Principal Engineer, I&C Design
TerraPower LLC. · Bellevue, Washington, United States
TerraPower is a nuclear technology company based in Bellevue, Washington. At its core, the company is working to raise living standards globally through a more affordable, secure, and environmentally friendly form of nuclear energy along with innovations in medical isotopes to improve human health. In 2006, TerraPower originated with Bill Gates and a group of like-minded visionaries who evaluated the fundamental challenges to raising living standards around the world. They recognized energy access was crucial to the health and economic well-being of communities and decided that the private sector needed to take action and create energy sources that would advance global energy deployment. TerraPower’s mission is to be a world leader in new nuclear technologies, while developing innovators and future leaders in the nuclear field. As a result, the company’s activities in the fields of nuclear energy and related sciences are yielding significant innovations in the safety and economics of nuclear power, hybrid energy and medical applications – all for significant human health benefits.”
TerraPower is seeking to hire highly motivated and forward-thinking professionals who are interested in focusing on advanced nuclear reactor research and development and influencing change within the nuclear power landscape and bringing forward the critical production of medical isotopes. TerraPower is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We do not discriminate in hiring on the basis of sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, color, religious creed, national origin, physical or mental disability, protected Veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law.
Principal Engineer, I&C Design
TerraPower, LLC. is seeking a full-time design engineer to provide the following services: system design, prototype development and testing, plant level system integration, and commissioning. This role is for a senior technical leader who establishes the processes and tools needed to organize I&C design change. The change control lead proactively identifies and removes barriers that limit engineering efficiency, quality, or design stability across I&C. This role ensures that design evolution is successful within the agile design process on the Natrium project.
This position reports directly to the I&C Programs Manager. In this role, you will act as an I&C Engineer for Sodium Fast Reactor technologies, including responsibility for the instrumentation and control. Your role will include interfacing with a team of scientists and engineers internal and external to TerraPower. You will also identify, specify, and integrate custom instrumentation with advanced control systems for Generation IV advanced nuclear reactor technologies. Depending on the candidates’ level of experience, the candidate will also lead designs of I&C systems, structures, and components and may lead the technical oversight of I&C suppliers and their scopes of work.
Tasks
- Responsible for interfacing and supporting geographically diverse and international design team members to develop supporting design documentation. The design team members include in-house and subcontracted resources and may include partner/customer resources as well.
- Develop and review integrated system- and component-level specifications and scopes of work including drawing packages of system and component designs
- Specify and describe suitability of instrumentation measurement techniques for use in sodium fast reactor and integrated energy storage technologies, including analysis of measurement range, response time, and measurement accuracy.
- Develop and review technical design documents, such as System Requirements Documents, System Design Descriptions, Interface Control Documents, Engineering Design Specifications, etc.
- Experience in providing technical direction and oversight of supplier projects, working with the contract administrator to ensure delivery of data and other deliverables to meet TerraPower requirements, as well as coordination and technical reviews of deliverables.
- Assist with planning activities for established systems and components.
- Support Management team as a technical lead by providing coordination, direction, and oversight for the overall team. Facilitate alignment across system leads, engineers, subject matter experts, and suppliers to maintain consistent priorities, effective communication, and progress toward project objectives.
- Integrate I&C with work of other disciplines (eg: safety analyses), engineers (system-leads), scientists, and subject matter experts.
- Assist with analyzing design changes and their impacts on interfacing systems. Applying effective change control principles throughout the change process. o May provide technical direction and guidance to engineers in applicable nuclear and non-nuclear related design standards.
- May lead design of I&C and, supporting electrical systems from system functional requirements through final design.
- Direct I&C system leads on the processes to follow surrounding design change.
- Lead the development of an approach for managing design changes that considers resource impacts and the design completion goal.
- Lead audits and self-assessments for recurring design or process issues. o Investigate persistent cross organizational issues such as unclear ownership, late-stage requirement movement, or supplier design divergence.
- Support continuous learning and application of nuclear industry best practices to maintain the highest quality of engineering design and proactively identify process change/enhancement opportunities.
- For any change in contract (only applicable to systems with contract awarded): o System lead and SPE should communicate changes from original SOW to CC Lead
- Ensure I&C follows change control process IAW TP procedures and processes
- Document impact of in-phase design changes with relevant information (basis for change, tracking information, stakeholders etc) and their expected financial impact from the baseline/approved design scope
- Being a stakeholder for Long Lead Materials review
- For > $0 changes obtain necessary stakeholder approvals
Key Qualifications and Skills
- B.S. or higher in Controls, Electrical, or related discipline from an accredited university and 10+ years direct experience with proven instrumentation and controls systems skills. Higher education will count toward years of experience.
- Candidates must have experience in instrumentation and controls development, diagnostics, and a demonstrated ability to design and deliver industrial I&C platforms and report data accordingly.
- Previous experience with nuclear reactor safety systems or nuclear instrumentation system designs desired but not required.
- Familiar with I&C industry standards (IEEE 338, 603, 1012, ANSI/ISA 67.02.01, 67.04.01 etc), desired but not required.
- Familiar with Regulatory Codes and Standards (RG 1.105,1.28, 1.97, NUREG-0700,0711 etc) associated with nuclear power plant operation and construction.
- Familiarity with implementing design control and development in accordance with nuclear power plant quality assurance (e.g. 10 CFR 50 Appendix B, ASME NQA-1).
- Experience designing and operating high-temperature (400°C and higher) processes, desired but not required.
- Experience interfacing with regulators or supporting licensing submittals for I&C, desired but not required. (topical reports, Chapter 7/18 content, responses to RAIs).
- Ability to handle projects that include many competing objectives and design constraints, with ability to resolve conflicts between objectives.
- Familiarity with working with and/or developing industrial process flow diagrams (PFD) and piping & instrument diagrams (P&ID) desired.
- Experience with CAD software to deliver design deliverables (e.g. AutoCAD Standard, AutoCAD Electrical, or SolidWorks), desired but not required. o Excellent technic