Material Modeling – Core & Fuel

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.

About the role

Aalo is seeking an engineer to model the in-core performance and lifetime of fuel and core structural components in extreme irradiation, thermal, chemical, and mechanical environments.

This is a modeling and engineering-judgment role that works closely with mechanical design, neutronics, and thermal hydraulics. You will assess how component dimensions, material properties, loads, interfaces, and performance evolve during service and translate those predictions into practical design guidance and defensible lifetime assessments.

We are open to candidates across a range of experience levels. Early-career engineers will work closely with Aalo’s technical lead to develop modeling methods and engineering judgment. More experienced candidates will be expected to independently own larger areas of the analysis methodology, technical judgment, and cross-functional design integration. This role reports directly to the technical lead for core and fuel material-performance modeling.

What you’ll do

• Develop and apply models for fuel, graphite, and core metallic components using BISON/MOOSE and related tools
• Predict how irradiation, temperature, stress, chemistry, and operating history affect component dimensions, material properties, structural behavior, and service life
• Work directly with mechanical designers to evaluate materials, geometry, tolerances, clearances, interfaces, and lifetime margins
• Integrate inputs from neutronics and thermal hydraulics, and assess how changes in reactor conditions or component design affect in-core degradation and performance
• Translate modeling results into actionable design inputs, operating limits, test needs, and lifetime criteria
• Develop or adapt material and constitutive models where existing capabilities do not adequately represent the relevant physics
• Use Python for data processing, analysis automation, visualization, and communication of results
• Apply rigorous software quality assurance, verification, validation, sensitivity analysis, and uncertainty quantification
• Develop defensible, physics-based analysis methods where established codes or directly applicable design rules are insufficient
• Use AI-assisted tools to accelerate analysis, model development, data review, and documentation while maintaining technical traceability and independently verifying results
• Clearly communicate model assumptions, limitations, uncertainties, and conclusions across engineering teams

What we’re looking for

• Degree in nuclear engineering, mechanical engineering, materials science, computational engineering, or a related field
• Strong grounding in material behavior, heat transfer, solid mechanics, and numerical modeling
• Ability to construct models that accurately represent the important physics, not simply operate analysis software
• Experience with finite-element or multiphysics analysis; BISON/MOOSE experience is strongly preferred
• Proficiency with Python for engineering analysis and visualization
• Understanding of model verification and validation, software quality assurance, and reproducible analysis
• Ability to work effectively with mechanical designers and engineers across materials, neutronics, and…