---
title: 'Staff OT Engineer at Valar Atomics'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/staff-ot-engineer-valar-atomics-torrance-cxe2b4djjggd'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-10-30'
---

# Staff OT Engineer at Valar Atomics

- **Company:** Valar Atomics
- **Location:** Torrance, CA
- **Compensation:** $175k–$230k
- **Posted:** 2026-10-29
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-30
- **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/valaratomics/jobs/4471652009

## 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.

You would be turning operating needs into sound technical decisions, practical designs, and standards that execution teams can use. Define how systems should be built and verified, explain the engineering basis, and resolve questions through implementation. The role can focus on a specialty or span connected disciplines.

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

- Translate operational needs into clear requirements, interfaces, design choices, and measurable acceptance criteria.
- Develop standards, drawings, engineering manuals, and procedures with enough detail for implementation and testing.
- Evaluate alternatives for reliability, security, compatibility, recovery, maintainability, and lifecycle needs within the assigned technical scope.
- Resolve ambiguous or conflicting requirements and document the technical basis for consequential decisions.
- Work with execution teams to answer design questions, review implementation evidence, and correct gaps in the guidance.
- Use commissioning, operational, and failure evidence to improve designs and standards.

You Will Be Successful in This Role If

- Highly organized, with disciplined task tracking, accurate documentation, clear priorities, and reliable follow-through.
- Clear engineering judgment that turns incomplete information into justified, implementable decisions.
- Precise writing and diagrams that allow another engineer to build and test the intended system.
- Ownership of design outcomes through implementation, including revising guidance when field evidence shows it needs to change.

## Basic Qualifications

- Authorship of technical designs, standards, or procedures used successfully by implementation or operations teams.
- Translate operational needs into requirements, interface definitions, engineering decisions, and measurable acceptance criteria.
- Evaluate alternatives, dependencies, failure modes, security, recovery, and lifecycle consequences using evidence.
- Review work, resolve ambiguity, guide execution, and validate documentation against implementation and test results.
- Meet all requirements above and demonstrate at least one specialty below. These are alternatives; expertise across every specialty is not required.
- Power distribution and backup: Define distribution/backup requirements, load and capacity analyses, redundancy, interfaces, and acceptance tests.
- Racks and cabling: Develop rack layouts, cable specifications, separation requirements, installation details, and workmanship/test criteria.
- Compute, storage, and virtualization: Develop compute, storage, and virtualization designs covering capacity, compatibility, availability, and recovery.
- Industrial software backends: Define industrial backend architectures, integration and compatibility standards, configuration baselines, and recovery verification.
- Networking: Develop architectures, addressing/segmentation plans, firewall/interface requirements, and connectivity, isolation, and failover tests.
- Technical documentation: Author technically sound requirements, manuals, and procedures; validate them through implementation, testing, and engineering review.
- Windows domain administration: Design domain services, Group Policy baselines, trust/dependency requirements, and administration and recovery standards.
- Access control: Define role and privilege models, service-account controls, access reviews, and authorization acceptance criteria.
- Central logging and authentication: Design logging/authentication services and integration standards, including coverage, retention, failure behavior, and testing.
- Log and packet analysis: Develop diagnostic methods, capture/logging coverage, evidence requirements, and repeatable fault-isolation procedures.
- Operational data systems: Design data systems and interfaces with fidelity, retention, access, capacity, and recovery acceptance requirements.

## Preferred Skills and Experience

- Experience developing technical standards used across multiple projects, programs, or sites.
- Hands-on installation, commissioning, troubleshooting, or operational support that informs practical engineering guidance.
- Experience reviewing interfaces and shared dependencies across multiple infrastructure disciplines.

## What We Offer

- Competitive base salary
- Equity ownership in a rapidly growing advanced energy company
- Comprehensive medical benefits
- Unlimited PTO
- Free daily lunch and dinner provided onsite
- Generous PPE stipend
- High-impact startup environment with significant ownership and autonomy
- Opportunities for rapid career growth and internal advancement
- Direct collaboration with experienced operators, engineers, and industry leaders
- The opportunity to help build and scale transformative energy technology from the ground up

## Equal Employment Opportunity Statement

Valar Atomics is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other protected status under applicable law.

We are committed to providing a workplace free of discrimination and harassment and will provide reasonable accommodation as required by law.

Applicants must be legally authorized to work in the United States as a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident (green card holder). Salary $175,000—$230,000 USD

## About Valar Atomics

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Valar Atomics is scaling nuclear energy through grid-independent, high-temperature gas reactors (HTGR) for hydrogen production, data center power, heavy industrial power, and clean hydrocarbon fuel synthesis.
- **Entity Type**: Private (total funding $494M–$600.5M, latest round Debt - II)
- **Headquarters**: El Segundo, California, United States (additional location in Orangeville, Utah)
- **Founded**: 2023
- **Founders**: Not publicly listed (key executives include President Muhammad Shahzad and CNO Mark Mitchell)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Nuclear energy / advanced nuclear reactor technology
- **Target customers**: Large-scale industrial users (hydrogen producers, data centers, heavy industry), grid-independent operations, and fuel synthesis plants (B2B, Enterprise)
- **Mission or purpose**: “Nuclear needs scale” – unlock economies of scale by building hundreds of reactors on Valar gigasites, divorcing industrial power from the traditional grid.

## Products & Services
- **[Ward 250 Reactor]**: A grid-independent HTGR using TRISO fuel, designed for high-volume, non-bespoke production. Achieved criticality in June 2026 under DOE’s pilot program. Product type: Hardware (nuclear reactor).
- **[Hydrogen Production]**: Reactors paired with a sulfur-iodine cycle process to produce cheap, abundant hydrogen. Product type: Industrial energy product.
- **[Data Center Power]**: Dedicated on-site nuclear power for AI data centers, targeting AI’s projected 200+ TWh additional demand by 2030. Product type: Service / infrastructure.
- **[Heavy Industrial Power]**: Grid-independent power for processes like green steel and bauxite electrolysis. Product type: Service / infrastructure.
- **[Clean Hydrocarbon Fuels]**: Combines cheap hydrogen with captured CO₂ via a modified Fischer-Tropsch process to create synthetic fuels. Product type: Fuel product.
- **[Modular Citadel Shielding]**: Pre-cast, self-tensioning shielding system for mass-manufactured reactor protection. Production line capable of 1,000+ blocks per year. Product type: Hardware component.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation / Market Cap**: Not disclosed (CB Insights shows valuation as hidden)
- **Key Metric**: Total funding reported as $494M (LinkedIn) or $600.5M (CB Insights, conflicting reports); latest round debt financing in November 2025.
- **Notable Investors**: Palmer Luckey, Shyam Sankar, Day One Ventures, DTX Ventures, Contrary, Riot Ventures (led Seed), Snowpoint Ventures (led Series A), and 28+ others.
- **Growth Signals**: Headcount of 74 employees (+232% YoY, +9.6% monthly); 30 active job postings; Ward 250 reactor achieved criticality in June 2026; partnerships with DOE, San Rafael Energy Research Center, and State of Utah; opened first nuclear site (San Rafael) in February 2026.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Proven HTGR design** with unmatched safety profile and proliferation resistance when paired with TRISO fuel.
- **Grid-independent “gigasite” model** that avoids traditional grid constraints, enabling mass manufacturing of standardized reactors.
- **Vertical integration**: In-house design of reactors, fuel processing (sulfur-iodine cycle), and shielding systems (Modular Citadel).
- **Speed to market**: Ward 250 is on track for power operations before July 4, 2026, under a DOE mandate.
- **Talent base**: Attracts engineers from Ultra Safe Nuclear, X-energy, Anduril, and other advanced hardware companies.

## Strategic Focus
- **Scale manufacturing**: Transition from project-based nuclear to high-volume production through gigasites.
- **Achieve operational milestones**: Achieve hot criticality and power operation at Ward 250 by mid-2026.
- **Expand product lines**: Deliver grid-independent hydrogen, data center power, and synthetic fuels to meet industrial and AI energy demands.
- **Grow headcount rapidly**: Aggressively hiring in engineering, operations, quality, and technical roles.

## Why Work Here
- **Mission-driven culture**: “Hardware is the only thing that counts” – emphasis on building real reactors, not just pitching.
- **High growth environment**: Company doubled headcount in the past year; roles offer significant ownership and impact.
- **Locations**: Hawthorne (CA), El Segundo (CA), Orangeville (UT), and Huntington (UT) – roles span design, manufacturing, and field operations.
- **Work style**: Likely on-site/hybrid for technical roles (e.g., Build Engineer, Nuclear Operations Manager, Machinist).
- **Perks & culture**: Rapid advancement opportunities, exposure to cutting-edge nuclear and chemical engineering, and a team with deep ties to defense and deep-tech.
- **Current openings**: 30+ roles including mechanical engineers, plant operators, quality engineers, finance systems engineers, and technical recruiters.

## Sources
1. [valaratomics.com](https://valaratomics.com/)
2. [Greenhouse careers](http://job-boards.greenhouse.io/valaratomics)
3. [CB Insights](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/valar-atomics)
4. [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/valar-atomics)

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