Chief Engineer, Product Engineering

Core Responsibilities

• Talent Management: Lead, develop, and hold accountable the Heads of all reactor Product Lines.
• Team Scaling: Recruit, mentor, and retain the elite engineering leaders required to scale from a first-of-a-kind (FOAK) reactor to a fleet of factory-built reactors.
• Culture Carrier: Drive an organizational culture of extreme ownership and first-principles thinking across all engineering teams.
• First-Principles Execution: Enforce a rigid design philosophy: delete before optimize, optimize before accelerate, and accelerate before automate.
• Lifecycle Governance: Set and enforce the engineering process, cadence, and phase gates for all product development cycles.
• Schedule Defense: Own the integrated schedule for Product Engineering deliverables and defend it to the company, the customer, and the regulator.
• Requirement Scrubbing: Question every requirement placed on our designs and processes—including those handed down from senior leadership—and ruthlessly remove those that do not earn their place.
• Gemba Leadership: Walk the factory floor daily, resolve technical issues directly at the workpiece, and keep the cycle time between question and answer measured in hours, not weeks.
• Design Approval: Serve as the final approval authority for all module-level designs, manufacturing drawings, and Factory Acceptance Test (FAT) results.
• Gate Sign-off: Sign the Final Design exit gate package, certifying FSAR or DSA submittal readiness.
• Cross-Functional Partnership: Align with Programs and Operations on manufacturing readiness, Supply Chain on long-lead procurement, Research on design basis handoffs, and Regulatory Affairs on safety integration and licensing.
• External Representation: Represent Aalo Engineering to investors, customers, regulators, and the public when called upon.
• Education: Bachelor's degree in mechanical, nuclear, aerospace, electrical, or a related engineering discipline; advanced engineering degree preferred.

Requirements

• Must be based in the United States
• Must be willing to work on-site at our headquarters in Austin, Texas

Preferred Qualifications

• Modular Infrastructure: Direct experience with modular, factory-built, or transportable nuclear systems.
• Startup Growth: Experience at a fast-paced, venture-backed hardware company that successfully scaled a product from prototype to high-rate production.
• Operational Blend: A technical background that combines strict design authority with operating experience on real, deployed plants or industrial platforms.
• Advanced Manufacturing: Experience integrating advanced manufacturing methodologies (e.g., specialized welding, high-precision machining, additive manufacturing, automation) into a highly regulated production environment.