Criticality Safety Analyst

What You Will Do

Are you a distinguished nuclear criticality safety specialist with a proven track record of excellence? If so, we have an exceptional opportunity for you to join our prestigious Nuclear Criticality Safety (NCS) Division as a technical mentor and advisor. In this role, you will have the chance to leverage your advanced expertise to provide high-level strategic and technical guidance to operations, senior management, and regulatory bodies.

You will lead complex and time‑critical projects/programs that are critical to supporting LANL's mission.

The NCS Division is seeking to hire a Criticality Safety Analyst 5 with a detailed understanding of the underlying principles of criticality. At this level, the specialist is expected to have been part of the development of 100s of criticality safety evaluations, technical reports, or published papers related to criticality safety. The level of technical difficulty is consistently “complex” or “novel,” requiring the development of new methodologies or technical approaches.

In this role you will act as an authoritative expert on all ANSI/ANS standards, often contributing to their development or interpretation at a national level, and should possess deep expertise in code validation, cross‑section libraries, and the historical context of NCS data.

• Strategic Leadership: Advise NCSD leadership on the feasibility of proposed major projects involving fissile materials
• Advanced Analysis: Lead the performance of nuclear criticality safety evaluations for unique, first‑of‑a‑kind, or highest‑complexity fissile/fissionable material operations; solve intractable technical problems where standard methods may not apply
• Technical Authority: May serve as the final technical reviewer for complex evaluations performed by CSA 3 and CSA 4 staff; arbitrate technical disagreements between operations, other SMPs, and NCS analysts
• Consensus Building: Assist in negotiating consensus on highly controversial safety margins or limits with senior operations management and federal site representatives
• Mentoring: Assist in the develops and overseeing of the technical qualification program for the division. Mentors senior‑level analysts (CSA 3 and
  4) towards expert status
• Incident Response: May lead the technical assessment team during actual criticality accidents or high‑visibility infractions; may serve as the primary spokesperson to technical investigators
• Regulatory Interface: Represent the Laboratory on national standards committees (ANS‑8) or industry trade groups; draft responses to complex regulatory inquiries or findings from the DNFSB or DOE‑HQ
• Process Improvement: Identify systemic weaknesses in the NCS program and authors institutional policy changes to address them
• Safety Culture: Champion a strong safety culture, actively intervening in operations if safety is compromised and empowering others to do the same

• Authoritative Knowledge: Recognized as a Subject Matter Expert (SME) across the DOE complex in nuclear criticality safety physics, regulations, and accident kinetics
• Advanced Computational Skill: Mastery of Monte Carlo codes (MCNP, SCALE/KENO)
• Regulatory Insight: Deep understanding not just of what the regulations say, but the historical intent behind DOE Orders, ANSI/ANS Standards, and NRC Guides
• Institutional Memory: Comprehensive knowledge of the history of the Laboratory's nuclear facilities, past accidents, and lessons learned
• Problem Solving: Demonstrated ability to solve problems that have stalled other senior analysts; ability to create novel solutions for unanalyzed conditions
• Communication: Elite ability to communicate complex nuclear physics concepts to non‑technical senior executives and government officials to influence funding or operational decisions

Position requires a Bachelor's Degree in Nuclear Engineering, Nuclear Physics, or a related discipline from an accredited institution and 15 years of related experience; or, an equivalent combination of education and experience directly related to the occupation. A Master's degree or PhD is strongly preferred and may substitute for some experience.

This…