OT Engineer

Valar Atomics, Torrance, California +1

The role

Valar Atomics is developing high-temperature gas-cooled small modular reactors through licensing, construction, commissioning, and operations. An OT engineer is a hands-on engineer supporting integrated OT across the reactor, fuel, and power-conversion programs, combining SCADA platform engineering, OT networking and cybersecurity, operational data systems, verification and commissioning, and technical procedure development.

The OT Engineer is a hands-on builder developing broad capability across Valar’s integrated OT stack. You will execute well-defined design, configuration, integration, testing, documentation, and field tasks with guidance from Senior, Staff, Principal, and Lead engineers while progressively taking ownership of larger systems and work packages. The role provides direct exposure to SCADA, networks, infrastructure, operational data, cybersecurity, verification, and commissioning rather than confining you to a narrow support function.

What you will do

Own assigned work packages and contribute to integrated OT architecture, standards, roadmaps, interfaces, lifecycle, security zones, addressing, naming/context, retention, configuration baselines, and technical health across Valar programs.
Design, deploy, administer, test, and recover distributed or redundant FactoryTalk View SE, Linx, Historian SE/AVEVA PI, and AssetCentre environments, including HMI/alarm/tag standards, licensing, source control, audit, and change management.
Administer supporting virtualization, Windows/SQL, Active Directory/PKI, service accounts, storage, backup, and disaster-recovery infrastructure with explicit ownership and controlled baselines.
Design, configure, and troubleshoot Layer 1-7 OT networks using Arista, Palo Alto, or equivalent platforms; define routing, switching, segmentation, firewall policy, redundancy, time synchronization, monitoring, racks, structured cabling, copper, fiber, and optics.
Design and validate air-gapped boundaries, unidirectional data flows, controlled remote access, and tightly controlled OT/enterprise/cloud interfaces that cannot interfere with control or credited safety functions.
Deploy and operate historians, InfluxDB/SQL, virtualized data services, and RAID/ZFS or equivalent storage; build OPC UA/MQTT/API/ETL pipelines, semantic models, data contracts, and Grafana/query interfaces while preserving timestamps, quality, ordering, lineage, and access boundaries.
Integrate PLCs, industrial protocols, FactoryTalk, historians, servers, endpoints, and operator/engineering systems while preserving clear ownership across IC&E, Infrastructure, SCADA, network, and data boundaries.
Validate racks, patch panels, copper, fiber, optics, labeling, link performance, and physical-path diversity with infrastructure engineers and field contractors.
Engineer and test retention, compression, query performance, collectives, buffering, replay, replication, high availability, backup/restore, and loss/duplicate detection; document failure behavior and recovery limits.
Write and execute test procedures with prerequisites, hazards and controls, configuration, tools, step-by-step actions, expected results, evidence, rollback, and restoration.
Implement monitoring, logging, configuration backup, capacity, data-quality, pipeline-health, and audit controls; automate deployment, validation, evidence collection, and recovery using C#, PowerShell, CMD, or equivalent tools.
Troubleshoot the full stack using packet capture, protocol analysis, data-path tracing, logs, and queries; perform authorized OT cybersecurity testing and support hardening, patching, remediation, and incident response.
Translate technical, regulatory, quality, and cybersecurity requirements into traceable verification plans and execute FAT, SAT, System Operational Verification Testing, cybersecurity, failure/recovery, failover, performance, and interface tests.
Control test configurations and evidence; document discrepancies, support root-cause analysis, define retests, track corrective actions, and maintain diagrams, matrices, data models, build records, procedures, manuals, and runbooks.
Lead or support design reviews, vendors, systems integrators, installation validation, integration, commissioning, failure testing, escalation, turnover, startup, outage, and incident activities.

Nice to have

Demonstrated end-to-end ownership of industrial OT platforms, networks, data systems, verification, and commissioning in a demanding operational environment.
Experience with operator-facing HMI, alarm, tag, graphics, licensing, configuration/change control, and recovery testing in distributed or redundant SCADA environments.
Deep Layer 1-7 networking knowledge and hands-on experience with Arista/Palo Alto or equivalent switching and firewall platforms, segmentation, copper/fiber/optics, air gaps, and unidirectional data flows.
Strong experience with time-series and relational data platforms, OPC UA/MQTT/API/ETL pipelines, semantic models, data quality/lineage, and Grafana or equivalent visualization tools.
Strong working knowledge of virtualization, Windows Server, SQL, isolated Windows/Linux systems, Active Directory/PKI, service accounts, certificate authentication, RAID/ZFS or equivalent storage, and disaster recovery.
Experience performing authorized network, SCADA, Windows/Linux, identity, and data-system cybersecurity testing and converting findings into practical remediation.
Demonstrated experience authoring and independently executing requirements-based FAT, SAT, System Operational Verification Testing, commissioning, cybersecurity, failure/recovery, performance, and interface procedures with traceable evidence.
Experience in nuclear energy, power generation, oil and gas, chemical processing, aerospace, advanced manufacturing, or another regulated or safety-conscious industry, including first-of-a-kind or greenfield delivery through commissioning and operations.
Experience with high-rate operational data, historian collectives, high-availability or remote-site networks, precision timing, centralized monitoring, buffering/replay, and data-diode or unidirectional egress.
Experience with MES/LIMS/QMS integration, incident response or forensics in isolated environments, and scalable OT standards, templates, runbooks, automated diagnostics, or test harnesses.

OT Engineer

The role

OT Engineer

The role

The team

What you will do

What you need

Nice to have

Pay and benefits

What We Offer

Salary

About Valar Atomics

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