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Senior Director, Power Plant Engineering

Kairos Power · Alameda, CA

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Level
Director+
Team
Production
Base pay
$258k–$330k
Travel
25%
Degree
Required
Experience asked
20+ years
Industry
Industrial
Posted
Yesterday

The role in 30 seconds

A director-level production role at Kairos Power (industrial) in Alameda, CA.

They ask for
20+ years · degree required
Tools it names
Plant layout
Base pay
$258k–$330k
Day to day
about 25% travel

Read from the posting. The full description is below.

From the plant jobs report · week of October 19, 2026

Production Engineer roles in California: typical posted base $122k–$177k. This one lists $258k–$330k.

Median of the low and high ends of 37 live postings that list pay, out of 111 production engineer openings in California, read from manufacturers' own careers sites.

California plant jobs report →Pay by team and state →What moves pay →

How this role compares

Against 110 other live production postings in California.

Base pay
About 100% above similar roles

Typical $120k–$174k, from 31 postings that list pay.

Experience asked
More than usual (20+ vs 5+)

Similar roles usually ask 5+ years.

Skills these teams ask for most

  • New product launch 37%
  • Lean 30%
  • Root cause 27%
  • Automation 24%
  • Python 22%
  • Team leadership 22%

✓ = this posting asks for it too. % = share of similar postings that mention it.

Stands out: this posting asks for Plant layout, which few similar roles mention. If you have it, lead with it.

It asks for 20+ years. If you're close, apply anyway: requirements are a wish list. Talk to someone doing this work there first.

At a glance

Pulled from the posting text. If it's not listed here, the posting didn't say.

How to get in at this plant

Five moves over a week or two. The first one takes ten minutes.

  1. 1

    Pick 2–3 people on the Production team at Kairos Power

    Engineers who joined in the last year or two reply the most. Use the team search on this page to find them.

  2. 2

    Send a short, curious note

    One real question about their work. No favors yet. Each person gets a different note, written for this role.

  3. 3

    Turn a reply into a short call

    Questions worth asking about this team:

    • What does a normal week look like on your team?
    • The posting says about 25% travel. Between which sites?
    • How did you land the job? What stood out in your interviews?
  4. 4

    Apply with someone vouching for you

    If the call went well, ask whether they’d pass your résumé to the hiring manager. Send your résumé link, apply that day, and let them know.

  5. 5

    Bring proof to the interview

    One page of before-and-after numbers from projects you led: scrap, OEE, cycle time, cost. Plant managers hire on results.

This plant: Kairos Power in Alameda

1 other open role at this site.

Full description from Kairos PowerAs posted on their careers site.Show

Job Summary

The Senior Director of Power Plant Engineering is the senior technical and organizational leader accountable for the technical adequacy, maturity, integration, and execution of the designs produced by the Power Plant Engineering organization. Reporting to the Vice President of Engineering Design, this position holds final design decision authority for the Power Plant Engineering organization.

The position ensures that the organization produces technically sound, mature, coordinated, and executable designs that meet established plant requirements, design criteria, codes and standards, safety objectives, and program commitments. This is a working senior leadership role requiring hands-on technical experience and active engagement. The Senior Director establishes technical direction, assigns clear decision authority within the organization, and ensures that consequential engineering decisions have an adequate technical basis and are made by qualified decision-makers. The Senior Director holds leaders accountable while personally engaging in consequential technical decisions, design reviews, issue resolution, and recovery of critical engineering work when necessary.

Responsibilities

  • ◆Provide strategic leadership and oversight for the Plant Engineering department which includes Reactor Systems, Pebble Handling and Storage Systems, Reactor Coolant Auxiliary Systems, Instrumentation, Control, and Electrical Systems, Nuclear Design and Methods and the Balance of Plant Systems.
  • ◆Establish technical direction, maintain engineering standards, and ensure consistent execution of high-quality engineering products in accordance with the Design Control Program and systems engineering practices established by Design Assurance.
  • ◆Ensure that system and discipline designs satisfy applicable requirements, codes and standards, safety functions, and are aligned with program objectives.
  • ◆Ensure that design assumptions, margins, uncertainties, limitations, and technical risks are identified, documented, communicated, and appropriately managed.
  • ◆Make or approve technical decisions and accept technical risk within delegated authority.
  • ◆Hold senior technical leaders accountable for the technical quality, maturity, timeliness, and completeness of their organizations’ work.
  • ◆Resolve technical disagreements that cross system or discipline boundaries.
  • ◆Ensure that Power Plant Engineering provides technically complete and timely inputs to plant layout, process design, plant design, design analysis, licensing, procurement, construction, testing, commissioning, and operations activities.
  • ◆Maintain visibility of significant technical risks, decisions, assumptions, margins, interfaces, and unresolved issues across the organization and ensure they are communicated to affected stakeholders.
  • ◆Ensure the integrity and controlled evolution of the plant design and technical baseline, including appropriate incorporation of approved technical decisions and design changes.
  • ◆Ensure significant technical decisions, design changes, and issue resolutions are appropriately documented, traceable, and incorporated into affected engineering products and requirements.
  • ◆Ensure appropriate technical review and escalation of issues that could materially affect plant safety, licensing basis, design requirements, or overall plant integration.
  • ◆Maintain the technical capability and decision-authority structure necessary to support effective engineering execution across the organization.
  • ◆Other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

  • ✓B.S. or M.S degree in Nuclear Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, or a related engineering discipline
  • ✓20+ years of engineering experience supporting nuclear power generation, nuclear design, analysis, licensing, construction, or plant operations.
  • ✓10+ years of progressive engineering leadership experience, including managing large, multidisciplinary engineering organizations, typically comprising 100 or more employees.
  • ✓Prior experience serving as a Chief Engineer, Design Authority, Engineering Director or comparable senior technical leadership capacity.
  • ✓Demonstrated expertise in one or more core engineering disciplines including Mechanical, Civil/Structural, Nuclear, or other disciplines relevant to nuclear power plant design, with working knowledge across major nuclear engineering disciplines/workstreams.
  • ✓Demonstrated experience applying design control, configuration management, and technical baseline management principles within a complex nuclear or similarly regulated engineering environment.
  • ✓Strong understanding of regulatory

requirements

and how they interact with design and operations, quality assurance programs, design control processes.

  • ✓Demonstrated experience leading multi-disciplinary engineering projects through multiple stages of design maturity and making consequential technical decisions.
  • ✓Demonstrated success holding senior engineering leaders and organizations accountable for technical quality, ownership, and follow-through across multiple geographic locations.
  • ✓Experience with first-of-a-kind technologies or programs involving significant technical uncertainty, evolving requirements, and development organizational capability is desired.
Show full description ↓

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.

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities

  • •Knowledge of nuclear power plant design and operation, including nuclear safety principles, safety classification, defense-in-depth, reac

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