Habitability Lead

The ocean is the largest undeveloped frontier on earth — and the next chapter of abundant energy will be written at sea. We're building the infrastructure to power it.

About Ocean Atomics (OA)

Ocean Atomics is an American company designing, licensing, and building a standardized nuclear electric plant — and the systems around it — to power maritime applications. We will install these plants on vessels built to our nuclear-ready standards, and we will move fast by leveraging the compact, proven technology of water-cooled reactors.

Scaling atomic energy is the next chapter, and the open ocean is where we unlock it. We pioneer nuclear power at sea, tackling every step from design to deployment.

Our mission

Scale nuclear energy. Power generations.

Our vision

A maritime commons thriving with abundant, economical, modern, and safe nuclear-powered activity — built, serviced, and staffed by re-industrialized American shipyards and people.

Role Summary

The Habitability Lead commands the human factors engineering, environmental control systems, and living space architectures of Ocean Atomics’ floating energy platforms, driving the habitability and crew endurance discipline required to secure class and regulatory approval for our fleet. While other engineering domains focus on the structural hull girder or prime movers, this role holds ultimate accountability for the life-safety, survivability, and operational environment of the crew onboard.

You will own the habitability assets from initial concept through operational deployment, enforcing rigid space and structural constraints to ensure our conventional platforms are natively pre-engineered for post-delivery nuclear integration. Your primary directive is to eliminate human-system interface and life-safety compliance risk across the entire asset lifecycle, delivering highly reproducible and modular spaces that guarantee long-term crew readiness under all deployment conditions.

Primary Responsibilities

• Command Human Factors and Living Space Architecture: Lead the spatial design, berthing layouts, and architectural configurations of all crew spaces, optimizing ergonomics and endurance parameters for extended offshore deployments.

• Own Radiological HVAC and Life Support Networks: Design, specify, and validate the platform’s environmental control systems, including specialized radiological HVAC filtration networks, internal safety flows, and emergency life support systems.

• Enforce Rigid Spatial and Structural Constraints: Interlock tightly with the Arrangements and Structures leads to safeguard strict space margins, ensuring human-centric systems seamlessly adapt to the physical constraints imposed by heavy nuclear integration.

• Deliver Modular and Reproducible Designs: Develop standardized, modular habitability assets that optimize shipyard fabrication, reducing production complexity and ensuring plug-and-play installation across the fleet lifecycle.

• Eliminate Life-Safety and Compliance Risk: Address and mitigate human-system interface vulnerabilities early in the design cycle, ensuring native alignment with evolving regulatory baselines.

• Support Class and Regulatory Technical Submissions: Author the technical drawings, human factors engineering analyses, and environmental control system schematics required to clear ABS habitability notations, USCG flag state reviews, and NRC safety evaluations.

Qualifications

• Education: Bachelor’s or advanced degree in Naval Architecture, Marine Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Human Factors Engineering, or a strictly related industrial safety discipline.

• Experience: 8+ years of experience specializing in marine habitability design, complex shipboard HVAC/environmental control systems, or human factors engineering for commercial vessels, offshore platforms, or naval assets.

• Technical Mastery: Deep technical proficiency in marine life support systems, CBRN/radiological filtration design, and human-system interface (HSI) design standards (e.g., ASTM F1166), paired with a definitive understanding of ABS and USCG habitability regulations.

• Leadership Posture: A highly methodical, safety-minded engineer who possesses absolute discipline over system parameters, resolves spatial conflicts with objective rigor, and can firmly defend crew-safety margins within an intense, iterative engineering environment.

Why this matters

Every industry on Earth needs scalable, clean energy, and the ocean is the ideal place to unlock it. Joining Ocean Atomics means building real, lasting infrastructure — the kind that powers generations. The world needs abundant energy. Let's make it happen.

Ocean Atomics LLC is an equal opportunity employer.

We are committed to a workplace free of discrimination and do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations; if you need an accommodation during the application process, contact info@oceanatomics.com.