Materials Engineer

Thanks for your interest in Oklo! We are searching for a Materials Engineer to join our engineering team.

Position Description

At Oklo, we are building advanced nuclear systems that require thoughtful, fast, and defensible materials decisions across a wide range of environments - from sodium-compatible seals to structural components exposed to high-radiation environments.

We are seeking an experienced materials engineer to own and drive the material selection process across Oklo’s reactor systems, ensuring decisions are made efficiently, consistently, and with strong technical and regulatory grounding.

This role is a high-impact individual contributor position that sits at the intersection of design engineering, materials science, and regulatory engineering. You will serve as a technical authority and decision-maker for material selection, while also building and maintaining the systems that allow these decisions to scale across the organization.

Specific responsibilities may include:

• Own and implement Oklo’s materials selection and governance process, ensuring fast, safe, and standardized decision-making across reactor systems

• Contribute to and help evolve Oklo’s preferred materials database and related tools, ensuring material knowledge is captured, structured, and accessible over time

• Serve as a technical authority for material selection by:

  • Developing and communicating recommendations for new material use

  • Reviewing deviations from preferred materials and advising on risks and tradeoffs

  • Guiding teams toward proven, scalable, and defensible solutions

• Evaluate new materials using structured engineering approaches, including:

  • Assessing behavior under relevant operating conditions

  • Identifying key degradation mechanisms and associated risks

  • Leveraging available data and engineering judgment to inform recommendations

• Collaborate cross-functionally to support design decisions and ensure alignment with engineering, safety, and regulatory considerations

• Support regulatory and licensing efforts by ensuring material selections are technically justified and defensible

• Identify material knowledge gaps and inform testing or analysis needs

Experience Level:

Minimum of 5 years of experience.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in materials science, nuclear engineering, mechanical engineering, or a related field

• 5+ years of experience in materials engineering, with a focus on material selection, evaluation, or qualification

• Demonstrated experience applying engineering judgment to support material selection decisions in complex or high-consequence systems

• Strong understanding of material behavior in demanding environments (e.g., high temperature, corrosive environments, radiation, or similar)

• Familiarity with common material degradation mechanisms (e.g., corrosion, creep, embrittlement, fatigue)

• Experience working cross-functionally to support engineering design decisions

• Ability to clearly communicate technical recommendations, including assumptions, risks, and tradeoffs

• Strong written communication skills, including the ability to document technical rationale in a clear and structured manner

Bonus Qualifications:

• Experience in nuclear, aerospace, energy, or other high-reliability industries

• Familiarity with nuclear materials considerations, including radiation effects, sodium environments, or high-temperature systems

• Experience supporting or interfacing with regulatory or licensing activities

• Familiarity with ASME codes, material standards, or qualification frameworks

• Experience developing or applying structured approaches to material selection across multiple systems or projects

• Background in material testing, characterization, or analysis

• Experience interpreting and applying data from literature, test programs, or material databases

• Experience contributing to or working with engineering databases or knowledge management systems

• Exposure to design for manufacturability and material supply considerations

• Coding or data analysis experience (e.g., Python or similar tools)

Competencies

We are looking for a Materials Engineer that is:

• Passionate about clean energy

• Comfortable acting as a technical authority, providing clear recommendations and guiding material selection decisions across a range of applications

• Able to balance engineering rigor with speed, making sound decisions with incomplete information while clearly communicating assumptions and risks

• Skilled at applying first-principles thinking to evaluate material behavior in complex environments

• Experienced in identifying material degradation mechanisms and understanding their impact on system performance and lifetime

• A systems thinker who can build and improve processes that scale material selection across teams, rather than solving one-off problems

• An effective collaborator who can work across disciplines to support design decisions without becoming a bottleneck

• A strong communicator, capable of translating complex material behavior into clear, actionable guidance for engineers and stakeholders

• Detail-oriented, with a focus on consistency, traceability, and defensibility in engineering decisions

• Comfortable operating in a fast-paced, highly iterative environment where priorities may evolve quickly

• Motivated to enable teams and improve how engineering decisions are made across the organization

Who you are:

A startup person: You aren't driven by titles or hierarchy, and prefer efficiency to excess process. You don't need or expect to have a lot of guidance but you enjoy working in a fast-paced team. If you prefer the culture and feel of a large organization, that is great, but you likely won’t enjoy working with us! There is plenty of important work and plenty of good opportunities with organizations like that.

Motivated: You are self-motivated. You bring an enthusiasm to the team, and imbue a sense of passion that goes beyond clocking in and clocking out. This isn’t about a fake or arbitrary “pieces of flair” mentality or lack of work-life balance! It is about being a part of the vision and feeling a part of reaching team goals.

A team-player: Oklo genuinely is a team. We aren’t about taking credit for ourselves, and we aren’t about pushing blame to others. We do incredible things because we work as a team.

An excellent communicator: We need a person who is not only technically competent but also a clear and upbeat communicator.

Creative: Being creative means that when things fall outside clear scopes or processes or problems arise without clear solutions, you are able to identify it as well as invent ways to solve a problem or fill a need without micromanagement. The successful person in this job will not only be creative, but also enjoy being creative and solving open-ended problems which may change day-by-day.

Detail-oriented: This focus is a big part of excellence, consistency, and quality. Excellent grammar and spelling matter for both good communication as well as the image of the company that we put forward.

About Oklo travel requirements:

Oklo requires remote employees to travel to headquarters (Santa Clara, CA) twice a quarter annually, based on business or team needs, including attendance at team meetings, off-sites, and other company events or gatherings. For the first two weeks of onboarding, employees are required to be in person at headquarters in Santa Clara, CA.

About Oklo compensation: $120,000-$175,000

Oklo offers flexible time off, equity, competitive pay, 401k, health insurance, FSA, flexible work hours, and other benefits.

We are looking to fill this position immediately!

About Oklo Inc.: Oklo Inc. is developing fast fission power plants to deliver clean, reliable, and affordable energy at scale; establishing a domestic supply chain for critical radioisotopes; and advancing nuclear fuel recycling to convert nuclear waste into clean energy. Oklo was the first to receive a site use permit from the U.S. Department of Energy for a commercial advanced fission plant, was awarded fuel material from Idaho National Laboratory, and submitted the first custom combined license application for an advanced reactor to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Oklo is also developing advanced fuel recycling technologies in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy and U.S. National Laboratories.

#CHOP: Oklo’s Values
Collaboration: We go further, together. We bring diverse perspectives, listen actively, and build trust through transparency and respect. We work across disciplines, sharing ownership to turn complex challenges into shared successes.
Humility: We are team players who act for the good of the company and for the world. We are focused on our mission, not personal recognition.
Ownership: We take pride in what we do and how we do it. We are proactive in finding solutions and see tasks through to completion. We are committed to delivering on our promises to provide clean, reliable, and affordable energy.
Pathfinding: We chart new ground where no path exists by approaching challenges with curiosity, courage, and creativity while navigating ambiguity.