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Salary: USD 200,000 - 240,000 / annual
Valar Atomics is a Series A advanced nuclear energy company building scalable, factory-made, high-temperature nuclear power systems for industrial applications, hydrogen production, and next-generation manufacturing. The company has already designed, built, commissioned, and operated a DOE-authorized research reactor outside the national laboratory system, with a pilot plant under development in Orangeville, Utah.
The Instrumentation & Controls (I&C) Engineering team designs systems that monitor, automate, and protect Valar's facilities and reactor technologies. As Principal OT Engineer, you will serve as a senior technical authority within the department, taking on the most difficult technical problems and stepping into hands-on engineering work across disciplines when needed. You will combine broad working capability with deep expertise in several areas to resolve failures and integration problems that cross system boundaries.
Your day-to-day responsibilities include leading technical investigations of consequential failures and complex integration problems across physical, software, network, and data dependencies; stepping into implementation, commissioning, troubleshooting, or recovery work where the department needs technical coverage; testing explanations against incomplete or conflicting evidence to establish supported causes and verify recovery; developing and reviewing architectures, detailed designs, standards, and acceptance methods for demanding systems and interfaces; resolving technical gaps between disciplines and involving specialists when additional depth is needed; and turning difficult failures and field lessons into improved designs, usable procedures, and knowledge the team can apply.
OT Engineering delivers power and rack infrastructure, compute, networks, identity, security (physical and cyber), operational data, and industrial software platforms (FactoryTalk). Your scope covers backend deployment, configuration, integration, and recovery of FactoryTalk systems. PLC programming and controls-code development are outside this role. You will travel to the Orangeville, UT facility approximately 15% of the time.
The role demands high organization, disciplined task tracking, accurate documentation, clear priorities, and reliable follow-through. You must have broad technical capability and the judgment to recognize missing knowledge and bring in the right expertise. Persistent problem solving that connects symptoms across systems, tests competing explanations, and verifies fixes is essential. You must be able to move between urgent hands-on work and sustained design work, leaving systems and documentation others can maintain.
**Requirements:**
- 10+ years of experience in operational technology, industrial controls, or related infrastructure engineering
- Demonstrated expertise in at least two of: power systems, compute/server infrastructure, network architecture, cybersecurity, or industrial software platforms
- Experience with major incident investigation and root cause analysis
- Experience developing reusable architectures or technical standards across multiple facilities or programs
- Experience turning lessons from major incidents into tested recovery practices adopted by multiple teams
- Deep expertise in additional disciplines or product families beyond the required breadth
- Ability to work in a fast-paced startup environment with high autonomy and ownership
- U.S. citizenship or lawful permanent resident status required
