Proposal Operations Manager Jobs in California (NOW HIRING)

Thanks for your interest in Oklo! We are searching for a Recycling Operations Manager to join our engineering and product teams. We are looking to fill this position immediately.

Position Description

Recycling operations is responsible for the human, organizational, and operational effectiveness of Oklo's Recycling Division. The Recycling Operations Manager is a strategic, cross-functional operator who focuses on how recycling work happens.

This role identifies friction points across communication, organization, tooling, information flow, and process, then partners with senior leadership to design and implement practical solutions. Specific ownership includes procurement and engineering documentation processes and workflows within recycling. This operations role extends Operations-owned systems (People Ops, Business Ops, Quality, Supply Chain) into recycling-specific workflows so highly technical teams can stay focused on delivering complex, regulated technology at scale.

This is a systems-and-strategy role centered on owning and improving clarity, efficiency, and effectiveness across engineering and product.

Specific responsibilities may include:

• Diagnose root causes across process, tooling, ownership, communication, and cross-team interfaces, and implement solutions.
• Own scalability and efficiency of the recycling division processes, including budgeting, purchasing, planning, and hiring.
• Own and maintain the division procurement process to ensure proposals and contracts are properly scoped and swiftly executed.
• Create and maintain engineering work instructions and best practices, ensuring they are clearly documented and easy to access. Partner with quality assurance to ensure practices are right-sized and in compliance.
• Identify opportunities to replace overly manual workflows with automation or improved tooling.
• Work with Business Ops and Procurement to streamline budgeting, purchasing, and resource planning for engineering teams.
• Coordinate and execute high-leverage recycling forums (e.g., offsites, design reviews, all-hands) to ensure they are purposeful and well-run.

Minimum Qualifications:

• 3+ years of experience in engineering operations, product operations, management consulting, technical program management, or similar roles.
• Demonstrated experience improving cross-functional workflows, operating models, or organizational systems.
• Experience working directly with senior leadership (Director level and above) to diagnose problems, influence decisions, and implement change.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Proven ability to operate independently in ambiguous, fast-moving environments.

Bonus Qualifications:

• Experience working with engineering, hardware, or other highly technical teams.
• Exposure to heavily regulated industries (energy, nuclear, aerospace, medical devices).
• Experience in a startup or scaling organization.
• Familiarity with tools such as Confluence, Jira, or similar systems.

Competencies

• Strong structured problem-solving skills; ability to break ambiguous problems into clear workstreams and decisions.
• Experience designing and improving operating models, processes, or systems for technical teams.
• Comfort working with technical content and engineering organizations without being the technical expert.
• Ability to build and maintain lightweight dashboards, trackers, or operating rhythms.
• Judgment to apply "just enough process" to meet compliance and scaling needs without slowing teams down.

• Highly organized and able to manage multiple priorities across teams.
• Clear, concise written and verbal communicator.
• Proactive, low-ego operator who takes ownership and follows through.
• Comfortable navigating ambiguity and iterating as priorities evolve.
• Comfortable in a fast-paced, highly iterative startup environment.

Who you are:

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.

About Oklo travel requirements:

Oklo requires remote employees to travel to headquarters (Santa Clara, CA) twice a quarter annually, based on business or team needs, including attendance at team meetings, off-sites, and other company events or gatherings. For the first two weeks of onboarding, employees are required to be in person at headquarters in Santa Clara, CA.

About Oklo compensation:

Salary: $140,000-$180,000

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.

This position may involve access to information subject to U.S. export control laws. Only applicants who meet the definition of a U.S. person under applicable laws may be eligible.

About Oklo Inc.: Oklo Inc. is developing fast fission power plants to deliver clean, reliable, and affordable energy at scale; establishing a domestic supply chain for critical radioisotopes; and advancing nuclear fuel recycling to convert nuclear waste into clean energy. Oklo was the first to receive a site use permit from the U.S. Department of Energy for a commercial advanced fission plant, was awarded fuel material from Idaho National Laboratory, and submitted the first custom combined license application for an advanced reactor to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Oklo is also developing advanced fuel recycling technologies in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy and U.S. National Laboratories.

#CHOP: Oklo's Values
Collaboration: We go further, together. We bring diverse perspectives, listen actively, and build trust through transparency and respect. We work across disciplines, sharing ownership to turn complex challenges into shared successes.
Humility: We are team players who act for the good of the company and for the world. We are focused on our mission, not personal recognition.
Ownership: We take pride in what we do and how we do it. We are proactive in finding solutions and see tasks through  to completion. We are committed to delivering on our promises to provide clean, reliable, and affordable energy.
Pathfinding: We chart new ground where no path exists by approaching challenges with curiosity, courage, and creativity while navigating ambiguity.