Senior Technical Advisor

Thanks for your interest in Oklo!  We are searching for a Senior Technical Advisor to join our engineering team.

Position Description

The Senior Technical Advisor serves as the technical deputy to the Group Director, operating as a senior individual contributor with broad technical authority and organizational reach across the group. This role is responsible for enabling the effectiveness, consistency, and scalability of the group’s technical work by developing cross-cutting programs, infrastructure, and guidance that impact the entire organization.

The ideal candidate is a technically broad nuclear generalist with strong interpersonal skills who is comfortable diving deeply into unfamiliar topics, synthesizing across disciplines, and coordinating with diverse stakeholders to turn high-level intent into durable, functioning programs.

This position reports directly to the Group Director and does not have direct people-management responsibility, but exerts influence through technical leadership, trust, and execution. 

Specific responsibilities may include:

• Traveling to headquarters (Santa Clara, CA) 2x per calendar quarter for team meetings, company offsite, or other business gatherings.
• Technical Leadership and Decision Enablement
  • Act as a trusted technical advisor and deputy to the Group Director on matters spanning nuclear engineering, analysis quality, and technical program execution.
  • Provide independent technical judgment on cross-group issues, trade studies, and programmatic decisions.
  • Represent the Group Director in technical forums, reviews, or coordination meetings as delegated.
• Group-Wide Technical Programs
  • Design, draft, and maintain group-level technical work instructions, procedures, and best-practice guidance.
  • Lead the development and rollout of shared technical infrastructure needed for new or evolving programs (e.g., documentation systems, analysis workflows, review processes).
  • Identify gaps or friction points in how work is executed across teams and proactively develop solutions.
• Technical Integration & Coordination
  • Coordinate across multiple teams and disciplines to establish new programs, ensuring alignment with regulatory expectations, internal standards, and practical execution realities.
  • Translate high-level organizational goals into concrete technical processes that teams can realistically adopt and sustain.
  • Facilitate alignment between analysts, designers, software developers, QA, and management.
• Deep Dives & Problem Solving
  • Perform targeted deep dives into specific technical topics as needed to unblock programs, resolve ambiguities, or inform decision-making.
  • Rapidly develop working knowledge in unfamiliar technical areas and synthesize expert input into actionable guidance.
  • Support root-cause analysis and corrective actions for cross-cutting technical or process issues.
• Quality, Consistency, and Scalability
  • Promote consistency in technical rigor, documentation quality, and analysis practices across the group.
  • Help ensure that technical outputs are defensible, reviewable, and scalable as the organization grows.
  • Balance technical fidelity, schedule, and resource constraints in proposed solutions.

Experience Level:

• Experienced (10+yr)

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Nuclear Engineering or a closely related technical field (e.g., Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science).
• Significant experience (i.e., 10+ years) across a breadth of nuclear engineering technical domains (e.g., reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, fuel cycle, safety analysis, licensing support, systems engineering).
• Demonstrated ability to operate as a technical generalist while engaging deeply with specialists.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to draft clear, practical technical guidance.
• Proven experience coordinating work across multiple teams or disciplines.
• High degree of technical judgment and professionalism.

Bonus Qualifications:

• Advanced degree in Nuclear Engineering or a closely related technical field (e.g., Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science)
• Licensed Professional Engineer in a related field
• Experience with analysis methods verification and validation

Competencies

We are looking for a Senior Technical Advisor that is:

• Personable, approachable, and trusted by both senior leadership and individual contributors.
• Comfortable operating in ambiguity and building structure where none exists.
• Self-directed, with a strong bias toward execution and follow-through.
• Pragmatic mindset: understands how to balance ideal technical solutions with real-world constraints.
• Experience working in regulated or safety-critical technical environments (strongly preferred).
• Passionate about clean energy 
• An optimist at heart
• Passionate about making advanced fission a reality
• Willing and able to learn quickly
• Willing to think differently and do things in new ways 
• Comfortable in a fast-paced, highly iterative startup environment
• Excited to think creatively, critically, and reflectively about the problems they are solving while not leaning only on what has been done before 
• Willing to propose novel and creative solutions to technical problems
• An excellent writer who can write in a modern active voice, so make your cover letter compelling and write it well!
• Able to communicate technical content and results verbally

Who you are:

A startup person: You aren't driven by titles or hierarchy, and prefer efficiency to excess process. You don't need or expect to have a lot of guidance but you enjoy working in a fast-paced team. If you prefer the culture and feel of a large organization, that is great, but you likely won’t enjoy working with us! There is plenty of important work and plenty of good opportunities with organizations like that.

Motivated: You are self-motivated. You bring an enthusiasm to the team, and imbue a sense of passion that goes beyond clocking in and clocking out. This isn’t about a fake or arbitrary “pieces of flair” mentality or lack of work-life balance! It is about being a part of the vision and feeling a part of reaching team goals.

A team-player: Oklo genuinely is a team. We aren’t about taking credit for ourselves, and we aren’t about pushing blame to others. We do incredible things because we work as a team.

An excellent communicator: We need a person who is not only technically competent but also a clear and upbeat communicator.

Creative: Being creative means that when things fall outside clear scopes or processes or problems arise without clear solutions, you are able to identify it as well as invent ways to solve a problem or fill a need without micromanagement. The successful person in this job will not only be creative, but also enjoy being creative and solving open-ended problems which may change day-by-day.

Detail-oriented: This focus is a big part of excellence, consistency, and quality. Excellent grammar and spelling matter for both good communication as well as the image of the company that we put forward.

About Oklo travel requirements: 

Oklo requires remote employees to travel to headquarters (Santa Clara, CA) twice a quarter annually, based on business or team needs, including attendance at team meetings, off-sites, and other company events or gatherings.

About Oklo compensation: $140,000 - $190,000

Oklo offers flexible time off, equity, competitive pay, 401k, health insurance, FSA, flexible work hours, and other benefits.

We are looking to fill this position immediately!

About Oklo Inc.: Oklo Inc. is developing fast fission power plants to deliver clean, reliable, and affordable energy at scale; establishing a domestic supply chain for critical radioisotopes; and advancing nuclear fuel recycling to convert nuclear waste into clean energy. Oklo was the first to receive a site use permit from the U.S. Department of Energy for a commercial advanced fission plant, was awarded fuel material from Idaho National Laboratory, and submitted the first custom combined license application for an advanced reactor to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Oklo is also developing advanced fuel recycling technologies in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy and U.S. National Laboratories.

#CHOP: Oklo’s Values
Collaboration: We go further, together. We bring diverse perspectives, listen actively, and build trust through transparency and respect. We work across disciplines, sharing ownership to turn complex challenges into shared successes.
Humility: We are team players who act for the good of the company and for the world. We are focused on our mission, not personal recognition.
Ownership: We take pride in what we do and how we do it. We are proactive in finding solutions and see tasks through  to completion. We are committed to delivering on our promises to provide clean, reliable, and affordable energy.
Pathfinding: We chart new ground where no path exists by approaching challenges with curiosity, courage, and creativity while navigating ambiguity.