Principal Engineer, Structural Integrity (Nuclear)

Location: Los Angeles, United States. Applicants must meet U.S. Government export-control requirements, including U.S. citizenship or national status, lawful permanent residence, refugee/asylee status, or eligibility to obtain required authorizations.

Salary: $190,000–$250,000 annually, plus equity.

Company

hirify.global is a Series C nuclear-energy startup developing mass-producible, inherently safe microreactors for terrestrial, underwater, and space applications.

What you will do

• Build and own the structural integrity framework for design, qualification, operation, inspection, aging, and fitness for service of high-temperature reactor components.
• Serve as the technical authority for structural integrity and materials modeling across the organization.
• Apply ASME Section III, Division 5, R5, and R6 methods to high-temperature life assessment, fracture, defect tolerance, and remaining-life evaluations.
• Translate material test and irradiation data into qualified models, design properties, allowables, and acceptance criteria.
• Develop methods for creep, fatigue, creep-fatigue, ratcheting, thermal aging, irradiation effects, fracture, and crack growth.
• Guide aging management, surveillance, inspection, manufacturing-defect evaluation, and fitness-for-service strategies while mentoring engineers.

Requirements

• Principal- or Distinguished-level expertise in structural integrity, materials modeling, or high-temperature component design.
• Deep knowledge of metallic material behavior under temperature, time, irradiation, and cyclic loading.
• Strong experience with creep, fatigue, creep-fatigue, fracture, crack growth, nonlinear structural analysis, finite-element analysis, and constitutive modeling.
• Significant experience with ASME Section III, preferably Division 5, including exposure to Section 11 rules and practices.
• Experience converting material testing results into models, design curves, allowables, or engineering acceptance criteria.
• Advanced reactor or other high-temperature nuclear experience, plus the ability to establish and defend engineering methods when data are incomplete.

Nice to have

• Direct experience with UK R5 and R6 methods.
• Experience with irradiation effects on metallic materials, fitness for service, defect tolerance, aging management, or asset management.
• Experience developing ASME Code Cases or alternative structural integrity methodologies.
• Knowledge of nuclear graphite and ASME Section III, Division 5 graphite rules.

Culture & Benefits

• Systems-oriented approach to complex energy and defense challenges.
• Emphasis on end-user needs, unconventional solutions, and first-principles-informed judgment.
• Teams are expected to spend significant time together in person, with travel to customers, users, and stakeholders when needed.
• Values include operating effectively amid uncertainty and questioning fundamental assumptions.
• Compensation includes a significant stock option package.