Lead PRA Engineer

Our Mission Is Simple: Democratize Access To Clean Energy

Welcome to BlueCore Energy! We are on a relentless mission to democratize access to clean energy. By designing and building advanced floating Pressurized Water Reactors (PWRs) on barges right here in Long Beach, CA, we are bringing scalable, clean, and reliable power to the world. Joining our team means getting in on the ground floor of a revolution in marine small modular reactors (SMRs). If you are passionate, driven, and ready to tackle some of the most exciting challenges of our time, we want you on our team!

Our Values

• Humility: We hold strong opinions loosely, say “I don’t know,” ask for help early, and let the best idea win regardless of who it came from.

• Inclusivity: The best engineering comes from many perspectives. We build a team where everyone is heard, and we mean it.

• Pragmatism: We solve the real problem in front of us, reuse what already works, and value a tested answer over an elegant one.

About the Role

BlueCore Energy is looking for a Lead PRA Engineer to build the probabilistic safety case for our 45 MWt floating Pressurized Water Reactor at the Port of Long Beach, the first commercial maritime nuclear PRA ever submitted to the NRC. You will own the PRA from the ground up, defining licensing basis events and SSC classification for hazards with no direct regulatory precedent, and you will work directly with NRC reviewers to shape the licensing framework for an entirely new class of floating nuclear plants.

Responsibilities

• Lead the development of the first commercial maritime nuclear PRA ever submitted to the NRC.

• Own the PRA implementation from the ground up, including licensing basis event identification, SSC classification, and defense-in-depth evaluation for a reactor platform that has no direct regulatory precedent.

• Define initiating event frequencies for hazards that have never appeared in a commercial nuclear PRA, including ship collision, hull breach flooding, dynamic vessel inclination, and maritime fire, using marine casualty databases (IMO, USCG MISLE, BSEE offshore data) adapted for a moored nuclear facility.

• Work directly with NRC reviewers in pre-application meetings to defend novel analytical positions and shape the regulatory framework for an entire class of floating nuclear plants.

• Collaborate across a small, flat team spanning naval architecture, reactor physics, structural engineering, and maritime safety, where your analysis directly drives design decisions and SSC classification for systems that straddle NRC and USCG jurisdiction.

• Build the technical foundation for fleet deployment: the PRA and classification framework you develop for Unit 1 under Part 50 becomes the basis for future design approvals.

Required Qualifications & Skills

• Bachelor's degree or higher in Nuclear Engineering, Reliability Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent hands-on experience.

• Demonstrated experience developing and maintaining a full-scope, at-power internal events PRA for an NRC-licensed or NRC-regulated nuclear facility.

• Strong working knowledge of PRA methodology, including event tree and fault tree modeling, initiating event analysis, SSC safety classification, and defense-in-depth evaluation.

• Experience engaging directly with NRC staff, such as through pre-application meetings, requests for additional information, or licensing basis documentation.

• Proficiency with industry-standard PRA software such as SAPHIRE, CAFTA, or RiskSpectrum, and familiarity with supporting thermal-hydraulic and severe accident codes (e.g., MAAP, MELCOR, RELAP, GOTHIC). 

• Comfort working with limited precedent, including the ability to adapt data from adjacent industries, such as marine casualty or offshore databases, into a rigorous nuclear risk framework.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to defend novel technical positions to regulators and translate PRA findings for cross-disciplinary engineering teams.

Desired Qualifications & Skills

• Familiarity with maritime, offshore, or naval nuclear systems, or with USCG and IMO regulatory frameworks.

• Experience with emerging PRA standards and licensing pathways for advanced reactors, such as NEI 18-04/LMP framework.

• Prior experience on a first-of-a-kind licensing effort, taking a novel design through its first regulatory submission.

• Experience modeling flooding, fire, or seismic hazards within a probabilistic framework.

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