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

Kairos Power is seeking an experienced senior engineering leader to serve as Director, Balance of Plant (Power Generation System & Turbine Island), to provide strategic and technical leadership for multidisciplinary engineering teams. This role is responsible for the technical leadership, organizational capability, and execution of the engineering teams responsible for design and deployment for Structures, Systems, and Components that convert thermal energy to electricity and provide auxiliary plant functions necessary to support reliable and efficient plant operation. The ideal candidate combines broad power plant and thermal-fluid systems expertise with demonstrated success building engineering teams, working with external partners, and delivering complex, hardware systems from concept through commissioning and operation.

Responsibilities

Provide strategic and technical leadership for the development and integration of balance-of-plant (BOP) Systems, such as the Heat Transport Systems interfacing with high-temperature steam Rankine cycles, Power Generation System (PGS), and auxiliary systems such as service water, treated water, and compressed air systems.
Establish department technical direction and decision boundaries consistent with company strategy and designated technical authorities.
Lead engineering delivery from conceptual sizing through detailed design, vendor package review, and commissioning support, owning design reviews and technical risk.
Ensures that system and discipline leads satisfy applicable requirements, codes and standards, safety functions,and align to program
Ensure engineering deliverables—including requirements, calculations, analyses, specifications, drawings, design reports, interface documents, and test plans—are technically sound and meet established quality and schedule requirements.
Oversee supplier technical execution, including supplier selection, bid evaluations, equipment specifications, design reviews, technical evaluations, qualification programs, factory acceptance testing, and resolution of supplier technical issues, to ensure supplier designs and deliverables meet Kairos Power requirements.
Oversee evaluation of BOP design and supplier changes for impacts on system interfaces, plant performance, safety, and commissioning readiness, and ensure approved changes are incorporated into the controlled technical baseline.
Build productive relationships with external organizations while maintaining clear accountability for Kairos Power technical requirements and engineering decisions.
Translates company strategy into measurable organizational priorities and decision principles.
Determine and communicate explicit scope, schedule, risk, and resource tradeoffs across the organization.
Maintain accountability for organizational outcomes and the consequences of scope, schedule, risk, and resource decisions within delegated authority, including decisions delegated to others.
Ensure execution of strategic priorities, take corrective action when results are off track, and remove systemic barriers teams cannot resolve.
Establish organizational technical direction and decision boundaries are established, consistent with company strategy and designated technical authorities.
Ensure material technical and safety risk, their potential consequences, and proposed mitigations are clearly documented and communicated to the appropriate authority, with risk acceptance decisions explicitly recorded.
Personally engage in mission-critical technical or organizational decisions, crises, external reviews, or critical deliverables when judgment materially changes the outcome.