Senior Structural FEA Engineer

Company Overview

Kairos Power is a new nuclear energy technology and engineering company whose mission is to enable the world’s transition to clean energy, with the ultimate goal to dramatically improve people’s quality of life while protecting the environment. This goal will be accomplished through the commercialization of the fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactor (FHR) that can be deployed with robust safety, affordable costs, and flexible operation to accommodate the expansion of variable renewables.

Job Summary

Kairos Power is looking for a Structural FEA Engineer or Senior Structural FEA Engineer to lead the structural analysis effort on medium to large projects for a generation IV Nuclear Power Plant, and related scaled prototype and test plants. The successful candidate will be responsible for meeting the specific project requirements and assuring the technical correctness of the analysis.

Responsibilities

- Support both Engineering Design and Modeling/Simulation activities.

- Develop new design-by-analysis methodologies and implement existing standardized design-by-analysis tools for stress and failure analyses of metallic and graphite systems, structures, and components (SSCs).

- Develop models and perform thermal-mechanical analysis of metallic and graphite SSCs using Finite Element Methods (FEA) to support the Engineering Design, Safety Analysis, and Testing teams.

- Prepare structural calculations and design analysis reports.

- Support the company’s effort to improve the robustness, consistency, and efficacy of its design analysis workflow.

- Support uncertainty quantification (UQ) efforts for Kairos structural components and systems.

- Support management and work program leadership in meeting company’s licensing milestones and deliverables, including NQA-1 activities and V&V (Verification and Validation).

- Provide mentorship to junior engineers and analysts.

- Support Software Quality Assurance (SQA) implementation.

- Support software and hardware acquisition activities, including cloud computing resources.

- Perform other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

- Ph.D. or MS with equivalent PhD experience in Applied Mathematics, Materials Science, Structural/Mechanical/Nuclear Engineering, or related field, or M.S. with equivalent professional experience.

- A minimum of 5 years of relevant experience with Finite Element Methods applied to graphite and/or metallic SSCs.

- Strong experience in the development of scientific code and software using Python, C++, Fortran, or similar programming languages.

- ANSYS or Abaqus experience is required.

- Computer-aided design (CAD) experience is required.

- Experience with preparing high-quality engineering calculation packages and technical reports is required.

- Experience with industrial Codes and Standards, particularly ASME BPVC Section III/VIII, is required.

- Experience with high-performance computing and managing software.

Knowledge, Skills, And Abilities

- Excellent knowledge of FEA and other spatial/time discretization techniques for partial differential equation (PDE) systems.

- Knowledge of uncertainty quantification (UQ), verification and validation (V&V), and model calibration.

- Responsible, flexible, open to new ideas, collaborative in nature with full buy-in to the Kairos Power mission.

- Team player with excellent verbal, written communication/presentation, and interpersonal skills; must be able to interact and communicate effectively at all levels of the organization.

- Ability to work with highly collaborative team.

- Ability to solve problems quickly and efficiently.

- Prioritizes and ensures safety of one self and others.

- Ability to proactively collect, manage and transfer knowledge.

- Ability to seek different and novel ways to create efficiencies when working on problems, challenges and issues.

Physical Demands

- Ascending or descending ladders, stairs, scaffolding, ramps, scissor lifts, articulated boom lifts and the like.

- Remaining in a stationary position for prolonged periods.

- Moving about to accomplish tasks or moving from one worksite to another.

- Communicating with others to exchange information.

Environmental Conditions

- General office environment

- Assessing the accuracy, neatness and thoroughness of the work assigned.

- High-concentration, demanding and fast-paced.

The salary range for this position is $140,600 to $165,400 for employees working onsite at our Alameda, CA headquarters. The range provided in this job posting represents the typical range or starting rate of candidates hired in California. Factors that may be used to determine your actual salary may include your education, experience, knowledge, skills, abilities, the market data for your work location, and a comparison to other employees already in the role.

About Our Benefits

We know that we have some of the most talented and dedicated employees, and we believe in rewarding them accordingly. If you work here, full-time employees (excludes interns) expect to have access to the benefits below:

- Competitive compensation packages

- Medical, dental and vision benefits for employees and their dependents

- Paid Vacation

- 401(k) and pre-tax health insurance, dependent care, and commuter benefits (FSA)

Kairos Power is committed to building a diverse workforce that reflects the communities where we do business. Kairos Power is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status. We actively welcome people of different experiences, abilities, and perspectives.

Kairos Power participates in E-Verify.

Candidates only, no recruiters or agencies please.

Note: You are applying for a position that is located in a facility that handles information that is subject to export control restrictions by the Department of Energy under 10 CFR Part 810. To work in this facility, you need to be authorized by the Department of Energy to access Part 810-controlled information. Foreign nationals who are citizens of countries that are not on the Department of Energy’s general authorization list (link below) are not permitted to work in our facility unless the Department of Energy issues an export control license to the company to permit that individual to have access to Part 810-controlled information. The following questions are intended to determine the licensing requirements that may apply. https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/10/appendix-A_to_part_810