Engineering Manager - Materials Engineering

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, Materials Engineering, reporting to the VP of Nuclear Design, to lead the organization responsible for the fuel and materials portions of the design, qualification, and safety bases for Aalo’s reactor designs, starting with Aalo-X.

You will build and lead the team that establishes, preserves, and maintains the materials technical basis, from material selection and qualification through procurement, fabrication, joining, installation, irradiation, surveillance, and end of life. A central part of the role is ensuring that the materials specified, purchased, fabricated, and installed in Aalo reactors remain consistent with the materials assumed in design and safety analyses.

This role balances people leadership with program execution. You will staff and develop a team of engineers at varying career levels; set priorities across fuel, graphite, and metals qualification; and manage the interfaces through which Materials Engineering supports design, analysis, Nuclear Safety, Supply Chain, Manufacturing, Quality, and Operations.

What you'll do

The responsibilities below cover establishing, preserving, and maintaining the materials technical basis through life, developing engineering rules where none exist, and the leadership needed to deliver them.

Team Leadership & Organizational Development

• Manage, mentor, and develop the Materials Engineering team, including engineers at varying career levels, through regular 1:1s, performance evaluations, career development, and succession planning.
• Build out the Materials Engineering team and lead recruiting for critical technical positions.
• Establish clear roles, technical ownership, and decision rights across the team for each fuel, material, and qualification workstream.
• Allocate engineering resources based on design and licensing dependencies, safety significance, technical uncertainty, long-lead testing and irradiation needs, and procurement and manufacturing schedules.
• Foster a culture of technical rigor, ownership, and transparent communication of margins, uncertainties, and evidence gaps.
• Preserve continuity of materials knowledge and decision rationale through personnel and organizational transitions.

Program Planning & Execution

• Own the Materials Engineering work plan, priorities, schedule, and budget, and update them periodically as Aalo design and program needs evolve.
• Direct execution of the major materials obligations for Aalo-X and subsequent Aalo designs: fuel qualification, graphite qualification, metals and weld qualification, materials support for the license, materials testing supporting the license and design life, reactor component lifecycle performance, in-core materials surveillance, and materials-system compatibility and environmental degradation.
• Ensure qualification plans, test plans, specifications, analyses, and license inputs are delivered when design, procurement, manufacturing, and licensing need them.
• Identify time-sensitive materials needs early, ensuring in-core surveillance positions are incorporated into the design and that source materials, specimens, and archival material are drawn from representative heats or lots, traceable to their material certifications, and retained under controlled storage.
• Track deferred and future-state work with its assumptions, dependencies, required completion points, and potential consequences.
• Manage externally performed technical work with national laboratories, universities, irradiation and examination facilities, suppliers, and consultants, in coordination with Procurement, Quality, and Legal.
• Report progress, qualification maturity, technical risks, decisions, and recovery plans to the VP of Nuclear Design and company leadership.

Technical Basis Governance & Configuration Control

• Ensure Materials Engineering maintains authoritative, traceable material-property data, behavior models, correlations, uncertainties, and applicability limits suitable for design, analysis, qualification, procurement, manufacturing, and safety-basis use.
• Maintain a clear distinction among literature data, supplier data, developmental test results, qualified data, and values approved for engineering or safety use, and ensure developmental results do not enter the design or safety basis without appropriate review, qualification, and documentation.
• Ensure changes to the materials technical basis are reviewed for their effects on downstream analyses, qualification conclusions, and safety-basis inputs.
• Support material-selection reviews for primary-system and other reactor-facing materials.
• Ensure software-specific implementations, including fuel-performance (BISON) and component-analysis inputs, remain consistent with the controlled materials technical basis.
• Ensure Materials Engineering work products receive technical review, verification, and configuration control appropriate to their intended use under Aalo’s quality assurance program.

Safety Basis, Codes & External Engagement

• Ensure the fuel and materials technical basis supporting the license for each Aalo design, including properties, models, degradation and failure mechanisms, limits, and uncertainties, is technically defensible and traceable to its supporting evidence.
• Support DOE interactions, independent technical reviews, audits, assessments, and readiness reviews involving fuel and materials.
• Direct Materials Engineering participation in the selection and interpretation of material-related codes and standards, including ASTM standards and material provisions of other codes, and in the development of supplemental design rules, alternative methods, or ASME Code Cases where existing codes do not adequately address Aalo materials or service conditions.
• Build durable working relationships with national laboratories, test and examination facilities, suppliers, and the broader nuclear materials community.

Qualifications

This is a leadership role for an engineer who has worked in nuclear fuel or reactor materials and has led technical teams through qualification, testing, and regulatory review.

Required

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in Materials Science, Metallurgical, Nuclear, Mechanical, or a closely related engineering discipline.
• Experience: 10+ years of relevant engineering experience in nuclear fuel, reactor materials, materials qualification, or materials engineering for nuclear power, DOE facilities, national laboratories, Naval Nuclear Propulsion, or comparable high-consequence programs.
• Leadership Experience: Demonstrated experience leading engineering teams or multidisciplinary technical programs, including hiring, developing staff, and managing resources, schedules, and budgets.
• Technical Expertise: Strong working knowledge of irradiation effects, material degradation mechanisms, material and weld qualification, and the translation of material behavior into specifications, procurement controls, and design inputs.
• Quality & Configuration Control: Experience working under nuclear quality assurance programs (e.g., ASME NQA-1 or 10 CFR 50 Appendix B) with controlled data, design control, and configuration management.
• Testing & Evidence: Experience planning or overseeing materials testing, irradiation, or examination programs and judging the adequacy of evidence for design or safety use.
• Communication: Ability to communicate technical risk, qualification maturity, and evidence gaps clearly to senior leadership, regulators, and cross-functional partners.

Preferred

• Experience: 15+ years of relevant experience, with 3+ years in a supervisory or management capacity.
• Credentials: Master’s or Ph.D. in Materials Science, Nuclear Engineering, or a related field, or a Professional Engineer (PE) license.
• Material Systems: Direct experience with nuclear graphite, metals (including welds and heat-affected zones), or nuclear fuel and cladding qualification.
• Fuel Performance: Familiarity with fuel-performance modeling and validation, including BISON or other MOOSE-based tools.
• DOE & Safety Basis: Familiarity with 10 CFR 830, DOE safety-basis processes, NRC licensing, and DOE or national laboratory interactions.
• Irradiation & PIE: Experience with irradiation testing, in-core surveillance programs, hot cells, or post-irradiation examination.
• Codes & Standards: Experience with ASME Section III, ASTM material standards, or development of Code Cases or alternative methods.
• Advanced Nuclear Systems: Experience supporting first-of-a-kind or advanced reactor development from design through qualification and deployment.
  
  
  Requirements: 
• Based in the United States
• Willing to work on-site in Idaho Falls, ID

What We Offer:

• Competitive salary based on experience
• 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.

Direct applicants only. No recruiters or staffing agencies, please.