Senior IC&E Reactor Protection System Design Engineer

About this role

Company Overview

Kairos Power is a new nuclear energy technology and engineering company whose mission is to enable the world’s transition to clean energy, with the ultimate goal to dramatically improve people’s quality of life while protecting the environment. This goal will be accomplished through the commercialization of the fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactor (FHR) that can be deployed with robust safety, affordable costs, and flexible operation to accommodate the expansion of variable renewables.

Job Summary

The Senior Engineer IC&E Systems Design Engineer is responsible for the design and development of custom, safety-critical instrumentation and control hardware systems for an advanced nuclear power plant.

This role is focused on hands-on hardware and system design, spanning circuit design, PCB development, system integration, and qualification testing. Engineers in this role work closely with experienced team members to deliver high-reliability designs while building deep expertise in nuclear-grade electronics and rigorous engineering processes.

The person will work with an integrated design team to perform the following duties:

Primary Responsibilities

• Design and develop  analog and digital circuits  for IC&E systems, including signal conditioning, power distribution, and control logic.

• Create and review  schematics and PCB layouts , working closely with layout engineers and manufacturers.

• Support  system architecture development , including interface definition and hardware integration.

• Contribute to design trade studies balancing performance, reliability, manufacturability, and cost.

• Prototyping, Integration & Testing.

• Support bring-up, debugging and validation of hardware prototypes.

• Develop and execute  test plans and procedures  for functional and qualification testing.

• Analyze test data and implement design improvements.

• Work hands-on with lab equipment (oscilloscopes, power supplies, DAQs, etc.) to characterize and troublesho ot hardware.

• Safety-Critical System Development.

• Contribute to the design of Reactor Protection System (RPS) hardware under guidance.

• Apply principles of fault tolerance, redundancy and fail-safe design.

• Interpret and implement requirements derived from nuclear safety standards.

• Identify technical risks and design issues and develop or recommend solutions consistent with system requirements and engineering processes.

• Documentation & Nuclear Quality.

• Produce and maintain high-quality engineering documentation:

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• Schematics and design descriptions.

•

• In terface definitions.

•

• Test plans, procedures and reports.

•

• Bills of materials and configuration records.

• Ensure traceability of requirements, design decisions and test results.

• Participate in formal design reviews and configuration control processes.

• Configuration management, design control and change-control processes in accordance with applicable quality requirements.

• Cross-Functional Collaboration.

• Work closely with manufacturing, procurement, testing, and systems engineering teams.

• Support vendor engagement for fabrication, assembly, and component selection.

• Contribute to resolving integration and production challenges.

• Technical Development & Knowledge Sharing.

• Maintains and expands technical expertise in high-reliability electronics design, nuclear regulatory and quality requirements, and the end-to-end hardware development lifecycle.

• Applies evolving technical knowledge and industry best practices to assigned design, testing and integration activities.

• Shares technical knowledge and lessons learned with team members and contributes to continuous improvement of engineering practices..

• Takes increasing ownership of complex technical assignments and provides guidance to less-experienced engineers within areas of expertise.

• Performs other duties as assigned.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related field.

• Experience in regulated or high-reliability environments (nuclear, aerospace, medical, etc.).

• 6 years of relevant engineering experience involving electronic hardware, instrumentation and control systems, or related systems design.

• Demonstrated experience in  analog and digital circuit design.

• Experience with schematic capture and PCB design tools (e.g., Altium, Cadence, Ki Cad).

• Experience with lab instrumentation and debugging.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with PCB layout considerations (stack-up, routing constraints, EMI/EMC awareness) is preferred but not required.

• Experience with S tructured root-cause analysis to debugging and failure analysis is preferred but not required.

• Exposure to system integration and hardware interfaces is preferred but not required.

• Exposure to FPGA or programmable logic (e.g., basic HDL, Verilog, interfacing) is preferred but not required.

• Experience with E mbedded systems experience (microcontrollers, firmware bring-up) is preferred but not re quired.

• Demonstrated contribution to hardware development projects (academic or industry) is preferred but not required.

• Experience taking a design from concept through testing or integration is prefer red but not required.

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities:

• Advanced working knowledge of analog and digital circuit design principles applicable to instrumentation, controls, and high-reliability electronic systems.

• Working knowledge of PCB design principles, including grounding, power distribution, signal integrity, component selection, derating, and EMI/EMC considerations.

• Ability to independently translate system and hardware requirements into practical hardware designs.

• Ability to evaluate design alternatives and make technically sound decisions considering reliability, performance, manufacturability, testability, and cost.

• Ability to troubleshoot complex electronic hardware using structu

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