Software Engineer (Applied AI/ML)

Title: Software Engineer (Applied AI/ML) Location: Santa Clara, CA or Remote

Thanks for your interest in Oklo!  We are searching for a Software Engineer to join our team.

Join us in pioneering the next generation of nuclear reactors! You'll leverage your software skills alongside nuclear engineers to model, simulate, design, and deploy advanced fission power technology. You will work at the forefront of the nuclear industry, developing novel techniques to reach new levels of safety, efficiency, and resiliency. Come be a part of powering the future with advanced fission power plants to provide clean, reliable, affordable energy.

Position Description

Oklo is a fast-moving startup where you will be responsible for tackling a wide range of challenges in deploying nuclear systems. A nuclear background is not required, but a healthy curiosity and eagerness to learn are essential in this role.

Specific responsibilities may include:

• Invent and implement practical LLM-based workflows to accelerate Oklo’s business and engineering processes.
  • Ensure rigorous security and information control.
  • Accelerate both engineering and non-technical workflows.
• Design, implement, deploy and maintain production machine learning models for the design and analysis of nuclear systems.
• Develop surrogate models for use in real-time digital twins.
• Grow and manage a team of software engineers to support your AI initiatives.
• Present roadmaps, product demos, and progress updates to senior leadership.
  • Ensure their departments' needs are met by your initiatives.
  • Solicit user feedback from individual contributors and department leadership.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Math, Physics, or equivalent software engineering experience.
• Managing and/or integrating AI into large, corporate data ontologies.
• Leading company-wide initiatives (from project inception to delivery and maintenance).
• Physics-informed machine learning (surrogates, symbolic encodings, digital twins).
• Python fluency.
• CI/CD pipelining.
• Git proficiency.
• Growing small software organizations.
• Working with large data collection pipelines.
• Optimization, statistics and design of experiments.

Bonus Qualifications:

• Rust development
• Typescript/Javascript (especially Svelte) development
• GitLab CI/CD
• Growing and managing teams of software engineers.
• Navigating sensitive, controlled, or externally regulated data.
• Knowledge of and excitement for a nuclear-powered future.
• Navigating quality assurance and compliance requirements with AI.
• Nuclear engineering concepts (reactors, power generation, fuel performance, fuel recycling, etc.)

Competencies

We are looking for a Software Engineer that is:

• Passionate about clean energy
• Passionate about making advanced fission a reality
• Willing and able to learn quickly
• Eager to work on a dynamic team, receive constructive feedback, and grow with us
• Willing to think differently and do things in new ways
• Comfortable in a fast-paced, highly iterative startup environment
• Excited to think creatively, critically, and reflectively about the problems they are solving, while not leaning only on what has been done before
• Willing to propose novel and creative solutions to technical problems
• An excellent writer who can write in modern active voice, so make your cover letter compelling and write it well!
• Able to communicate technical content and results verbally

Who you are:

A startup person: You aren't driven by titles or hierarchy, and prefer efficiency to excess process. You don't need or expect to have a lot of guidance but you enjoy working in a fast-paced team. If you prefer the culture and feel of a large organization, that is great, but you likely won’t enjoy working with us! There is plenty of important work and plenty of good opportunities with organizations like that.

Motivated: You are self-motivated. You bring an enthusiasm to the team, and imbue a sense of passion that goes beyond clocking in and clocking out. This isn’t about a fake or arbitrary “pieces of flair” mentality or lack of work-life balance! It is about being a part of the vision and feeling a part of reaching team goals.

A team-player: Oklo genuinely is a team. We aren’t about taking credit for ourselves, and we aren’t about pushing blame to others. We do incredible things because we work as a team.

An excellent communicator: We need a person who is not only technically competent but also a clear and upbeat communicator.

Creative: Being creative means that when things fall outside clear scopes or processes or problems arise without clear solutions, you are able to identify it as well as invent ways to solve a problem or fill a need without micromanagement. The successful person in this job will not only be creative, but also enjoy being creative and solving open-ended problems which may change day-by-day.

Detail-oriented: This focus is a big part of excellence, consistency, and quality. Excellent grammar and spelling matter for both good communication as well as the image of the company that we put forward.

About Oklo travel requirements:

Oklo requires remote employees to travel to headquarters (Santa Clara, CA) twice a quarter annually, based on business or team needs, including attendance at team meetings, off-sites, and other company events or gatherings. For the first two weeks of onboarding, employees are required to be in person at headquarters in Santa Clara, CA.

About Oklo compensation:

Salary: $200,000-$250,000

Oklo offers flexible time off, equity, bonuses, competitive pay, 401(k), health insurance (with employer contribution), HSA, FSA, flexible work hours, wellness credits, and other benefits.

This position may involve access to information subject to U.S. export control laws. Only applicants who meet the definition of a U.S. person under applicable laws may be eligible.

About Oklo Inc.: Oklo Inc. is developing fast fission power plants to deliver clean, reliable, and affordable energy at scale; establishing a domestic supply chain for critical radioisotopes; and advancing nuclear fuel recycling to convert nuclear waste into clean energy. Oklo was the first to receive a site use permit from the U.S. Department of Energy for a commercial advanced fission plant, was awarded fuel material from Idaho National Laboratory, and submitted the first custom combined license application for an advanced reactor to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Oklo is also developing advanced fuel recycling technologies in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy and U.S. National Laboratories.

#CHOP: Oklo’s Values
Collaboration: We go further, together. We bring diverse perspectives, listen actively, and build trust through transparency and respect. We work across disciplines, sharing ownership to turn complex challenges into shared successes.
Humility: We are team players who act for the good of the company and for the world. We are focused on our mission, not personal recognition.
Ownership: We take pride in what we do and how we do it. We are proactive in finding solutions and see tasks through  to completion. We are committed to delivering on our promises to provide clean, reliable, and affordable energy.
Pathfinding: We chart new ground where no path exists by approaching challenges with curiosity, courage, and creativity while navigating ambiguity.