Senior Counsel

Thanks for your interest in Oklo! We are searching for a Senior Counsel to join our Legal team.

Position Description:

​​The Senior Counsel will play a critical role supporting the Company’s project development work across the business. We are looking for a mid-level transactional attorney with 5-7 years of experience to help us across a range of needs. Primarily, this person will support ongoing projects, including supporting pre-construction efforts, environmental reviews, state and local regulatory needs, tax incentive work, and procurement. As a high growth company, you will also help out with other legal needs across the company as they arise. This role, which reports to our Deputy General Counsel, is perfect for a mid-level transactional attorney with experience supporting complex, highly-regulated construction projects, who is looking to stretch themselves, learn, and roll up their sleeves and lean in wherever needed in a dynamic environment.

We are not looking for a niche specialist: we are looking for a lawyer who is comfortable being uncomfortable. Oklo is growing fast and every day presents new opportunities and challenging legal questions—we care more about you and your ability to learn and grow than your specific substantive experience or which boxes you check. If you are someone who thrives in exciting and fast-moving environments, and are eager to grow and push yourself, this role may be for you.

This is a remote role, but bonus points to someone located in a state in which we have a significant project, including Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, and Idaho.

Specific responsibilities may include:

• Support our growing list of projects across their life cycle, including supporting with pre-construction, construction, environmental, commercial, and tax needs
• Draft, review, and negotiate a variety of commercial, procurement, supply chain, partnership, vendor, and license agreements
• Assist with state and local regulatory needs, including supporting our government affairs and community affairs teams with permitting needs
• Help us mature our legal practices and approach, including with respect to routine commercial and operational matters

Minimum Qualifications: 

• A J.D. from an ABA-accredited law school and admission to practice law in at least one U.S. state (with a preference for Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, or Idaho, given the location of our core projects)
• 5-7 years of transactional experience at a large law firm or in-house legal department
• Experience with environmental permitting, compliance, and regulatory considerations affecting construction or development projectsExperience drafting and negotiating complex commercial agreements
• Experience working at or supporting companies that build things (ideally complicated, heavily regulated things)
• Strong attention to detail and ability to manage and prioritize multiple matters simultaneously

Bonus Qualifications:

• Experience working in-house at a high-growth or startup company
• Experience with transactional work supporting complex construction or development projects
• Experience with joint ventures and/or project finance
• Nuclear and/or energy experience

Competencies:

We are looking for a Senior Counsel that is:

• Comfortable supporting a range of legal needs, ideally including environmental, tax, permitting, and commercial needs
• Effective at triaging and prioritizing across a wide range of tasks and project managing cross-functional tasks to completion
• A systems thinker that is comfortable both building for the long-term and rolling their sleeves up to get things done in the short term
• Substantively agile: someone who enjoys leaning into new areas, and is comfortable learning new things (and learning quickly!)
• Fluent in or able to leverage legal technology or AI tools to work more efficiently
• Willing to think creatively: knowledgeable about how other teams approach legal department needs, but excited to think creatively and critically about the problems they are solving and to try new approaches
• An excellent communicator (including to non-lawyers) focused on solutions and willing to explain the “why” behind legal advice
• Detail-oriented while moving lightning fast
• Passionate about clean energy and making advanced fission a reality
• An optimist at heart
• Resourceful, inquisitive, and willing and able to learn quickly
• 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. Even 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.

About Oklo compensation: $190,000-$210,000

Oklo offers flexible time off, bonus, equity, competitive pay, 401k, health insurance, FSA, flexible work hours, and other benefits.

We are looking to fill this position immediately!

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.