{"id":4212877,"url":"https://alion.io/job/valar-atomics-principal-software-engineer-2","title":"Principal Software Engineer","company":{"id":19389,"name":"Valar Atomics","domain":"valaratomics.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/valar-atomics","size_band":"201-500","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":83,"open_postings":15,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.667,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":48,"computed_at":"2026-11-12T10:38:37Z"}},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"lead","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"explicit","locations":["Torrance, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":195000,"max":270000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":270000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":10,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":true,"technologies":[{"name":"Amazon Kinesis","optional":false},{"name":"Apache Kafka","optional":false},{"name":"C#","optional":false},{"name":"C++","optional":false},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"Claude Code","optional":false},{"name":"Copilot","optional":false},{"name":"Cursor","optional":false},{"name":"Flink","optional":false},{"name":"GraphQL","optional":false},{"name":"JavaScript","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"Rust","optional":false},{"name":"Time Series","optional":false},{"name":"21 CFR Part 11","optional":true},{"name":"Agentic Workflows","optional":true},{"name":"AI Agents","optional":true},{"name":"ASME NQA-1","optional":true},{"name":"Docker","optional":true},{"name":"Git","optional":true},{"name":"HPC","optional":true},{"name":"Kubernetes","optional":true},{"name":"LIMS","optional":true},{"name":"LLM Evaluation","optional":true},{"name":"MQTT","optional":true},{"name":"OPC UA","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-11-12T19:47:08Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-11-12","last_verified_at":"2026-11-13T01:39:36Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":0,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":0},"description":"About Valar Atomics\nAt Valar Atomics, we're redefining what's possible in energy. Our mission is to make clean, high-temperature nuclear power scalable-unlocking abundant energy for industry, hydrogen, and next-generation manufacturing. We are a team of builders, engineers, and operators who believe nuclear energy should be fast to deploy, factory-made, and built for the real world. Our first pilot plant in Orangeville, Utah will demonstrate how advanced nuclear systems and fuel fabrication can power the future. Joining Valar Atomics means becoming part of a company where autonomy, ownership, and impact exist at every level.\nThe Team \nAs part of the Engineering organization, Software Engineering builds the internal platforms and tools that power reactor design, fuel manufacturing, licensing, and plant operations. The team partners directly with engineering, manufacturing, and operations to deliver full-stack software, integrate enterprise systems, and preserve traceability from requirement to as-built. \nThe Role \nThe Principal Software Engineer will own the technical architecture of the operating system for Valar-the telemetry systems that capture every second of reactor and fuel test data, the streaming backbone that moves it, the simulation platforms our reactor engineers design with, and the enterprise systems that run the company. You will set the direction the rest of our software engineers build against, take the hardest problems yourself, and work directly with reactor and fuel engineers, systems engineering, licensing, manufacturing, supply chain, and operations to understand how they actually work and then build the tooling that makes them faster. This position will be located in Torrance, California, with regular travel to our Orangeville, Utah pilot plant. \nKey Responsibilities \nOwn the end-to-end architecture of Valar's software platform across telemetry, streaming, simulation, and enterprise systems, and make the build-versus-buy calls that shape it for the next decade. \nDesign and build high-volume telemetry ingestion for reactor test stands, fuel manufacturing, and instrumentation-high-rate time-series at scale, with source timestamps, units, quality, and ordering preserved end to end. \nArchitect the streaming backbone that carries operational data to analytics, simulation, monitoring, and enterprise consumers, and engineer it for throughput, backpressure, replay, and recovery. \nSupport the simulation and modeling platform: Campaign management, compute scheduling, and reproducible, traceable results engineers can defend to regulators. \nArchitect and build full-stack services and web interfaces that engineers, operators, and technicians use daily, and integrate the commercial systems the company runs on (PLM, ERP, MES, document and records management) over REST, GraphQL, and event-driven interfaces. \nDesign data models, interfaces, and access boundaries that keep engineering, manufacturing, test, and quality records consistent, auditable, and usable across every team that needs them. \nEstablish the engineering practices this platform depends on-deployment, observability, testing, on-call, and software quality standards appropriate to a regulated environment. \nUse AI coding agents and assistants as a core part of how you work, and set the standard for how the team verifies what they produce. \nSet technical direction, lead design and code reviews, and mentor engineers as the software organization grows around you. \nBasic Qualifications \n10+ years of relevant experience writing software and deploying it to a production environment, including significant time as the technical owner of a platform or major system. \nDemonstrated experience designing and operating high-volume telemetry or time-series systems-instrumentation, test, industrial, vehicle, or comparable high-rate data. \nDemonstrated experience with high-volume streaming and event-driven architectures (Kafka, Pulsar, Kinesis, Flink, or similar), including throughput, backpressure, ordering, and replay concerns. \nExperience building or operating simulation, modeling, or scientific computing platforms-orchestration of computational codes, batch and distributed compute, and reproducible results management. \nExperience building enterprise and engineering software: full-stack services, web interfaces, and integration with commercial systems of record. \nDemonstrated skill in both typed (like Java, C#, Go, C++, or Rust) and untyped (like Python or JavaScript) languages. \nProven track record driving architecture and technical decisions across multiple teams and stakeholders. \nWorking experience with cloud and containerized deployment, infrastructure as code, and CI/CD. \nDeep understanding of computer science fundamentals, including algorithms, data structures, distributed systems, and data modeling. \nHands-on experience shipping production work with AI coding agents and assistants (Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, or similar), and the judgment to verify what they produce before it lands. \nStrong communication skills: open to the opinions of others, willing to bring your own creative ideas for solutions, and ready to own and rectify mistakes. \nBachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, mathematics, or a scientific discipline, or equivalent professional experience. \nPreferred Skills and Experience \nExperience at a hardware, manufacturing, aerospace, energy, or heavy-industrial company where software served a physical system and downtime had physical consequences. \nFamiliarity with industrial data sources and protocols-historians, OPC UA, MQTT, Modbus-and the security boundaries between operational and enterprise networks. \nExperience with HPC scheduling, GPU compute, or large-scale batch orchestration. \nFamiliarity with regulated or quality-controlled environments and the software implications of NQA-1, GAMP 5, or 21 CFR Part 11. \nExperience integrating PLM, ERP, MES, LIMS, or document control systems, and a healthy skepticism about vendor claims. \nExperience with Git, Docker, Kubernetes, and deployment to both cloud and on-premises infrastructure. \nExperience building with LLMs and agents rather than just coding with them-retrieval over technical documents, agentic workflows, evaluation harnesses, or tool integrations. \nExperience growing a software team or function from its early stages, including hiring and mentorship. \nA point of view on where AI-assisted development helps, where it doesn't, and how to verify agent output in an environment where records end up in front of regulators. Tell us about it. \nWhat We Offer \nCompetitive base salary \nEquity ownership in a rapidly growing advanced energy company \nComprehensive medical benefits \nUnlimited PTO\nFree daily lunch and dinner provided onsite \nGenerous PPE stipend\nHigh-impact startup environment with significant ownership and autonomy \nOpportunities for rapid career growth and internal advancement \nDirect collaboration with experienced operators, engineers, and industry leaders \nThe opportunity to help build and scale transformative energy technology from the ground up\nEqual Employment Opportunity Statement\nValar Atomics is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other protected status under applicable law.\nWe are committed to providing a workplace free of discrimination and harassment and will provide reasonable accommodation as required by law.\nApplicants must be legally authorized to work in the United States as a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident (green card holder).\nSalary\n$195,000—$270,000 USD","description_format":"text","description_chars":7734,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":10,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity","Unlimited PTO"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Nuclear Energy"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-11-13T01:39:36Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":86,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.86,"p_room":1,"age_days":0,"expected_fill_days":48,"reasons":["conf:2","win:early","comp:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-11-13T03:44:05Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":270000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/valar-atomics-principal-software-engineer-2","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/valar-atomics-principal-software-engineer-2.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-13T03:44:05Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":7898,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-14T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":19389},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=19389"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fvalar-atomics-principal-software-engineer-2"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"free","price":{"credits":0,"usd":0},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fvalar-atomics-principal-software-engineer-2"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fvalar-atomics-principal-software-engineer-2"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/valar-atomics-principal-software-engineer-2\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fvalar-atomics-principal-software-engineer-2"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":4212877}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"valaratomics.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":4212877},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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