Principal Reactor Fuel Engineer

Position Title: Principal Reactor Fuel Engineer

Position Description: Protingent Staffing has an exciting direct hire Principal Reactor Fuel Engineer opportunity.

Job Responsibilities:

• Qualification Statistics Strategy: Develop and maintain Fuel Qualification Statistics and Uncertainty Quantification Plan, including required confidence, acceptance probabilities, decision rules, and independent concurrence points.
• Sampling & Population Definition: Establish statistically defensible sample sizes and population definitions for kernels, TRISO particles, FCM pellets, manufacturing lots, irradiation specimens, PIE populations, and safety-test specimens.
• Defect & Failure Fractions: Define methods for estimating exposed-kernel, defective-SiC, particle-failure, fuel-failure, and fission-product-release fractions, including treatment of zero-failure and censored datasets.
• Measurement Uncertainty: Establish uncertainty budgets for characterization, irradiation conditions, PIE measurements, materials properties, safety testing, and derived qualification parameters.
• Model Validation & UQ: Define statistical requirements for model calibration, validation, bias evaluation, sensitivity analysis, uncertainty propagation, applicability limits, and comparison with experimental evidence.
• Manufacturing Demonstration: Develop design-of-experiments, process-capability, variability, sampling, and acceptance methods that demonstrate qualification lots represent repeatable production-intent fuel.
• Data Review & Regulatory Support: Review proposed data exclusions, outliers, missing data, anomalous observations, and extrapolations; author clear statistical conclusions and uncertainty statements for qualification and licensing documents.

Job Qualifications:

• Education: Advanced degree in Statistics, Applied Mathematics, Reliability Engineering, Nuclear Engineering, Materials Science, or a closely related quantitative discipline.
• Materials Qualification: 5+ years of experience supporting nuclear fuel, materials qualification, reliability, manufacturing qualification, model validation, or another safety-critical technical program. Demonstrated expertise in design of experiments, acceptance sampling, uncertainty propagation, reliability methods, statistical inference, and model calibration or validation.
• Development of Statistical Approaches: Experience in developing statistical methods before data collection and defending conclusions based on sparse, censored, zero-failure, or heterogeneous datasets. Proficiency with controlled statistical-computing workflows and the ability to document calculations, software, data transformations, assumptions, and independent reviews.
• Technical Reporting and Documentation: Strong technical writing and communication skills, including the ability to translate statistical limitations into clear engineering, safety, and regulatory decisions.

Preferred Job Qualifications: 

• Direct experience with TRISO, FCM, HTGR, advanced nuclear fuel, or high-temperature ceramic qualification.
• Experience estimating low-probability defect or failure fractions at regulator-relevant confidence levels.
• Familiarity with ASME NQA-1, nuclear software quality assurance, configuration control, and regulator-facing technical reports.
• Experience integrating manufacturing process capability, experimental uncertainty, and model-form uncertainty into qualification decisions.

Job Details:

• Job Type: Direct Hire
• Salary Range: $150-170k
• Location: Oak Ridge, TN (Onsite)

About Protingent: Protingent is an Award-Winning provider of top-tier Engineering and IT talent, trusted by companies at the forefront of innovation — from Software and Aerospace to AI, Clean Tech, Medical Devices, and Connected Technologies. We’re passionate about making a positive impact by connecting exceptional talent with meaningful opportunities and helping our clients build the future.