Portfolio Planner

Job description

Thanks for your interest in Oklo! We are searching for a Portfolio Planner to join our team. **Position Description** We are seeking a strategic, analytical, and systems-minded Portfolio Planner to translate Oklo's project portfolio into an integrated organizational resource and staffing plan. This role will establish and govern a common coding structure across project schedules, connect project milestones and phases to department-specific workload requirements, and develop repeatable demand models that account for project type, scale, complexity, maturity, and other relevant proxy metrics. The Portfolio Planner will work with project teams and department leaders to convert the portfolio roadmap into forward-looking capacity requirements, identify resource constraints, and inform the timing and mix of internal hiring, redeployment, and external support. The role will maintain a portfolio-wide view while Project Schedulers remain accountable for detailed project-level schedule development and status. Over time, this role will help develop management accounting frameworks that improve visibility into internal resource utilization, total project cost, and the value created by internal teams. This work will support operating decisions, capital planning, project benchmarking, and increasingly rigorous internal and externally funded project reporting. This role will partner closely with Project Budgeting and Controls, project teams, functional leaders, Finance, Accounting, and People Operations. The role reports into the Sr. Director of Project Budgeting and Controls. **Specific responsibilities may include:** - **Portfolio Schedule Architecture and Coding:** Design, implement, and govern a common portfolio schedule coding structure, including project, phase, workstream, department, resource, milestone, and other attributes required to aggregate schedules consistently across Oklo. - **Resource Demand Methodology:** Develop scalable workload requirements by department, project phase, and project archetype. Establish and continuously improve proxy-based demand curves using factors such as project type, total project value, design maturity, regulatory pathway, execution strategy, complexity, and delivery stage. - **Portfolio Capacity and Headcount Planning:** Translate the portfolio schedule and demand curves into rolling resource plans by department, role, capability, location, and time period. Compare demand against available capacity and identify hiring, redeployment, succession, and external-support needs. - **Scenario and Constraint Analysis:** Model portfolio sequencing, acceleration, delay, and prioritization scenarios to show the effect on staffing demand, constrained capabilities, project milestones, cost, and organizational readiness. Recommend practical tradeoffs and mitigation actions. - **Integrated Operating Plan:** Build and maintain a portfolio-level operating plan that connects project milestones, workload demand, approved headcount, hiring lead times, and functional commitments. Establish recurring planning cadences with project and department leaders. - **Management Accounting and Value Frameworks:** Partner with Finance and Accounting to develop increasingly robust frameworks for understanding internal resource deployment, total project costs, eligible cost treatment, and internal value contribution while respecting accounting policy ownership and project-funding requirements. - **Data Governance and Systems:** Define data ownership, update frequency, quality checks, and change controls for portfolio planning inputs. Improve the connection among scheduling, project controls, financial, workforce, and reporting systems to create a trusted planning dataset. - **Portfolio Insights and Executive Reporting:** Produce clear views of portfolio demand, capacity gaps, staffing risks, utilization trends, and decision points. Convert complex cross-project data into executive-ready recommendations for leadership, annual planning, and investment decisions. - **Continuous Improvement:** Use actual staffing and project performance data to calibrate demand assumptions, document lessons learned, improve planning accuracy, and build a repeatable basis for FOAK-to-NOAK resource planning. **Minimum Qualifications:** - Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Project Management, Operations, Finance, Business, Data Analytics, or a related discipline, or equivalent experience - 7+ years of progressive experience in portfolio planning, workforce planning, project controls, integrated scheduling, operations planning, FP&A, or a closely related field - Experience translating project schedules, roadmaps, or operational plans into resource demand and capacity requirements across multiple departments or projects - Experience designing and applying common coding structures, taxonomies, work breakdown structures, resource breakdown structures, or comparable planning frameworks - Strong quantitative and modeling skills, including the ability to develop proxy-based demand models, scenarios, and management-level insights from imperfect data - Advanced spreadsheet skills and experience with scheduling, planning, business-intelligence, or workforce-planning tools - Proven ability to establish planning processes and data governance across cross-functional teams without direct authority - Clear written and verbal communication skills, including experience presenting recommendations and tradeoffs to senior stakeholders **Bonus Qualifications:** - Experience supporting nuclear, energy, engineering, manufacturing, construction, EPC, or other large capital project portfolios - Experience with Microsoft Project, Primavera P6, Oracle Primavera Cloud, or portfolio scheduling platforms - Familiarity with ERP, HRIS, time-phased resource planning, business-intelligence, or project cost systems - Understanding of management accounting, project capitalization, internal labor allocation, or government-funded project reporting - Experience developing resource benchmarks or learning curves across FOAK and repeat deployments - Startup or high-growth company experience **Competencies** We are looking for a Portfolio Planner that is: - Able to connect detailed project plans to enterprise-level workforce and investment decisions - Systems-oriented and comfortable building structure where processes and data are still maturing - Pragmatic about using proxy metrics initially and disciplined about improving assumptions with actual data - Objective and confident in surfacing capacity constraints, competing priorities, and planning gaps early - Collaborative with project and department leaders while maintaining enterprise-wide consistency - Curious about how teams create value and how internal resources drive project outcomes - Clear in distinguishing committed work, forecast demand, available capacity, and planning scenarios - Analytically rigorous and comfortable working with large, incomplete datasets - Effective at translating complex analysis into simple, actionable leadership insights - Passionate about clean energy - Passionate about making advanced fission a reality - Willing and able to learn quickly - Eager to work on a dynamic team, receive constructive feedback, and grow with us - Willing to think differently and do things in new ways - Comfortable in a fast-paced, highly iterative startup environment - Excited to think creatively, critically, and reflectively about the problems they are solving, while not leaning only on what has been done before - Willing to propose novel and creative solutions to technical problems **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: $150,000-$190,000 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. Candidates should be aware that employment may be contingent upon successful completion of a drug screening, and employees may be subject to drug testing at any time in accordance with company policy and applicable laws. ### **Recruitment Fraud Disclaimer** Oklo is aware of recent recruitment fraud attempts targeting job seekers. Please be cautious of anyone claiming to represent Oklo who does **not** contact you from an official Oklo email address. All legitimate communications from our recruiting team— including application updates, interview requests, and job offers — will come **exclusively** from an @oklo.com email. Oklo will never ask for sensitive personal information, payments, or account credentials during the hiring process. If you receive suspicious outreach or have concerns about the authenticity of any communication claiming to be from Oklo, please contact us through the official channels listed on our website.