I'm a bit scared that there might be "rockstar" nuclear engineers out there.
I might be wrong, but I was under the impression that engineering, with the exception of software engineering, was still very much a "suit and tie" field.
Think Hiring a Ruby Developer is Hard? Try Staffing a Nuclear Reactor Startup
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Re: Think Hiring a Ruby Developer is Hard? Try Staffing a Nuclear Reactor Startup
#32Not sure if the talent pool would fit the startup culture but the US Navy might be worth investigating. Or the Russian, British, or French navies.
The Navy trains operator-engineers, not design engineers. They are indeed one of the biggest sources of operator-engineers, though.
Re: Think Hiring a Ruby Developer is Hard? Try Staffing a Nuclear Reactor Startup
#33I'm so glad there are nuclear startups. There's so much to be done in this field. It's enormously tough to disrupt but licensing a design might be a start. Talent is extraordinarily hard to find for this. All the great engineers with domain experience are starting to retire. The ones that are left are extremely risk averse. You have to attempt to poach from GE or Westinghouse. I worked for Westinghouse for two years…
I fear certifying a design can be hideously expensive. I am not familiar with the rules, but I'd assume one would need to build a complete reactor and operate it for some time.
It is hideously expensive. Don't know how these guys are gonna do it. I remember talking with a prominent VC who had a division in the energy space. They got a few nuclear startup pitches. Always, it was 'we need 100 mil... and 50 of that is going to the gov't for licensing'. If these guys have figured out a way around this. All the power to them.
Re: Think Hiring a Ruby Developer is Hard? Try Staffing a Nuclear Reactor Startup
#34I'm so glad there are nuclear startups. There's so much to be done in this field. It's enormously tough to disrupt but licensing a design might be a start. Talent is extraordinarily hard to find for this. All the great engineers with domain experience are starting to retire. The ones that are left are extremely risk averse. You have to attempt to poach from GE or Westinghouse. I worked for Westinghouse for two years…
"There are funny things that happen to steel piping at 2250 psi and 600 degrees Fahrenheit." And why we have to use steel piping at 153atm and 300C? The fact is that we are using a design that is totally obsolete and designed for creating nuclear bombs, not for giving us energy. The good thing about startups is that they could think different, use creativity to innovate and invent new methods. Einstein was not very i…
>Creativity is destroyed in academia.
I wonder what this means for nuclear engineering's future, because I'm looking at Transatomic Power's team and I'm seeing a lot of influence from academia. Both members of the actual management team are PhD candidates, and all three members of the advisory board are professors. Granted this is one sample, but it seems like the barriers to entry for energy startups in general, but especially those dealing with nuclear power, are too steep at the moment for anything to move forward without help from academia.
Re: Think Hiring a Ruby Developer is Hard? Try Staffing a Nuclear Reactor Startup
#35I'm a bit scared that there might be "rockstar" nuclear engineers out there.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commision will beat the rockstar out of them pretty quick.
Re: Think Hiring a Ruby Developer is Hard? Try Staffing a Nuclear Reactor Startup
#36Not sure if the talent pool would fit the startup culture but the US Navy might be worth investigating. Or the Russian, British, or French navies.
My mother was office staff at a nuclear plant for a number of years in the late 80s/early 90s (and for reasons passing understanding, received training as some sort of emergency/backup operator, despite making very clear that in an emergency, she'd be driving away as quickly as possible). From what she tells me, former US Navy officers and enlisted were absolutely everywhere, as both employees and NRC personnel.
Re: Think Hiring a Ruby Developer is Hard? Try Staffing a Nuclear Reactor Startup
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are they still using Francs for their units of reactivity, or did that get changed to Euros as well?
I'm not sure if this got modded down because people think I'm being facetious, but I'm seriously wondering what happened with that. For people who don't know, every country in the world, besides France, used "Dollars" for their units of reactivity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Slotin#The_Dollar_unit_of... France, on the other hand, used "Francs". Conveniently, the exchange rate was 1:1. I'd be surprised if they…
Comments which are voted down are often misunderstood. More often then not, those comments consist just of a single sentence. A few days ago I made a comment, which had 3 downvotes, however the 3 posts where I explained myself had 15 upvotes in total. I think it's great that HN has this feedback mechanism that sometimes lacks in real life (especially in non face-to-face conversations).
Re: Think Hiring a Ruby Developer is Hard? Try Staffing a Nuclear Reactor Startup
#38I'm a bit scared that there might be "rockstar" nuclear engineers out there.
I might be wrong, but I was under the impression that engineering, with the exception of software engineering, was still very much a "suit and tie" field.
depends on sector when I used to work in hydrodynamics (in teh nuclear engineering section) it was mostly lab coats jeans and wellies.
Re: Think Hiring a Ruby Developer is Hard? Try Staffing a Nuclear Reactor Startup
#39Try hiring a Hadoop or Machine Learning Architect, Ruby dev are easier trust me!
Re: Think Hiring a Ruby Developer is Hard? Try Staffing a Nuclear Reactor Startup
#40I'm so glad there are nuclear startups. There's so much to be done in this field. It's enormously tough to disrupt but licensing a design might be a start. Talent is extraordinarily hard to find for this. All the great engineers with domain experience are starting to retire. The ones that are left are extremely risk averse. You have to attempt to poach from GE or Westinghouse. I worked for Westinghouse for two years…
There's a lot of young talent out there - enrollment basically hockey-sticked while I was studying nuclear engineering from '06-'10. Their best bet is probably finding the right kind of phD student, because the real hot-shots from Westinghouse and GE can make more money striking out as consultants.
I personally decided to get out of nuclear engineering and into physics, but best of luck to these guys and gals.