Senior OT Engineer

Job Description

About Valar Atomics

At Valar Atomics, we're redefining what's possible in energy. Our mission is to make clean, high-temperature nuclear power scalable-unlocking abundant energy for industry, hydrogen, and next-generation manufacturing. We are a team of builders, engineers, and operators who believe nuclear energy should be fast to deploy, factory-made, and built for the real world. Our first pilot plant in Orangeville, Utah will demonstrate how advanced nuclear systems and fuel fabrication can power the future. Joining Valar Atomics means becoming part of a company where autonomy, ownership, and impact exist at every level.

The Team

As part of the Engineering organization, Instrumentations & Controls designs the systems that monitor, automate, and protect Valar's facilities and reactor technologies. The team develops reliable control architectures that enable safe and efficient operations.

The Role

Valar Atomics is a young startup that turns ambitious engineering into working hardware. Before our third anniversary, we designed, built, commissioned, and operated a DOE-authorized research reactor outside the national laboratory system. That pace defines how we work: learn quickly, make sound decisions, and build systems that perform. Analysis must lead to decisions and delivery, and we expect people to take ownership and see their work through. If you want hard problems, real responsibility, and the freedom to build with urgency, bring your judgment and drive to Valar.

Take a defined implementation or testing objective through planning, execution, troubleshooting, and verified delivery. Own the result for assigned systems, making sound decisions within established standards and resolving interface issues with other engineers. Deep specialists and capable generalists are both welcome; this role rewards hands-on results.

OT Engineering delivers power and rack infrastructure, compute, networks, identity, security (physical & cyber), operational data, and industrial software platforms (FactoryTalk). The FactoryTalk scope covers backend deployment, configuration, integration, and recovery. PLC programming and controls-code development are outside this role.

Key Responsibilities

• Turn defined objectives into practical implementation or test plans covering prerequisites, equipment or configuration needs, dependencies, tests, and recovery steps.

• Independently implement and operate systems, or prepare, execute, and diagnose system tests within the assigned scope.

• Diagnose difficult faults using measurements, logs, test results, and system behavior; verify that corrective action resolves the problem.

• Plan and execute commissioning, failure, and recovery tests with clear acceptance criteria.

• Resolve integration issues with other engineers and identify when requirements or designs need revision.

• Complete delivery with accurate configurations, executable procedures, test evidence, and usable handoff records.

• Travel to our Torrance facility approximately 15% of the time.

You Will Be Successful in This Role If

• Highly organized, with disciplined task tracking, accurate documentation, clear priorities, and reliable follow-through.

• Independent progress from a defined objective to a working, verified result, with timely escalation of design or scope decisions.

• Strong depth in one or more disciplines and enough interface awareness to work effectively with other specialists.

• Persistent troubleshooting that follows the evidence and verifies the result instead of stopping at an apparent fix.

Basic Qualifications

• Independently deliver an implementation or rigorous hands-on test work package from a defined objective to verified completion.

• Plan methods, interfaces, dependencies, resources, testing, and turnover within established standards.

• Diagnose causes using measurements or recorded evidence; verify that corrective actions resolve the problem.

• Maintain controlled configurations and usable records; coordinate interfaces and escalate decisions beyond authority.

• Meet all requirements above and demonstrate at least one specialty below. These are alternatives; expertise across every specialty is not required.

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