Senior Materials Engineer – Testing & Structural Materials

About Aalo Atomics

Aalo Atomics is pioneering a new era in clean energy with factory-fabricated microreactors designed to deliver affordable, scalable, and reliable nuclear power. Our mission is to make nuclear energy globally accessible, starting with the Aalo-1, a 10 MWe reactor leveraging cutting-edge safety, modularity, and efficiency. Based in Austin, TX, we’re rapidly growing as we work to deploy the world’s first fleet of advanced microreactors.

Join us and help revolutionize energy for a sustainable future.

Role Overview

Aalo Atomics is seeking a Senior Materials Engineer to lead materials testing and structural materials degradation activities supporting the design, qualification, and operation of Aalo-X.

This role will own the development and execution of materials testing programs needed to establish design properties, quantify environmental effects, support engineering analyses, and provide qualification evidence for reactor structural materials. The position will have particular technical leadership responsibility for stainless steels and other structural metallic materials, including the effects of elevated temperature, sodium exposure, and irradiation.

The engineer will work closely with materials, mechanical, structural, safety analysis, and reactor design teams to translate materials behavior into defensible engineering inputs, degradation models, surveillance strategies, and design requirements.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead Aalo-X materials testing programs for structural metallic materials, including development of baseline mechanical property data, elevated-temperature properties, sodium environmental knockdown factors, and irradiation effects.
• Serve as the primary materials technical lead for stainless steels and structural material degradation, including reactor vessel and other safety-significant metallic components.
• Define test matrices, specimen requirements, environmental conditions, acceptance criteria, and data-reduction approaches for internal and external materials testing campaigns.
• Develop and maintain technically defensible material property datasets and correlations for use in mechanical design and engineering analyses.
• Support mechanical and structural engineers in evaluating material degradation mechanisms, allowable properties, lifetime limits, and design margins.
• Provide materials expertise for engineering analyses and safety evaluations, including degradation models and assumptions related to temperature, sodium exposure, irradiation, creep, fatigue, embrittlement, and other relevant aging mechanisms.
• Support development of material and component qualification plans, including identification of required testing, analysis, pedigree, surveillance, and supporting technical evidence.
• Support ASME Code evaluations and interactions associated with material selection, qualification, allowable properties, environmental effects, and component design.
• Provide technical support for regulatory and authorization-basis activities involving materials performance and degradation.
• Develop strategies for incorporating materials surveillance and irradiation testing into the Aalo-X design and operating program.
• Plan and support irradiation campaigns, including specimen selection, exposure conditions, post-irradiation examination, and interpretation of irradiation-effects data.
• Interface with national laboratories, universities, testing laboratories, material suppliers, and other external partners executing materials characterization and testing.
• Review and disposition materials test results and translate experimental findings into actionable design guidance.
• Support procurement specifications, material qualification requirements, and technical evaluations of structural metallic…