Director of Electrical - Power Distribution
Valar Atomics · Torrance · $225,000–$290,000 (stated in the posting)
About Valar Atomics
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
You will build and lead the Power Distribution engineering organization within Valar Atomics’ Instrumentation, Control & Electrical (IC&E) organization, supporting the gigasite program and the sites that follow it. Your team will span power system planning and studies, substation and transmission design, and protection and relaying. You will work alongside reactor, power conversion, automation and controls, OT, nuclear safety, construction, and customer engineering teams in a hands-on environment where power system design directly determines reactor safety, plant availability, and customer uptime. The team values technical depth, disciplined documentation, and a safety-first culture.
The Role
Valar Atomics is seeking Directors of Electrical - Power Distribution to architect, engineer, and deliver the islanded power systems that carry electricity from hundreds of nuclear units per site to co-located customers. The role owns the electrical system from the generator terminals to the customer meter for microgrids scaling up to 20 GWe. That covers generator step-up transformers, collector and transmission systems, switchyards and substations, protection, and power system stability. There’s no utility grid behind these systems to absorb disturbances, so this role is responsible for making a fleet of reactors and large, dynamic customer loads behave as one stable, reliable power system.
Key Responsibilities
- Build and lead an in-house Power Distribution engineering organization, including hiring, organizational design, technical standards, and development of power systems, substation, transmission, and protection engineers.
- Own the electrical architecture of islanded multi-gigawatt microgrids from generator terminals to customer meter, including voltage levels, topology, redundancy, and expansion strategy as reactor units and customer loads come online in phases.
- Engineer generator step-up transformers, medium-voltage collector systems, HV/EHV switchyards, on-site transmission, and customer-facing substations through conceptual, preliminary, and detailed design.
- Own power system studies, including load flow, short circuit, protective device coordination, arc flash (IEEE 1584), insulation coordination, harmonics, motor starting, and grounding (IEEE 80).
- Own grid stability for islanded operation, including transient and small-signal stability, frequency and voltage control, EMT studies, load rejection and large load-step response, unit trip and cascading-failure analysis, system restoration, and black start strategy.
- Own protection and relaying philosophy and design for generators, transformers, buses, lines, and feeders, including relay settings, coordination, special protection and load-shedding schemes, and protection testing and commissioning.
- Define and enforce power quality and reliability requirements at the customer interface, including availability targets, ride-through, voltage and frequency tolerances, harmonic limits, and the electrical portions of customer service agreements.
- Work with reactor and nuclear safety engineers on the interface between the microgrid and reactor auxiliary power, including loss-of-power transients, unit trip impacts, and the reliability of power to plant systems that are important to safety.
- Define functional requirements for generator controls, governors, excitation systems, and microgrid control and dispatch, and work with the automation and controls and OT teams that implement them.
- Coordinate with customer engineering teams on load characteristics, demand ramp rates, interconnection points, and phased load growth.
- Set the design basis and electrical equipment standards for repeatable deployment across sites, including standardized substation and switchyard designs that support rapid, serial construction.
- Develop equipment specifications and lead procurement strategy for long-lead power equipment, including large power transformers, HV breakers, GIS/AIS switchgear, and protective relaying; secure manufacturing capacity and manage supply chain risk.
- Support construction, testing, and energization, including commissioning plans, acceptance testing, and staged energization of a growing system.
- Own organizational budget, headcount plan, and engineering tools for the Power Distribution function.
Basic Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering with a power systems focus.
- 15+ years of power systems engineering experience in utility, generation, transmission, or large industrial power systems, including 7+ years leading engineering teams.
- Deep expertise in power system analysis, including load flow, short circuit, protection coordination, and dynamic stability, with hands-on experience in tools such as ETAP, PSS/E, PSCAD, PowerFactory, or equivalent.
- Experience architecting and delivering HV/EHV substations, switchyards, and transmission or large collector systems from concept through energization.
- Strong command of protection and relaying philosophy, relay settings, and protection system design for generators, transformers, lines, and buses.
- Experience with large generation interconnection, generator controls, and frequency and voltage control behavior.
- Proven ability to build teams from the ground up, hire strong engineers, and deliver on aggressive schedules.
Preferred Skills and Experience
- Professional Engineer (PE) license or eligibility.
- Experience designing islanded, weak-grid, or microgrid power systems, including low-inertia and high-load-step stability challenges.
- Experience serving large data center or other large dynamic loads, including power quality and ride-through requirements.
- Experience with EMT modeling of inverter-based resources or large power electronic loads.
- Experience with standardized, repeatable substation designs and serial deployment programs.
- Experience in startup or rapid-growth environments, ideally on the owner or developer side.
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).