Strike Engineer

About the role

Thanks for your interest in Oklo! We are searching for a Strike Engineer to join our engineering team.

Position Description

The Strike Engineer is a senior, highly adaptable engineer who reports to the Engineering Strike Team Lead and takes ownership of Oklo's highest-priority, most ambiguous technical problems. This person moves between programs, builds context quickly, reduces problems to first principles, and stays accountable through verified resolution. Depending on the need, the Strike Engineer may serve as a hands-on individual contributor, technical lead, or interim manager. They establish a durable path, help staff the work, transfer ownership to the right long-term team, and then take on the next priority.

Specific responsibilities may include:

- Embed in high-priority engineering programs and rapidly develop a working understanding of the system, constraints, stakeholders, and current failure modes.

- Define problems from first principles by separating facts from assumptions, identifying the governing physics and interfaces, and reducing uncertainty to testable questions.

- Work hands-on across design, analysis, prototyping, testing, manufacturing, software and data, systems integration, and field execution as the problem requires.

- Establish a practical execution plan with owners, decision points, schedule, risks, and objective completion criteria, then drive the work through verified closure.

- Diagnose technical and operational failures using data, experiments, direct observation, and disciplined root-cause analysis.

- Make sound engineering tradeoffs under uncertainty while accounting for safety, regulatory requirements, quality, cost, schedule, operability, and manufacturability.

- Temporarily lead a project or team when needed by clarifying priorities, coordinating cross-functional work, removing blockers, and communicating decisions and risks.

- Help recruit and onboard permanent owners, then transfer stable scope with clear documentation, open risks, decisions, and next steps.

- Create reusable tools, processes, design standards, or technical documentation when they will prevent recurring problems or accelerate future work.

Minimum Qualifications:

- Bachelor's degree in engineering, physics, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.

- 2 or more years of experience solving complex engineering problems from definition through design, execution, validation, and handoff.

- Technical breadth across multiple engineering domains and deep expertise in at least one area such as mechanical, electrical, controls, software, systems, manufacturing, test, thermal-fluid, structural, or nuclear engineering.

- Demonstrated ability to reason from first principles, challenge unsupported assumptions, and validate conclusions with analysis, tests, or operating data.

- Hands-on ability to use the tools needed to move work forward, which may include modeling, CAD, calculations, test equipment, scripting, data analysis, or prototyping.