COMPUTATIONAL CHEMIST

ABOUT SEABORG

Seaborg Technologies is a start-up on the forefront of advanced and innovative nuclear reactor technology working to provide abundant, affordable and sustainable energy to the world. We have grown to become the leading molten salt reactor start-up outside of North America with an international team of 20 employees from four continents. We are actively developing the design for our Compact Molten Salt Reactor, alongside licensing and experimental validation activities of key safety and performance claims, and are currently planning a multi-million salt lab to accelerate these efforts. We are engaged with multiple stakeholders in the growing advanced reactor supply chain, primarily in East Asia.

Our success is entirely due to our brilliant and passionate team of employees and experienced advisers - a team we are currently in the process of expanding with more world-class talent determined to create positive change in the world.

THE ROLE

We are hiring a computational chemist to strengthen our chemistry team by providing best-estimate predictions of molten salt physico-chemical properties and behaviour in contact with structural materials. The successful candidate will have a central role in the organisation by advising activities related to reactor development, experimental laboratory design, and licensing. She/he will be applying a wide range of theoretical chemistry methods to compute and compare, among other things, thermophysical properties, phase diagrams, chemical speciation and corrosion behaviour of different molten salts. Our in-house supercomputer will be available for this purpose. The position will collaborate closely with technical and regulatory departments to ensure that relevant physical phenomena and safety considerations are given due consideration across all relevant activities. Some international travel should be expected.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Seaborg employees must be able to act proactively and independently to perform a wide variety of functions that do not always correlate with experience or expertise (such as writing job advertisements). That being said, the advertised position is expected to include at least some of the following responsibilities and tasks:

• Plan, organise and execute theoretical and computational work to establish properties of molten salts and fission products, and perform validation of said computations;
  
  
• Plan experimental campaigns to substantiate and validate computational chemistry results;
  
  
• Employ a wide range of computational chemistry methods to investigate thermophysical properties, speciation, phase diagrams, corrosion behaviour, etc., of molten salts and fission products;
  
  
• Develop models using techniques such as molecular dynamics, density functional theory and Gibbs free-energy minimisation to predict molten salt and fission product behaviour;
  
  
• Analyse and report findings to steer design, development and licensing activities;
  
  
• Support reactor physics and engineering teams by providing validated computational data describing salt properties and corrosion, and its precision;
  
  
• Support planning of experimental and computational R&D activities to progress reactor design, including scheduling, costing and establishing decision criteria;
  
  
• Leverage experimental data to validate and improve computational chemistry models;
  
  
• Participate in grant applications, including funding for PhD students and post-docs, access to beamlines, and multi-million-euro game-changing projects;
  
  

• Train new employees and interns from around the world;
  
  

• Interact with a diverse set of partners and stakeholders from around the world;
  
  

• Support IP development and acquisition activities;
  
  
• Support the identification and alleviation of operational and project development risks.
  
  

REQUIREMENTS

• Desire to positively change the world by shaping the energy landscape of tomorrow;
  
  
• Demonstrated ability to diligently approach and solve challenging tasks within time and budgetary constraints;
  
  
• MSc or higher in chemistry, applied physics, chemical engineering, or similar, PhD preferred;
  
  
• Experience modelling molten salts, ionic liquids or high temperature fluids preferred;
  
  
• Experience with computational chemistry software (e.g. FactSage, Thermo-Calc, HSC Chemistry, etc.) and/or generating models using programming languages;
  
  
• Team player with effective communication and interpersonal skills, including fluency in English;
  
  
• Ability to work independently on difficult tasks while knowing how and when to seek assistance;
  
  
• Ability to travel by plane and communicate outside of normal working hours when necessary.
  
  

At Seaborg we strongly value the combination of relevant experience, talent and personality traits that align with our team and overarching vision for a sustainable future. We therefore encourage applications from diverse backgrounds and are prepared to mould the job description to accommodate exceptionally well-aligned candidates.

OUR OFFER

While our team is still small, our ambitions are not. Becoming a part of Seaborg presents a unique possibility to importantly impact and define the global energy landscape of tomorrow. We know that new ideas and influences are key to challenge the status quo and strive for continuous improvement, and so new hires can expect to importantly contribute to shaping both the technology and the future of the company.

We want to play an active role in enabling the personal and professional development of all employees so that they can evolve and grow to take on changing tasks and responsibilities. To give room for this development, we practice high work flexibility in an informal, merit-based environment without strict hierarchies. With time, we expect every employee to become an invaluable part of Seaborg and our success, and we underpin this expectation by offering all new employees stock options in the company.

We are based in Denmark, a country known for its high quality of life and extensive social welfare system. That means free health care and education, generous vacation arrangements, progressive maternity and paternity leave provisions, etc. More on this at lifeindenmark.borger.dk.

Our office is situated centrally in Copenhagen - a young and vibrant European capital on the Øresund coast with a thriving expat community and world-leading bicycle infrastructure.

Kilde: Jobnet.dk