Thermal-Hydraulics and Safety Analysis Engineer - Isotopes

Oklo•Santa Clara, CA

45d•$150,000 - $200,000•Remote

About The Position

Oklo is seeking a Thermal-Hydraulics and Safety Analysis Engineer to join their isotope engineering team. This role will be responsible for the thermal hydraulic safety case for next-generation domestic isotope production facilities. The engineer will develop and execute systems-level thermal-hydraulic analyses to support the safety case, design basis, and licensing of Oklo's reactor systems. This involves evaluating reactor and plant response under various conditions using codes like RELAP5 and other systems-analysis tools. The position combines hands-on transient modeling with safety-methodology development, including establishing modeling approaches, assessing code applicability, quantifying uncertainty, and producing auditable technical documentation for licensing. The engineer will collaborate with various teams, including safety, licensing, reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, controls, and system-design. While focused on thermal-hydraulic safety analysis and licensing support, collaboration with engineers on source-term, radiological-consequence, or severe-accident progression analysis may be required. The isotope engineering team is small and growing, requiring the candidate to be capable of operating independently in a highly iterative environment.

Requirements

Bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degree in nuclear, mechanical, chemical, or aerospace engineering, or a closely related technical field.
Five or more years of relevant experience in reactor thermal-hydraulics, nuclear safety analysis, reactor transient analysis, or a closely related field. A relevant advanced degree may substitute for a portion of the professional experience.
Demonstrated experience developing and executing systems-level transient models using RELAP5.
Strong foundation in heat transfer, fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, and reactor thermal-hydraulics.
Experience defining and analyzing reactor transients or accident scenarios, including initial conditions, boundary conditions, equipment response, operator or control actions, and acceptance criteria.
Experience evaluating the reasonableness and applicability of models, correlations, assumptions, and results rather than treating analysis software as a black box.
Experience documenting engineering analyses in clear, reviewable technical reports or calculation packages.
Ability to work independently while collaborating effectively across engineering and licensing disciplines.
Experience with verification and validation, uncertainty quantification, sensitivity analysis, scaling, bias evaluation, or code applicability assessments.
Familiarity with experiment design, separate-effects and integral-effects testing, benchmark problems, and the use of test data to validate analytical methods.

Nice To Haves

Experience supporting NRC or DOE licensing applications, audits, topical or methodology reports, requests for additional information, or other regulatory interactions.
Fluency with Python or another language used for model automation, data analysis, visualization, and quality checks.
Competency with modern software engineering practices, including version control, automated testing, reproducible computing environments, and continuous integration.
Experience working under a nuclear quality-assurance program or with safety-related analysis software and records.
Experience mentoring other analysts or providing technical review of safety-analysis work.

Responsibilities

Develop, maintain, and execute systems-level thermal-hydraulic models of reactor and plant behavior using RELAP5 or comparable analysis codes.
Analyze normal operating conditions, anticipated operational occurrences, design-basis events, and selected beyond-design-basis conditions relevant to the thermal-hydraulic safety case.
Develop event-specific analysis plans, including initial and boundary conditions, assumptions, acceptance criteria, figures of merit, and treatment of uncertainties.
Develop and document thermal-hydraulic safety-analysis methods, modeling guidance, and engineering practices appropriate to advanced reactor licensing.
Establish and justify code, model, and correlation applicability for the physical phenomena and operating regimes being evaluated.
Perform model verification, validation, sensitivity studies, uncertainty analyses, scaling evaluations, and comparisons with experiments, benchmarks, hand calculations, or higher-fidelity analyses.
Identify gaps in available methods, data, and validation evidence, and define practical plans to close those gaps.
Translate regulatory requirements and safety acceptance criteria into defensible analysis requirements and technical evaluation strategies.
Prepare high-quality calculation packages, methodology documents, safety-analysis reports, licensing-application content, and responses to regulator questions.
Evaluate design changes and provide timely feedback on their effects on transient response, safety margins, system performance, and the licensing basis.
Collaborate with reactor physics, fuel, controls, mechanical, thermal-hydraulics, safety, and licensing engineers on coupled analyses and interface conditions.
Develop scripts and automated workflows for model generation, execution, post-processing, regression testing, and configuration control.
Review safety analyses and models prepared by internal contributors, vendors, and external partners.