technical baselines, interface management, design margins, uncertainty management, and risk acceptance.
Knowledge of configuration management and engineering change control principles for maintaining an established plant design and technical baseline.
Skill in leading multiple engineering departments, plant system organizations, managers, and senior technical leaders toward common technical and execution objectives.
Skill in evaluating plant-level technical tradeoffs involving safety, performance, operability, reliability, constructability, cost, schedule, and design maturity without compromising requirements or safety objectives.
Skill in evaluating complex system and discipline designs for technical adequacy, maturity, completeness, compliance, and integration.
Skill in developing, documenting, and implementing consequential technical decisions using incomplete or evolving information.
Skill in assessing, coaching, and developing directors, managers, technical authorities, and senior engineers, and providing direct, actionable performance feedback.
Ability to recognize broader plant implications of decisions originating within an individual system or engineering discipline.
Ability to determine which matters can be resolved within a system or discipline and which require plant-level integration, Design Assurance involvement, or executive direction.
Ability to integrate differing technical perspectives, constructively challenge unsupported conclusions, and reach timely decisions across organizational boundaries.
Ability to determine when technical issues require escalation, independent review, additional analysis, or broader plant-level decision-making based on technical significance and risk.
Ability to work in a facility handling information subject to Department of Energy export-control restrictions; authorization to access Part 810-controlled information is required.

Nice To Haves

Experience with first-of-a-kind technologies or programs involving significant technical uncertainty, evolving requirements, and development of organizational capability.

Responsibilities

Provide strategic leadership and oversight for the Plant Engineering department, including Reactor Systems, Pebble Handling and Storage Systems, Reactor Coolant Auxiliary Systems, Instrumentation, Control, and Electrical Systems, and Balance of Plant Systems.
Establish technical direction, maintain engineering standards, and ensure high-quality engineering products are executed in accordance with the Design Control Program and systems engineering practices established by Design Assurance.
Ensure system and discipline designs satisfy applicable requirements, codes and standards, safety functions, and program objectives.
Ensure design assumptions, margins, uncertainties, limitations, and technical risks are identified, documented, communicated, and appropriately managed.
Make or approve technical decisions and accept technical risk within delegated authority.
Hold senior technical leaders accountable for the technical quality, maturity, timeliness, and completeness of their organizations’ work.
Resolve technical disagreements that cross system or discipline boundaries.
Ensure Power Plant Engineering provides technically complete and timely inputs to plant layout, process design, plant design, design analysis, licensing, procurement, construction, testing, commissioning, and operations activities.
Maintain visibility of significant technical risks, decisions, assumptions, margins, interfaces, and unresolved issues across the organization and communicate them to affected stakeholders.
Ensure the integrity and controlled evolution of the plant design and technical baseline, incorporating approved technical decisions and design changes appropriately.
Ensure significant technical decisions, design changes, and issue resolutions are documented, traceable, and incorporated into affected engineering products and requirements.
Ensure appropriate technical review and escalation of issues that could materially affect plant safety, licensing basis, design requirements, or overall plant integration.
Maintain the technical capability and decision-authority structure needed to support effective engineering execution across the organization.
Perform other duties as assigned.