Principal Automation and Controls Engineer

About Valar Atomics

At Valar Atomics, we're redefining what's possible in energy. Our mission is to make clean, high-temperature nuclear power scalable—unlocking abundant energy for industry, hydrogen, and next-generation manufacturing. We are a team of builders, engineers, and operators who believe nuclear energy should be fast to deploy, factory-made, and built for the real world. Our first pilot plant in Orangeville, Utah will demonstrate how advanced nuclear systems and fuel fabrication can power the future. Joining Valar Atomics means becoming part of a company where autonomy, ownership, and impact exist at every level.

 

The Team 

You will be joining Valar Atomics' Automation and Controls team within the Instrumentation, Control & Electrical (IC&E) organization. Automation and Controls Engineers own the logic and data layer , PLC and DCS application code, ISA-88 batch sequences, SCADA and HMI applications, historian infrastructure, and enterprise integration — across the reactor program and fuel manufacturing operations. You will work alongside I&C Hardware, electrical, process, and nuclear safety engineers in an environment that blends traditional control systems with modern software and data integration practice. As the principal engineer, you will be the discipline's most senior technical voice: the architect of its systems, the final checker of its highest-consequence work, and a standard-setter for the engineers who will build their careers here. The team values operator-focused design, data integrity, disciplined documentation, and a safety-first culture.

 

The Role 

Valar Atomics is seeking Principal Automation and Controls Engineers to own the technical direction of the controls software discipline across our reactor and nuclear fuel manufacturing facilities. The role spans the full controls software domain: PLC and DCS applications, SCADA and HMI, batch control, alarm management, safety logic, historians and plant data, and enterprise integration, but at the level of architecture, strategy, and design authority rather than routine application development. This is a principal position: you will define the control system and plant data architecture and technology roadmap for a first-of-a-kind nuclear program, hold final technical approval authority within the discipline, direct the resolution of the highest-consequence and most novel control problems, represent the discipline in licensing, cybersecurity, and strategic vendor engagements, and build the engineering capability of the organization around you. Where a Staff engineer owns the discipline's standards and quality, the Principal engineer owns where the discipline is going. 

 

Key Responsibilities 

Architecture and Technical Strategy 

• Define and own the control system architecture and technology roadmap across the reactor program and fuel manufacturing facilities, including PLC/DCS, SCADA, SIS, and HMI platform strategy, controller and server segregation architecture, and the plant data architecture from historian through enterprise integration. 

• Author and own the discipline's philosophy and basis documents — control system architecture basis, alarm philosophy, HMI philosophy, batch architecture basis, software validation and testing philosophy, and configuration management and change control philosophy that constrain and guide all downstream application development. 

• Direct control strategy development for first-of-a-kind plant control problems where no established solution exists, sponsoring control approach trade studies, platform capability evaluations, prototyping campaigns, and validation strategies with long-term consequences. 

• Own the discipline's standards program: set the framework and priorities for coding standards, template libraries, display and alarm standards, and testing practice; delegate authorship to staff and senior engineers and approve standards for release; drive convergence across projects and sites. 

• Evaluate emerging controls and data technology — virtualization and containerization, advanced regulatory and model-based control, analytics and anomaly detection, and evolving SCADA and historian platforms — and decide what enters the toolkit, what is piloted, and what is excluded, balancing innovation against nuclear quality and long-term supportability. 

Design Authority and Technical Governance 

• Serve as the discipline design authority: hold final technical approval within controls software for architecture decisions, safety-significant applications, deviations from standards, and concessions; adjudicate technical disputes within the discipline and represent its position in cross-discipline conflicts at program level. 

• Own the technical integrity of safety application software across the fleet under IEC 61511: the safety software development and validation regime, independence and review requirements, and approval of safety-significant software changes. 

• Own software quality governance for the discipline: the assurance model for in-house, contractor, and integrator code; audit and surveillance approach; and the criteria by which applications are accepted into operation. 

• Lead the discipline's engagement in the highest-consequence program reviews: preliminary and critical design reviews, safety case and licensing reviews, cyber assessments, and software readiness reviews for major commissioning and startup milestones. 

• Direct root cause investigations for the most significant software-related events — spurious trips, sequence failures, data loss, cyber incidents and approve corrective action strategy, ensuring findings are institutionalized in architecture, standards, and training. 

• Personally execute or lead engineering on the small set of problems where the consequence of error or the degree of novelty warrants the discipline's most senior engineer, and know which problems those are. 

External Representation and Licensing 

• Support the nuclear licensing effort as the senior controls software voice: contribute to and defend the digital I&C and software content of the safety case, including software qualification, development process, and cybersecurity arguments; support regulatory interactions and audits. 

• Represent Valar Atomics to strategic controls platform vendors and system integrators at a senior technical level; own long-term platform relationships, roadmap influence, qualification expectations, and escalation of systemic vendor quality issues. 

• Represent the company in industry and standards forums as appropriate (ISA, IEEE, IEC, advanced reactor industry groups); bring emerging digital I&C, cybersecurity, and standards developments back into company strategy before they become constraints. 

Organizational Capability 

• Build the discipline's engineering capability: define the technical competencies the controls software organization needs, shape role definitions and the technical career ladder with the Director, set the hiring bar, and lead technical interviews for senior positions.