Senior Technical Advisor

Oklo•Santa Clara, CA

12h•$140,000 - $190,000•Remote

About The Position

The Senior Technical Advisor serves as the technical deputy to the Group Director, operating as a senior individual contributor with broad technical authority and organizational reach across the group. This role is responsible for enabling the effectiveness, consistency, and scalability of the group’s technical work by developing cross-cutting programs, infrastructure, and guidance that impact the entire organization. The ideal candidate is a technically broad nuclear generalist with strong interpersonal skills who is comfortable diving deeply into unfamiliar topics, synthesizing across disciplines, and coordinating with diverse stakeholders to turn high-level intent into durable, functioning programs. This position reports directly to the Group Director and does not have direct people-management responsibility, but exerts influence through technical leadership, trust, and execution.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Nuclear Engineering or a closely related technical field (e.g., Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science).
Significant experience (i.e., 10+ years) across a breadth of nuclear engineering technical domains (e.g., reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, fuel cycle, safety analysis, licensing support, systems engineering).
Demonstrated ability to operate as a technical generalist while engaging deeply with specialists.
Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to draft clear, practical technical guidance.
Proven experience coordinating work across multiple teams or disciplines.
High degree of technical judgment and professionalism.
Personable, approachable, and trusted by both senior leadership and individual contributors.
Comfortable operating in ambiguity and building structure where none exists.
Self-directed, with a strong bias toward execution and follow-through.
Pragmatic mindset: understands how to balance ideal technical solutions with real-world constraints.
Experience working in regulated or safety-critical technical environments (strongly preferred).
Passionate about clean energy
An optimist at heart
Passionate about making advanced fission a reality
Willing and able to learn quickly
Willing to think differently and do things in new ways
Comfortable in a fast-paced, highly iterative startup environment
Excited to think creatively, critically, and reflectively about the problems they are solving while not leaning only on what has been done before
Willing to propose novel and creative solutions to technical problems
An excellent writer who can write in a modern active voice, so make your cover letter compelling and write it well!
Able to communicate technical content and results verbally
A startup person: You aren't driven by titles or hierarchy, and prefer efficiency to excess process. You don't need or expect to have a lot of guidance but you enjoy working in a fast-paced team. If you prefer the culture and feel of a large organization, that is great, but you likely won’t enjoy working with us! There is plenty of important work and plenty of good opportunities with organizations like that.
Motivated: You are self-motivated. You bring an enthusiasm to the team, and imbue a sense of passion that goes beyond clocking in and clocking out. This isn’t about a fake or arbitrary “pieces of flair” mentality or lack of work-life balance! It is about being a part of the vision and feeling a part of reaching team goals.
A team-player: Oklo genuinely is a team. We aren’t about taking credit for ourselves, and we aren’t about pushing blame to others. We do incredible things because we work as a team.
An excellent communicator: We need a person who is not only technically competent but also a clear and upbeat communicator.
Creative: Being creative means that when things fall outside clear scopes or processes or problems arise without clear solutions, you are able to identify it as well as invent ways to solve a problem or fill a need without micromanagement. The successful person in this job will not only be creative, but also enjoy being creative and solving open-ended problems which may change day-by-day.
Detail-oriented: This focus is a big part of excellence, consistency, and quality. Excellent grammar and spelling matter for both good communication as well as the image of the company that we put forward.

Nice To Haves

Advanced degree in Nuclear Engineering or a closely related technical field (e.g., Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science)
Licensed Professional Engineer in a related field
Experience with analysis methods verification and validation

Responsibilities

Act as a trusted technical advisor and deputy to the Group Director on matters spanning nuclear engineering, analysis quality, and technical program execution.
Provide independent technical judgment on cross-group issues, trade studies, and programmatic decisions.
Represent the Group Director in technical forums, reviews, or coordination meetings as delegated.
Design, draft, and maintain group-level technical work instructions, procedures, and best-practice guidance.
Lead the development and rollout of shared technical infrastructure needed for new or evolving programs (e.g., documentation systems, analysis workflows, review processes).
Identify gaps or friction points in how work is executed across teams and proactively develop solutions.
Coordinate across multiple teams and disciplines to establish new programs, ensuring alignment with regulatory expectations, internal standards, and practical execution realities.
Translate high-level organizational goals into concrete technical processes that teams can realistically adopt and sustain.
Facilitate alignment between analysts, designers, software developers, QA, and management.
Perform targeted deep dives into specific technical topics as needed to unblock programs, resolve ambiguities, or inform decision-making.
Rapidly develop working knowledge in unfamiliar technical areas and synthesize expert input into actionable guidance.
Support root-cause analysis and corrective actions for cross-cutting technical or process issues.
Promote consistency in technical rigor, documentation quality, and analysis practices across the group.
Help ensure that technical outputs are defensible, reviewable, and scalable as the organization grows.
Balance technical fidelity, schedule, and resource constraints in proposed solutions.
Traveling to headquarters (Santa Clara, CA) 2x per calendar quarter for team meetings, company offsite, or other business gatherings.