Nuclearn · 9 hours ago
VP of Engineering
Phoenix, AZ
Full-time
Hybrid
Lead/Staff, Director/Executive
$216K/yr - $233K/yr
5+ years expNuclearn.ai builds AI‑powered software for the nuclear and utility industries, and they are seeking a hands-on VP of Engineering. The role involves leading a multi-discipline organization to define engineering strategy, ensure reliable software delivery, and foster an AI-enabled engineering culture.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)EnergyMachine LearningNuclearSoftware
No H1B
U.S. Citizen Only
Responsibilities
Design the org across backend, frontend, platform/SRE, hardware/infra, cybersecurity, and QA; define interfaces and ownership boundaries that mirror the architecture
Hire, onboard, and coach ICs and managers; set clear growth paths, performance expectations, and succession plans
Run the rooms: weekly planning, architecture/design sessions, AI+UX charrettes, post‑incident RCAs, incident drills, and cross‑team release reviews
Build an AI‑enabled engineering culture—safe and effective use of AI pair programming, code generation, test synthesis, and design assistance
Be hands-on in the codebase, especially early on - contributing directly to critical features, reviews, and infrastructure while building and mentoring the team
Own SDLC and release management (branching, feature flags, safe rollbacks) across services and clients
Institute typed APIs and schema‑migration discipline (backfills, idempotency, partitioning)
Drive Sentry triage and error‑budget/SLOs; implement retries, back‑pressure, DLQs, and circuit breakers
Embed AI in the toolchain: automated test generation, static‑analysis + AI code review prompts, release‑note drafting, log summarization, and postmortem drafting
Define and publish customer‑visible reliability metrics (uptime, success rates, SLA adherence)
Own the strategy for edge/on‑prem and cloud/hybrid deployments common in utility environments (including constrained/air‑gapped scenarios)
Lead build‑vs‑buy for edge connectors/appliances and plant‑side integrations; oversee vendor selection, BOMs, lifecycle management, and spares
Establish infrastructure standards: high‑availability topologies, disaster recovery, backup/restore, configuration management, and environment parity
Ensure robust networking patterns for utility/OT integration (segmentation, least privilege, managed ingress/egress, secure update channels)
Introduce telemetry for fleet health (hardware status, throughput, queue depth) and capacity planning
Embed secure SDLC and change control that satisfy SOC 2/ISO 27001 without slowing delivery; partner with leadership on roadmap‑aligned controls
Define deployment hardening for customer sites (key management, identity/SSO, network trust boundaries, audit trails, least‑privilege access)
Support vendor risk reviews, DPAs in MSAs, and enterprise security questionnaires
Build a lightweight but rigorous QMS for software and hardware/edge artifacts: test plans, change control, and release sign‑offs
Expand automated test coverage (unit, contract, integration, E2E) and non‑functional testing (load, resilience, failover)
Define quality metrics: defect escape rate, MTTR, change failure rate, test reliability, and verification completeness
Ensure evidence capture for audits and customer onboarding (test records, validation summaries, configuration baselines)
Lead robust integrations with DevonWay, Maximo, and other enterprise systems
Build safe, traceable re‑processing (versioned transforms, replayable queues, full lineage)
Stand up retrieval pipelines for in‑product AI
Rethink UX with AI: design copilot‑style flows in CAP AI and AtomAssist that propose, simulate, explain, then apply - with human‑in‑the‑loop gates and diff‑based approvals
Partner with Design to create AI‑first UI patterns (natural‑language to action, draft‑to‑diff, semantic search across customer content) aligned to utility workflows and approvals
Join key utility calls to scope integrations, demo AI‑enhanced capabilities, and close feedback loops
Translate constraints into backlog, SLAs, rollout plans, and clear acceptance criteria
Partner with Product on quarterly planning and the “toward 100% automation” roadmap
Work with Customer Success on renewals (license entitlements, usage, uptime) and measure time saved and AI suggestion acceptance as value proof
Present progress and risks to founders and the board with clear, actionable metrics (DORA, SLOs, security posture, AI‑assist KPIs, QA/V&V status)
Cut a noisy class of Sentry errors by 30%+ via task idempotency, DLQs, and AI‑assisted log triage
Roll out “simulate → review → apply” gating for CAP automations with dry‑run diffs, explanations, and full audit trails
Deliver a OneNote → AtomAssist connector: tabular ingest, strict schema validation, safe reprocessing, lineage
Define the appliance reference architecture (secure update channel, health telemetry, DR), pilot at a customer site, and publish runbooks
Support upcoming ISO-27001 and SOC-2 audits
Establish the QMS skeleton (requirements trace, test plan templates, release checklist), and add automated regression to CI
Fill priority roles (e.g., Full‑Stack, SRE/Platform, Security Engineer, QA) and level up existing teams with crisp ownership
Qualification
Required
U.S. citizenship or permanent residency (green card) is required due to DOE export compliance
Have led 5 - 20+ engineers across multiple disciplines at a startup serving regulated enterprises
Are a player‑coach: you can dive into FastAPI/React/Postgres/Celery, reason about infra topologies, and still scale the org
Care about correctness and safety: typed contracts, migrations with backfills, idempotent jobs, V&V that catches sharp edges
Have shipped AI‑powered features and know how to measure and improve trust (evals, guardrails, human‑in‑the‑loop)
Are comfortable with utility customers - able to demo, clarify constraints, and negotiate pragmatic workarounds
Communicate clearly under pressure and keep teams focused when the alerts page lights up
Preferred
Experience with AI Agent Ops, RAG/data pipelines, vector search, feature stores, and LLM training operations (prompt/versioning, evals, monitoring)
Background in nuclear/utility or other safety‑critical domains (aviation, med‑device, rail, O&G)
SOC 2/ISO 27001 experience; familiarity with utility security expectations
Familiarity with Maximo, DevonWay, Microsoft 365 integrations
Benefits
Unlimited PTO
Health/dental/vision insurance
Company
Nuclearn
Nuclearn is a software company delivering AI solutions for automating Nuclear Industry tasks.
11-50 employees
Funding
Current Stage
Early StageTotal Funding
$13MKey Investors
Blue Bear CapitalAZ-VC
2025-09-09Series A· $10.5M
2023-08-01Seed· $2.5M
Leadership Team
Bradley Fox
Co-Founder
Jerrold Vincent
Co-Founder & CFO
Recent News
Columbia West
2025-11-15
2025-10-15
Company data provided by crunchbase