Senior QA Engineer - NQA-1 Program Development

Description

The company is a fast-growing startup in nuclear and energy that uses AI-enabled technology. It builds reactors as a fleet, designing once and building many, to bring safe, reliable, and affordable nuclear power online sooner.

Everyone here is expected to use AI, technology, and the Nuclear Operating System (NOS) as a normal part of the job, and to keep finding ways to automate work, sharpen decisions, and help NOS grow into a core capability that lets the company scale well.

The team is made up of people who work well without clear answers, want to build things that have never existed, and welcome direct feedback. Five values guide daily work: Transparency, Responsibility, Unity, Scrappy, and Tenacity. Safety culture rests on honesty, accountability, and open communication.

This role starts by building the company's NQA-1 quality program. You will write the implementing procedures that every department, from Engineering and Procurement to Construction and Licensing, works under. You will work with each department's subject-matter experts, guide drafts through cross-functional review, and push them to approval and issue on time. As the procedures mature and field work starts, the focus moves to hands-on quality engineering: reviewing inspection and test procedures, setting acceptance criteria from design requirements, and placing witness and hold points in inspection and test plans. You report to the Senior Manager of Quality and have stop-work authority and direct access to the CNO.

Responsibilities

• Lead the cross-functional build-out of the NQA-1 program by writing Tier-3 implementing procedures with each department, including Procurement and Supply Chain, PMO, Engineering, Quality, Regulatory Affairs, Construction Management, Nuclear Deployment, Testing and Start-Up, Training, and the corporate functions. Turn each group's scope into issued procedures through SME input, review, and approval.
• Write or contribute SME input to procedures, records, and technical documents in your discipline.
• Review inspection and test procedures and acceptance criteria for nuclear systems and components, and confirm design outputs meet specified requirements.
• Identify the applicable inspection requirements, codes, and standards, with references. Pull quantitative limits, specific values, and tolerances out of the design.
• Set witness and hold points in inspection and test plans.
• Keep the QAPD and parent-suite artifacts audit-ready, and support the phased QA plans for Services, BOO project development, and JV support.
• Report conditions adverse to quality promptly through the CAP. Feed procedure status and quality metrics into the QA metrics pack and the CNO performance-indicator set.
• Keep your own qualifications, training, and certifications current.

Requirements

• A bachelor's degree in an engineering discipline, or 10+ years of field experience in the discipline.
• 3+ years working under ASME NQA-1 and/or 10 CFR 50 Appendix B programs, with procedures you wrote that passed review and were implemented.
• Working knowledge of the codes and standards for your scope, such as ASME NQA-1, ASME Section III, V, or IX, ACI 318, AISC 360, and IEEE/ISA series, as applicable.
• Strong technical writing skills, and the ability to gather SME input from any department and move a document through a multi-reviewer approval chain on schedule.
• Ability to qualify to governing TNC procedures.
• NQA-1 Lead Auditor certification is not required. Audits are carried out by a contracted, qualified audit service. Your discipline (civil, mechanical, electrical, or NDE) will shape your assigned scope as the role moves toward inspection and test engineering.
• Preferred: nuclear new-build, construction, or commissioning experience, such as AP1000, SMR/MMR, or other first-of-a-kind programs.
• Preferred: discipline depth in civil/structural, mechanical, electrical, or NDE, with the related code sets (ACI/AISC, ASME Section III, V, or IX, IEEE/ISA, SNT-TC-1A / CP-189).
• Preferred: ASQ CQE or CQA, and auditor training or audit-team participation.
• Preferred: experience writing procedures in a startup or program build-out, and fluency with EDMS and document-control workflows.
• Preferred: familiarity with ISO 9001 and ISO 19443, and with metrics and dashboard tools such as Excel and Power BI.

Conditions

Estimated starting salary range: $121,000 to $143,000 per year, less applicable withholdings and deductions, paid bi-weekly. The final offer may depend on factors the company weighs, such as experience, qualifications, tenure, skill set, candidate availability, location, certifications held, and other relevant criteria.

The company makes hiring decisions on the basis of role-relevant factors.

Benefits

• Competitive pay packages.
• 401(k) with company match.
• Medical, dental, and vision plans.
• Generous vacation policy, plus holidays.