Senior Mechanical Engineer
About the role
Senior Mechanical Engineer to join Oklo's Recycling Division, acting as technical expert for high-temperature piping, pressure vessels, and pressure-retaining components supporting the Oak Ridge Fuel Recycling Facility (OFRF). Leads mechanical design basis, analysis, code compliance, and interfaces from concept through fabrication, testing, installation, commissioning, and operations in hot-cell, molten-salt, inert-atmosphere, vacuum, and thermal-cycling environments.
Responsibilities
- Serve as Oklo's technical expert for high-temperature piping, pressure vessels, pressure boundaries, and their supporting components within the OFRF.
- Translate process conditions into piping and vessel design basis, applicable codes, load combinations, service life, and acceptance criteria.
- Perform and review piping stress and flexibility analyses for sustained, thermal, pressure, seismic, displacement, and other applicable loads, including equipment nozzle loads and support reactions.
- Perform and review pressure vessel analyses for internal and external pressure, local loads, nozzle loads, thermal gradients, buckling, fatigue, creep, and cyclic service; include design-by-analysis when appropriate.
- Perform and review steady-state and transient thermal analyses addressing heat loss, insulation, heat tracing, temperature gradients, heat-up/cooldown, and abnormal thermal conditions.
- Select and qualify materials for high-temperature and corrosive service considering molten-salt compatibility, oxidation, thermal aging, creep, fatigue, radiation exposure where applicable, weldability, and fabrication constraints.
- Design and review vessels, piping, nozzles, flanges, closures, transitions, supports, anchors, restraints, expansion joints, bellows, penetrations, and other pressure-boundary components.
- Define piping layout, support, restraint, slope, drainability, isolation, inspection, and access requirements to manage thermal expansion and safe operation/maintenance.
- Coordinate piping and vessel interfaces with process equipment, hot-cell penetrations, confinement boundaries, structures, utilities, and instrumentation; incorporate remote connection, inspection, isolation, removal, and replacement provisions where personnel access is limited.
- Develop and review calculations, specifications, piping material classes, line lists, vessel data sheets, drawings, fabrication details, and technical requirements.
- Review supplier/subcontractor calculations, models, drawings, material selections, weld details, fabrication procedures, and inspection plans; provide technical direction and resolve issues.
- Establish fabrication and quality requirements including material traceability, welding, heat treatment, dimensional control, nondestructive examination, pressure testing, leak testing, and final acceptance.
- Develop procurement specifications, statements of work, technical bid evaluations, and supplier acceptance criteria for piping and vessel packages.
- Provide input to design reviews, failure-mode and constructability evaluations, engineering changes, supplier deviations, nonconformances, RFIs, and field changes.
- Support commissioning, troubleshooting, and root-cause evaluations involving high-temperature piping, pressure vessels, and pressure boundaries.
- Mentor other engineers and provide technical leadership in high-temperature piping and vessel design, analysis, materials, fabrication, and engineering judgment.
Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering or related engineering discipline
- 10+ years of mechanical engineering experience with process piping, pressure vessels, or high-temperature systems, including responsibility for piping stress, pressure vessel, thermal, or mechanical stress analyses
- Working knowledge of ASME codes and standards, including ASME B31.3 and ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code Section VIII
- Strong understanding of thermal expansion, fatigue, creep, buckling, nozzle loads, pipe supports, pressure boundaries, and elevated-temperature material behavior
- Experience developing and reviewing calculations, specifications, data sheets, drawings, and fabrication-ready design packages
- Experience with materials selection, welding, fabrication, nondestructive examination, pressure testing, and inspection of piping or vessels
- Ability to independently evaluate analytical results, code compliance, design assumptions, failure modes, and technical margins
- Experience coordinating piping and vessel interfaces with process, structural, equipment, instrumentation and controls, operations, and supplier teams
- Strong technical writing, communication, and engineering judgment
- Eligibility to work in the United States without sponsorship
Skills
Benefits
- flexible time off
- equity
- bonuses
- competitive pay
- 401(k)
- health insurance (with employer contribution)
- HSA
- FSA
- flexible work hours
- wellness credits
- other benefits
About Oklo
Emission free, always on power from advanced fission power plants.
About Oklo Inc.: Oklo Inc. (Oklo) is developing advanced fission power plants to provide emission-free, reliable, and affordable energy. Oklo received a Site Use Permit from the U.S Department of Energy, has performed successful prototypic fuel fabrication, was awarded fuel material from Idaho National Laboratory, developed the first advanced fission combined license application accepted and docketed by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and is developing advanced fuel recycling technologies in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy and national laboratories. Oklo has been featured in Time, Newsweek, Wall Street Journal, CNBC, Popular Mechanics, Wired, Architectural Digest, Hyperallergic, POWER Magazine, has been the subject of a Harvard Business School case, and is featured in the Oliver Stone documentary Nuclear, among other features.
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