Licensing Manager - Recycling

SHINE is seeking the licensing leader for our used nuclear fuel (UNF) Recycling product line. The US has more than 95,000 metric tons of used nuclear fuel and nowhere to put it. This role leads the licensing necessary to turn it back into energy: both building the licensing team and carrying the Recycling Pilot facility from pre-application engagement through NRC review, license issuance, and into operation.

The Licensing Manager - Recycling is SHINE’s primary interface with regulatory agencies, including the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, as it relates to UNF recycling. The role works alongside the Director of Engineering & Chief Engineer – Recycling, who owns the facility’s requirements set; together they turn a graded, first-principles set of requirements into regulatory positions the regulator can accept. The job takes judgment as much as procedure: knowing the difference between what the regulation requires and what precedent assumes, and when to spend regulatory margin and when to hold it.

The base salary range for this position is $160,000 - $200,000 per year plus a comprehensive compensation package. Our salary ranges are determined by role, level, and location.

Specific duties and responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

• Build and lead the Recycling licensing team. Own hiring, development and performance for the licensing staff, and set the standard for the work product they produce: complete, accurate, and defensible.
• Own licensing scope, schedule and budget for the Pilot facility.
• Set the tone for a long regulatory engagement. Bring resilience and levity, and judgment about which issues are worth contesting.
• Ensure alignment between technical and licensing deliverables, and between the licensing schedule and the engineering schedule.

• Define, develop, and execute SHINE’s licensing strategy for UNF recycling: the licensing pathway, the regulatory engagement plan, and the sequencing of pre-application engagement, application, and review.
• Partner with the Director of Engineering & Chief Engineer to develop defensible regulatory positions: translate the graded requirements set into positions the regulator can accept, propose creative alternatives, and carry them to the NRC.
• Weigh risk against benefit explicitly on licensing decisions, and do not commit SHINE to requirements that cannot be justified. Hold positions under pressure when the evidence supports them, and change them quickly when it does not.
• Own licensing correspondence to regulatory agencies (e.g., license applications, amendment requests, application supplements, responses to requests for additional information, exemption requests). Set the standard for completeness and accuracy and hold the team to it.
• Own the Recycling licensing basis, including the Safety Analysis Reports for SHINE facilities licensed under 10 CFR Part 50 or 10 CFR Part 70 and the programs described therein.
• Plan and lead pre-application regulatory engagements, regulatory reviews, and oversight activities with the NRC and other regulatory agencies.
• Ensure documentation developed by regulatory agencies (e.g., Safety Evaluation Reports, Inspection Reports) is accurate and consistent with the applicable SHINE licensing basis.
• Prepare and deliver licensing presentations to internal and external organizations.
• Lead resolution of key strategic licensing issues.
• Participate in industry-led and regulator-led regulatory activities, including rule making and guidance development that affect UNF recycling.
• Identify and evaluate key licensing risks, develop solutions, and communicate them to senior management.
• As the facility approaches operation, build the program…