Engineering Manager - Nuclear Facilities

About Aalo Atomics

Aalo Atomics is pioneering a new era in clean energy with factory-fabricated microreactors designed to deliver affordable, scalable, and reliable nuclear power. Our mission is to make nuclear energy globally accessible, starting with the Aalo-1, a 10 MWe reactor leveraging cutting-edge safety, modularity, and efficiency. Based in Austin, TX, we’re rapidly growing as we work to deploy the world’s first fleet of advanced microreactors. Join us and help revolutionize energy for a sustainable future.

About the role

Aalo Atomics is seeking an Engineering Manager – Nuclear Facilities to lead the engineering organization responsible for sustaining and supporting Aalo's operating facilities in Idaho.

Your primary responsibility is to ensure that Aalo's facility systems remain safe, reliable, properly configured, technically understood, and effectively supported throughout operation, maintenance, testing, and modification.

Initially, this organization will support the Aalo-X Critical Assembly Facility at Idaho National Laboratory. Over time, the scope is expected to expand to include Aalo-0, the full-power Aalo-X facility, and other Aalo Idaho facilities.

The Engineering Manager – Nuclear Facilities reports to the Director of Nuclear Safety & Engineering, who serves as the Design Authority for the Aalo-X site, and leads a team of Cognizant System Engineers and facility engineers. You will be responsible for engineering execution, people leadership, resource allocation, system health, facility reliability, and coordination across Engineering, Operations, Maintenance, Nuclear Safety, Quality Assurance, and project organizations.

What you'll do

Team Leadership & Capability Development

• Manage, mentor, and develop Cognizant System Engineers and facility engineers supporting Aalo's Idaho facilities.
• Establish clear roles, responsibilities, priorities, and technical ownership across the Nuclear Facility Engineering organization, and set objective expectations for engineering quality, responsiveness, configuration discipline, and technical rigor.
• Conduct regular one-on-ones, performance evaluations, career development planning, and succession planning.
• Allocate engineering resources based on operational priorities, system condition, facility risk, maintenance needs, and project workload.
• Recommend CSE assignments and ensure assigned engineers are appropriately trained and qualified; formal CSE designation remains with the Design Authority.
• Build the engineering organization and capabilities necessary to support the CAF, Aalo-0, and the Aalo-X reactor.

System Health & Facility Reliability

• Oversee implementation of Aalo's Cognizant System Engineer and System Engineer functions.
• Ensure assigned engineers maintain current knowledge of system functions, design requirements, physical configuration, operating condition, and performance criteria.
• Establish and review system health indicators, performance trends, engineering backlogs, equipment-reliability issues, and obsolescence risks.
• Ensure degrading conditions, adverse trends, configuration discrepancies, and technical issues are identified, evaluated, corrected, and appropriately escalated.
• Drive practical improvements in equipment reliability, maintainability, and facility availability.

Operations & Maintenance Engineering Support

• Ensure Engineering provides appropriate design-basis and technical input to work planning.
• Support emergent equipment issues, troubleshooting, equipment failures, root-cause evaluations, corrective actions, and recovery plans.
• Ensure appropriate engineering review of work that could affect configuration-managed SSCs.
• Ensure post-maintenance and post-modification testing is technically adequate and demonstrates restoration of required functionality.
• Maintain appropriate organizational boundaries: Engineering provides technical support and design-basis input, while Operations and Maintenance retain responsibility for work control, work release, and execution.

Configuration & Change Management

• Ensure SDDs/FDDs, drawings, calculations, specifications, vendor information, equipment data, and related technical documents remain complete, accurate, and current.
• Ensure CSEs participate in configuration walkdowns, design assessments, change reviews, and performance assessments for their assigned systems.
• Ensure physical, design, software, and document changes are appropriately identified, technically reviewed, approved, tested, documented, and closed.
• Support effective use of Teamcenter and associated requirements/configuration-management tools.
• Coordinate engineering interfaces with Nuclear Safety for USQ screening/evaluations and safety-basis changes.

Facility Modifications & Lifecycle Support

• Lead engineering support for facility modifications, upgrades, and reliability improvements.
• Ensure modification packages adequately address design requirements, interfaces, testing, documentation, and turnover.
• Coordinate engineering interfaces with project teams, contractors, vendors, and external Engineers of Record or design authorities.
• Support commissioning, design turnover, and transition of new systems from project organizations into sustained Facility Engineering ownership.

Cross-Functional Leadership

• Maintain effective working relationships with Operations, Maintenance, Nuclear Safety, QA, Procurement, Construction, and project engineering.
• Escalate significant design-basis, system-performance, configuration, or nuclear-safety issues to the Director of Nuclear Safety & Engineering / Design Authority.
• Support DOE interactions, audits, assessments, readiness reviews, and facility performance reviews as required.
• Provide management visibility into engineering performance, technical risk, system health, and emerging facility issues.

Qualifications

Required

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical, Electrical, Nuclear, Civil, or another relevant engineering discipline.
• 10+ years of relevant engineering experience in nuclear power, DOE nuclear facilities, national laboratories, Naval Nuclear Propulsion, high-hazard industrial facilities, or another highly regulated environment.
• Demonstrated experience leading engineering teams, technical organizations, or multidisciplinary engineering programs.
• Significant experience supporting operating facilities.
• Strong working knowledge of system engineering, equipment reliability, maintenance engineering, design control, configuration management, and engineering change processes.
• Demonstrated ability to prioritize competing technical issues and deploy engineering resources effectively.
• Strong technical judgment and ability to communicate complex technical issues to senior leadership and cross-functional organizations.
• Ability to operate effectively in a fast-moving environment while maintaining nuclear-grade engineering discipline.

Preferred

• 15+ years of relevant engineering experience.
• Previous management of Cognizant System Engineers, System Engineers, plant engineers, or equivalent technical ownership organizations.
• DOE nuclear-facility experience.
• Experience implementing DOE-STD-1073 configuration-management or CSE programs.
• Familiarity with 10 CFR 830, DOE safety-basis processes, USQs, Conduct of Operations, and DOE nuclear maintenance programs.
• Experience with ASME NQA-1 or comparable nuclear quality programs.
• Experience with formal system-health, equipment-reliability, or asset-management programs.
• Experience supporting commissioning, operational turnover, startup, or readiness activities.
• Professional Engineer license.
• Experience supporting first-of-a-kind or advanced nuclear facilities.

Physical / Work Environment

• Combination of office and facility/field environments.
• Regular work in operating industrial and nuclear facilities using appropriate PPE.
• Periodic work at INL and other Aalo facilities in Idaho.
• Some travel may be required for vendor, testing, or project support.

Requirements:

• Based in the United States
• Willing to work on-site in Idaho Falls, ID
• Ability to meet applicable site-access and nuclear-facility requirements.

What We Offer:

• Competitive salary based on technical level
• Health, Dental, Vision Insurance
• Paid Time Off
• Corporate Gym Membership

Additional Information:

Aalo Atomics provides a collaborative and supportive work environment, opportunities for professional growth, intellectually challenging careers, and competitive compensation. Aalo Atomics is an equal opportunity employer and considers all employment decisions without regard to race, color, religion, national or ethnic origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Applicants must be U.S. Citizens or U.S. Persons in compliance with 10 CFR Part 810 and may not hold non-compliant foreign citizenships.