Product Manager - Reactors at Oklo in Santa Clara, CA or Remote

Job description

• Thanks for your interest in Oklo! We are searching for an Product Manager to join our New Product Introduction team, focused on nuclear reactor products. We are looking to fill this position immediately.
• Oklo’s Product Managers are responsible for identifying, defining, developing, and deploying new products that advance the company’s mission. These products may involve new applications of Oklo’s technology, capabilities incorporated into future deployments, or offerings that create additional value for customers and stakeholders.
• The Product Manager works across engineering, commercial, operations, licensing, manufacturing, supply chain, and other functions to translate promising ideas into well-defined, deployable products. This role establishes the product vision, identifies customer and business needs, defines requirements and success criteria, and guides the product through technical development and deployment.
• This is a highly technical product role. The Product Manager must be able to understand complex engineered systems, work closely with technical teams, and make thoughtful tradeoffs among performance, cost, schedule, risk, manufacturability, licensing, and customer value. Successful candidates may come from a product management background with strong engineering experience or may be engineers who are excited to take broader ownership of product strategy and deployment.

Responsibilities

• Identifying and evaluating opportunities for products, capabilities, and applications of Oklo nuclear reactor technology.
• Developing clear product visions, value propositions, business cases, and deployment strategies.
• Working with customers, partners, commercial teams, and internal stakeholders to understand needs and translate them into actionable product requirements.
• Partnering closely with engineering teams to define product functionality, technical requirements, interfaces, performance objectives, and acceptance criteria.
• Building and maintaining product roadmaps that connect technical development with commercial opportunities and deployment objectives.
• Guiding reactor technology products from early concept and feasibility assessment through design, development, validation, and deployment.
• Establishing appropriate product development plans, decision points, maturity criteria, and measures of success.
• Leading cross-functional trade studies and decisions involving technical performance, safety, cost, schedule, licensing, manufacturability, operability, and commercial value.
• Ensuring development work is appropriately sized and focused on resolving the most important product risks and uncertainties.
• Coordinating across engineering, licensing, procurement, supply chain, manufacturing, operations, finance, and commercial teams to maintain alignment and execution.
• Identifying reactor technology product risks, dependencies, and critical decisions and ensuring they are clearly owned and resolved.
• Communicating reactor technology product priorities, technical considerations, decisions, and progress to company leadership and other stakeholders.
• Supporting design reviews, customer engagements, partner discussions, procurement activities, and deployment planning.
• Developing a strong understanding of the technical and regulatory environment affecting the product and incorporating relevant constraints into reactor product strategy.
• Gathering feedback from testing, deployment, operations, customers, and partners to guide continued product improvement.
• Establishing clear reactor technology product ownership and maintaining accountability for overall product outcomes throughout the product lifecycle.

Requirements

• 5+ years of experience in product management, engineering, systems engineering, technical program management, or a similar role developing complex technical products.
• Specific experience with nuclear reactor technology in areas such as design, safety, licensing, construction, or operations.
• An engineering degree or equivalent experience working directly with engineered systems and technical development teams.
• Demonstrated experience translating customer, business, or operational needs into product requirements and development priorities.
• Experience guiding technical work from early-stage concepts toward validated, deployable solutions.
• Ability to understand complex technical information and make informed tradeoffs involving performance, cost, schedule, risk, and customer value.
• Experience coordinating work and decisions across multiple technical and non-technical functions.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Proven ability to operate independently in ambiguous, fast-moving environments.
• Technical & Role-Specific Competencies
• Strong technical judgment and the ability to understand complex engineered systems.
• Ability to connect customer and business needs with feasible technical solutions.
• Experience defining product requirements, development priorities, success criteria, and product roadmaps.
• Strong structured problem-solving skills; able to break ambiguous opportunities into clear questions, workstreams, decisions, and deliverables.
• Ability to evaluate and communicate tradeoffs among technical performance, safety, cost, schedule, licensing, manufacturability, operability, and commercial value.
• Ability to guide products through multiple stages of maturity, from early opportunity identification and feasibility assessment through development and deployment.
• Strong cross-functional leadership skills and the ability to build alignment without relying on direct authority.
• Ability to communicate technical concepts clearly to engineering teams, company leadership, customers, partners, and other stakeholders.
• Sound judgment regarding when additional analysis is necessary and when a product is sufficiently mature to proceed.
• Ability to maintain focus on overall product outcomes while engaging deeply enough in technical details to support effective decisions.
• Highly organized and able to manage multiple priorities across teams.
• Clear, concise written and verbal communicator.
• Proactive, low-ego leader who takes ownership and follows through.
• Comfortable navigating ambiguity and iterating as priorities evolve.
• Curious and eager to develop a strong understanding of new technologies, markets, and customer needs.
• Able to move comfortably between product strategy, technical detail, and execution planning.
• Comfortable in a fast-paced, highly iterative startup environment.
• 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.
• Experience developing hardware, energy systems, industrial equipment, or other complex physical products.
• Experience as a practicing engineer or technical lead.
• Experience with product development in regulated industries such as nuclear energy, aerospace, medical devices, or advanced manufacturing.
• Experience developing business cases, product roadmaps, technical requirements, or deployment strategies.
• Experience working with customers, commercial partners, vendors, or government stakeholders.
• Familiarity with isotope production, nuclear fuel, advanced manufacturing, or related technologies.
• Experience in a startup or rapidly scaling organization.

Skills

Required

• Product management
• Engineering
• Systems engineering
• Technical program management
• Nuclear reactor technology
• Guiding technical work
• Making tradeoffs
• Coordinating across functions
• Written and verbal communication

Preferred

• Hardware development
• Energy systems
• Industrial equipment
• Practicing engineer or technical lead
• Regulated industries
• Business cases
• Product roadmaps
• Technical requirements

Benefits

• Salary: $140,000-$200,000
• 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.