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Senior Salt Pump Assembly & Tooling Engineer

Albuquerque, NM

Company Overview

Kairos Power is a new nuclear energy technology and engineering company whose mission is to enable the world’s transition to clean energy, with the ultimate goal to dramatically improve people’s quality of life while protecting the environment. This goal will be accomplished through the commercialization of the fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactor (FHR) that can be deployed with robust safety, affordable costs, and flexible operation to accommodate the expansion of variable renewables.

Job Summary

Kairos Power is seeking a motivated and detail-oriented Salt Pump Assembly and Tooling Engineer to support the design, development, and assembly of KP-FHR (Fluoride Salt-Cooled High-Temperature Reactor) salt pumps. This role focuses on tooling development, component testing, and pump assembly. The ideal candidate will contribute to cross-functional projects and collaborate with internal teams and external vendors to support efficient and precise pump assembly processes.

Responsibilities 

  • Support the design and prototyping of KP-FHR salt pumps and associated subcomponents.
  • Develop 3D CAD layouts of electromechanical systems, ensuring integration with adjacent subsystems.
  • Optimize mechanical packaging across system interfaces to support functional and spatial efficiency.
  • Rapidly design, prototype, and iterate on tooling for salt pump assembly, with a focus on precision and operational efficiency.
  • Generate manufacturing drawings for tooling and coordinate fabrication with internal and external suppliers.
  • Assist in the hands-on assembly, startup, and commissioning of salt pumps, supporting troubleshooting of custom components.
  • Perform small-scale testing of individual pump components, such as springs, seals, and cooling strategies.
  • Execute work within defined cost and schedule constraints.
  • Support documentation of assembly processes, tooling specifications, and testing protocols to ensure traceability and repeatability. 
  • Other duties as assigned

Qualifications 

  • Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering or a related field
  • Hands-on experience with SolidWorks; experience with other CAD/CAE tools is a plus
  • Demonstrated proficiency in mechanical design, with exposure to rotating equipment or turbomachinery preferred
  • Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with a keen attention to detail
  • Proficiency in data acquisition, instrumentation, and system-level analysis
  • Ability to work effectively in a multi-disciplinary team environment, including collaboration with engineers, technicians, and fabricators
  • Excellent verbal and written communication skills, including the ability to document work clearly
  • Proactive and organized approach to handling multiple design and assembly tasks
  • Internship or 1–3 years of professional experience in a mechanical design, testing, or manufacturing environment is desirable
  • Familiarity with Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GD&T) and basic stack-up analysis is desirable
  • Experience in highly regulated industries such as nuclear, energy, chemical, petrochemical, defense, or aerospace is desirable
  • Exposure to component or system-level assembly procedures and tooling development is desirable
  • Experience with prototype development and iterative design methods is desirable
  • Familiarity with safety standards and quality assurance practices in technical engineering environments is desirable
  • Ability to work with highly collaborative team
  • Ability to solve problems quickly and efficiently
  • Prioritizes and ensures safety of one self and others
  • Ability to proactively collect, manage and transfer knowledge
  • Ability to seek different and novel ways to create efficiencies when working on problems, challenges and issues

Physical Conditions

  • Ascending or descending ladders, stairs, scaffolding, ramps, scissor lifts, articulated boom lifts and the like
  • Setting up and transferring temporary structures (e.g. scaffolding, ladders)
  • Moving self in different positions to accomplish tasks in various environments including tight and confined spaces
  • Remaining in a stationary position, often standing, or sitting for prolonged periods
  • Moving about to accomplish tasks or moving from one worksite to another
  • Adjusting, moving, transporting, installing, positioning, or removing objects up to (50) pounds in all directions
  • Communicating with others to exchange information
  • Operating motor vehicles, heavy equipment or machinery
  • Use hand tools
  • Repetitive assembly operations of manufacturing test fixtures and test setups in collaboration with engineering and manufacturing teams

Environmental Conditions

  • General office environment
  • Noisy environments
  • Elevated heights
  • Assessing the accuracy, neatness and thoroughness of the work assigned
  • High-concentration, demanding and fast-paced

Safety and PPE

  • Reading and interpreting hazardous warning signs
  • Reporting issues with equipment or unsafe conditions
  • Color identification: detecting, distinguishing, recognizing and identifying colors
  • Wearing proper PPE, to include face mask, face shields, gloves, safety shoes

Travel 

  • Some travel may be required, up to 20% 

Additional Requirements

  • Requires regularly schedule flexibility
  • Requires occasionally non-standard work-week hours 
  • Requires occasionally extended hours to support launch and critical project timelines

#LI-Onsite

About our Benefits

We know that we have some of the most talented and dedicated employees, and we believe in rewarding them accordingly. If you work here, full-time employees (excludes interns) expect to have access to the benefits below:

  • Competitive compensation packages
  • Medical, dental and vision benefits for employees and their dependents
  • Paid Vacation
  • 401(k) and pre-tax health insurance, dependent care, and commuter benefits (FSA)

Kairos Power is committed to building a diverse workforce that reflects the communities where we do business. Kairos Power is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status. We actively welcome people of different experiences, abilities, and perspectives.

Kairos Power participates in E-Verify.

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Note: You are applying for a position that is located in a facility that handles information that is subject to export control restrictions by the Department of Energy under 10 CFR Part 810. To work in this facility, you need to be authorized by the Department of Energy to access Part 810-controlled information. Foreign nationals who are citizens of countries that are not on the Department of Energy’s general authorization list (link below) are not permitted to work in our facility unless the Department of Energy issues an export control license to the company to permit that individual to have access to Part 810-controlled information. The following questions are intended to determine the licensing requirements that may apply. https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/10/appendix-A_to_part_810

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