OT Engineer at Valar Atomics, Torrance, CA
OT Engineer at Valar Atomics in Torrance, CA. Contract. $145,000 to $175,000 a year. Apply with swipeandhired.
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
As part of the Engineering organization, Instrumentations & Controls designs the systems that monitor, automate, and protect Valar's facilities and reactor technologies. The team develops reliable control architectures that enable safe and efficient operations.
The Role
Valar Atomics is developing high-temperature gas-cooled small modular reactors through licensing, construction, commissioning, and operations. An OT engineer is a hands-on engineer supporting integrated OT across the reactor, fuel, and power-conversion programs, combining SCADA platform engineering, OT networking and cybersecurity, operational data systems, verification and commissioning, and technical procedure development.
The OT Engineer is a hands-on builder developing broad capability across Valar’s integrated OT stack. You will execute well-defined design, configuration, integration, testing, documentation, and field tasks with guidance from Senior, Staff, Principal, and Lead engineers while progressively taking ownership of larger systems and work packages. The role provides direct exposure to SCADA, networks, infrastructure, operational data, cybersecurity, verification, and commissioning rather than confining you to a narrow support function.
You are not expected to arrive as a full-stack technical authority. You are expected to bring strong fundamentals, disciplined execution, curiosity, and the ability to learn quickly in real industrial environments. Success means producing correct and recoverable work, documenting what you build, asking for help before uncertainty becomes risk, and growing into independent ownership through repeated field and system experience.
Key Responsibilities
- Own assigned work packages and contribute to integrated OT architecture, standards, roadmaps, interfaces, lifecycle, security zones, addressing, naming/context, retention, configuration baselines, and technical health across Valar programs.
- Design, deploy, administer, test, and recover distributed or redundant FactoryTalk View SE, Linx, Historian SE/AVEVA PI, and AssetCentre environments, including HMI/alarm/tag standards, licensing, source control, audit, and change management.
- Administer supporting virtualization, Windows/SQL, Active Directory/PKI, service accounts, storage, backup, and disaster-recovery infrastructure with explicit ownership and controlled baselines.
- Design, configure, and troubleshoot Layer 1-7 OT networks using Arista, Palo Alto, or equivalent platforms; define routing, switching, segmentation, firewall policy, redundancy, time synchronization, monitoring, racks, structured cabling, copper, fiber, and optics.
- Design and validate air-gapped boundaries, unidirectional data flows, controlled remote access, and tightly controlled OT/enterprise/cloud interfaces that cannot interfere with control or credited safety functions.
- Deploy and operate historians, InfluxDB/SQL, virtualized data services, and RAID/ZFS or equivalent storage; build OPC UA/MQTT/API/ETL pipelines, semantic models, data contracts, and Grafana/query interfaces while preserving timestamps, quality, ordering, lineage, and access boundaries.
- Integrate PLCs, industrial protocols, FactoryTalk, historians, servers, endpoints, and operator/engineering systems while preserving clear ownership across IC&E, Infrastructure, SCADA, network, and data boundaries.
- Validate racks, patch panels, copper, fiber, optics, labeling, link performance, and physical-path diversity with infrastructure engineers and field contractors.
- Engineer and test retention, compression, query performance, collectives, buffering, replay, replication, high availability, backup/restore, and loss/duplicate detection; document failure behavior and recovery limits.
- Write and execute test procedures with prerequisites, hazards and controls, configuration, tools, step-by-step actions, expected results, evidence, rollback, and restoration.
- Implement monitoring, logging, configuration backup, capacity, data-quality, pipeline-health, and audit controls; automate deployment, validation, evidence collection, and recovery using C#, PowerShell, CMD, or equivalent tools.
- Troubleshoot the full stack using packet capture, protocol analysis, data-path tracing, logs, and queries; perform authorized OT cybersecurity testing and support hardening, patching, remediation, and incident response.
- Translate technical, regulatory, quality, and cybersecurity requirements into traceable verification plans and execute FAT, SAT, System Operational Verification Testing, cybersecurity, failure/recovery, failover, performance, and interface tests.
- Control test configurations and evidence; document discrepancies, support root-cause analysis, define retests, track corrective actions, and maintain diagrams, matrices, data models, build records, procedures, manuals, and runbooks.
- Lead or support design reviews, vendors, systems integrators, installation validation, integration, commissioning, failure testing, escalation, turnover, startup, outage, and incident activities.
Basic Qualifications
- Direct production experience with Rockwell FactoryTalk View SE, Linx, Historian SE/AVEVA PI, and AssetCentre, including distributed or redundant deployment, administration, backup/recovery, and troubleshooting.
- Strong capability in packet capture, protocol analysis, structured-cabling validation, network/data monitoring, and root-cause troubleshooting across Layer 1-7.
- Ability to build automation, services, test aids, and evidence-collection tooling using C#, PowerShell, CMD, or equivalent tools; strong technical writing, configuration-control, vendor-management, and field-troubleshooting skills.
- Frequent travel and hands-on field work in Orangeville are required. Formal degrees and certifications are not required; equivalent technical experience is acceptable.
Preferred Skills and Experience
- Demonstrated end-to-end ownership of industrial OT platforms, networks, data systems, verification, and commissioning in a demanding operational environment.
- Experience with operator-facing HMI, alarm, tag, graphics, licensing, configuration/change control, and recovery testing in distributed or redundant SCADA environments.
- Deep Layer 1-7 networking knowledge and hands-on experience with Arista/Palo Alto or equivalent switching and firewall platforms, segmentation, copper/fiber/optics, air gaps, and unidirectional data flows.
- Strong experience with time-series and relational data platforms, OPC UA/MQTT/API/ETL pipelines, semantic models, data quality/lineage, and Grafana or equivalent visualization tools.
- Strong working knowledge of virtualization, Windows Server, SQL, isolated Windows/Linux systems, Active Directory/PKI, service accounts, certificate authentication, RAID/ZFS or equivalent storage, and disaster recovery.
- Experience performing authorized network, SCADA, Windows/Linux, identity, and data-system cybersecurity testing and converting findings into practical remediation.
- Demonstrated experience authoring and independently executing requirements-based FAT, SAT, System Operational Verification Testing, commissioning, cybersecurity, failure/recovery, performance, and interface procedures with traceable evidence.
- Experience in nuclear energy, power generation, oil and gas, chemical processing, aerospace, advanced manufacturing, or another regulated or safety-conscious industry, including first-of-a-kind or greenfield delivery through commissioning and operations.
- Experience with high-rate operational data, historian collectives, high-availability or remote-site networks, precision timing, centralized monitoring, buffering/replay, and data-diode or unidirectional egress.
- Experience with MES/LIMS/QMS integration, incident response or forensics in isolated environments, and scalable OT standards, templates, runbooks, automated diagnostics, or test harnesses.
What We Offer
- Competitive base salary
- Equity ownership in a rapidly growing advanced energy company
- Comprehensive medical benefits
- Unlimited PTO
- Free daily lunch and dinner provided onsite
- Generous PPE stipend
- High-impact startup environment with significant ownership and autonomy
- Opportunities for rapid career growth and internal advancement
- Direct collaboration with experienced operators, engineers, and industry leaders
- The opportunity to help build and scale transformative energy technology from the ground up
Equal Employment Opportunity Statement
Valar Atomics is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other protected status under applicable law.
We are committed to providing a workplace free of discrimination and harassment and will provide reasonable accommodation as required by law.
Applicants must be legally authorized to work in the United States as a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident (green card holder).
Salary
$145,000 — $175,000 USD