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Radiant is building the world's first mass-produced, portable nuclear microreactors. The company's flagship product, Kaleidos, is a 1-megawatt, fail-safe microreactor designed for rapid deployment to hospitals, data centers, remote sites, and military bases. Founded in 2020, Radiant is transitioning from prototype development (first reactor testing at Idaho National Laboratory in summer 2026) toward production-scale manufacturing, with initial customer deliveries planned for 2028.
You will serve as a Staff Manufacturing Engineer responsible for transitioning Kaleidos from a first-of-a-kind build into a repeatable, scalable production system. This is a hands-on role with significant technical influence over product evolution and manufacturing strategy.
Key responsibilities include:
- Owning manufacturing and inspection processes for critical reactor components, mechanisms, structures, and assemblies from design release through fabrication, integration, and final acceptance.
- Partnering with design engineers to drive design for manufacturability and assembly (DFM/DFA), influencing hardware to reduce mass, part count, manufacturing complexity, and production risk.
- Evaluating designs for manufacturability, inspectability, tolerance stack-up, tooling access, assembly sequence, and subsystem integration.
- Developing, qualifying, documenting, and continuously improving manufacturing processes for complex mechanical hardware and integrated assemblies.
- Translating engineering drawings, CAD models, requirements, and specifications into manufacturing plans, work instructions, inspection strategies, and production controls.
- Defining fabrication and assembly approaches, including process selection, make-versus-buy decisions, and inspection methodology.
- Designing and developing production tooling, fixtures, assembly aids, lifting equipment, and other manufacturing equipment.
- Partnering with Quality and Test Engineering to establish inspection and acceptance strategies, resolve build and test issues, and incorporate lessons learned.
- Investigating manufacturing defects and nonconformances using structured root-cause analysis and implementing durable corrective actions.
- Identifying, evaluating, and developing suppliers for critical components and manufacturing processes.
- Identifying and implementing capital equipment, machinery, and production infrastructure to support current and future production volumes.
- Supporting hands-on build, integration, and troubleshooting activities while identifying opportunities to improve repeatability, throughput, yield, and labor content.
You will work closely with design, quality, test, supply chain, and operations engineers. The ideal candidate is equally comfortable reviewing CAD models with design engineers, developing manufacturing processes and fixtures, troubleshooting build issues, working with suppliers, and using production data to drive continuous improvement.
REQUIREMENTS:
- Bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, manufacturing engineering, aerospace engineering, or related technical discipline from an accredited institution.
- 8+ years of experience manufacturing complex mechanical hardware in a production, development, or high-reliability engineering environment.
- Demonstrated experience partnering with design engineering to influence hardware through DFM/DFA.
- Experience owning manufacturing processes from development through qualification and production implementation.
- Strong understanding of mechanical fabrication and assembly processes, including machining, joining, fastening, alignment, tolerance control, and inspection.
- Strong ability to interpret engineering drawings, CAD models, specifications, and Geometric Dimensioning & Tolerancing (GD&T).
- Experience developing manufacturing documentation such as work instructions, process specifications, routings, and inspection plans.
- Experience troubleshooting manufacturing and assembly problems, performing root-cause analysis, and implementing corrective actions.
- Demonstrated ability to make practical engineering tradeoffs across manufacturability, quality, cost, schedule, performance, and risk.
- Experience working directly with technicians, machinists, fabricators, inspectors, and operators in a hands-on manufacturing environment.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills and ability to work effectively across design, quality, test, supply chain, and operations teams.
- Must be willing to support extended hours and weekends when necessary to meet critical program milestones.
- Must work 100% onsite at Radiant's El Segundo headquarters.
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:
- Master's degree in mechanical engineering, manufacturing engineering, or related technical discipline.
- Experience transitioning complex hardware from prototype or development builds into repeatable or scaled production.
- Experience manufacturing highly engineered hardware in aerospace, energy, nuclear, automotive, defense, turbomachinery, or another high-reliability industry.
- Experience with precision machining, mechanical joining, dimensional inspection, and non-destructive evaluation methods.
- Experience with tolerance analysis and manufacturing or assembly strategies for tightly controlled interfaces.
- Experience designing custom fixtures, tooling, assembly equipment, or other production hardware.
- Experience with process qualification, first article inspection, statistical process control, or production quality systems.
- Experience developing suppliers for low-volume, high-complexity hardware.
- Experience with manufacturing automation, production equipment, or semi-automated assembly systems.
- Demonstrated ability to reduce part count, mass, assembly time, production complexity, or manufacturing cost without compromising product performance.
