Fixed Asset and Project Accounting Manager

The Role

Valar is building the capital accounting backbone for a program that runs from one plant to many. Our first pilot plant is two things at once — a demonstration of a first-of-a-kind reactor and a productive asset that will sit on our balance sheet for decades — and dividing every dollar of engineering, equipment, and field labor between those two identities is the judgment this role owns. You will set the capitalization policy, build the allocation basis behind the split, stand up the CIP and fixed asset ledger that proves it, and carry all of it through our first external audit. Then you make it repeatable, so the tenth plant inherits a system rather than a starting point. You will begin as the whole function and build it into one worth staffing, growing with the capital program as it scales.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the capital versus research and development split on the pilot plant: define what share of engineering hours, equipment, and construction scope serves demonstration purposes versus a productive asset, document the basis in writing, and re-test it as design matures and scope changes.
• Own capitalization policy outright: set the thresholds, cost eligibility rules, and asset classes, and carry your positions through auditor challenge rather than leaving them in one person's head.
• Own the fixed asset and CIP subledger end-to-end — project setup, cost capture, transfers, placed-in-service determinations, depreciation, disposals, and impairment indicators — and unitize completed construction into discrete assets with supportable lives, working from component scope, as-built configuration, and turnover packages.
• Build and maintain the project cost structure — WBS and cost-breakdown coding, project hierarchies, and CapEx categories — so every dollar in CIP traces to a commitment, an invoice, and a scope of work, and the capital and R&D split falls out of the coding instead of a spreadsheet at quarter-end.
• Drive the monthly CIP and fixed asset close: cost roll-forward, capital accrual, interest and indirect cost capitalization where applicable, reconciliation to the GL, and variance commentary on project spend.
• Review contractor pay applications, change orders, and progress billings for proper capital treatment, partnering with AP and Procurement so coding is right at intake instead of corrected at close.
• Establish CapEx governance: capital request and authorization workflow, budget-to-actual tracking by project, and escalation when a project's committed cost outruns its approved capital.
• Settle the boundary questions with Cost Accounting and Engineering — where produced inventory ends, where a prototype becomes an asset, when a test article is expensed — and publish the answer so the same question is not relitigated every month.
• Keep the ledger tied to physical reality: lead asset verification and tagging across our Utah and California sites, and configure fixed asset and project accounting in our ERP with Finance Systems on integrations to procurement, AP, and project cost data.
• Train project managers and field leadership on capital treatment in language that works on a job site, own the capitalization and CIP sections of the external audit, and document and automate the work as you go so your first project accountant inherits a system rather than a backlog.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Accounting or Finance, or equivalent experience.
• 7+ years of accounting experience with direct ownership of construction in progress and fixed asset accounting on capital projects in construction, energy, utilities, infrastructure, or heavy manufacturing.
• You have built and defended a cost allocation methodology that split one project's spend between capital and research and development — on an asset that served both purposes at the same time — and it survived audit.
• You have set or rewritten a capitalization policy yourself — thresholds, cost eligibility, asset classes — and defended it to an external auditor, not inherited one someone else wrote.
• Hands-on experience operating a fixed asset and project module in a major ERP (NetSuite, SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics, or equivalent), including project setup and asset conversion.
• Experience building cost-coding and project hierarchy structures, and reconciling project cost data to the general ledger.
• You are willing to spend real time on site at the plant, because you cannot capitalize what you have never walked.

Preferred Skills and Experience

• Licensed CPA.
• Power generation, nuclear, or regulated utility plant accounting experience.
• Experience on first-of-a-kind or first-of-program capital projects where scope and design changed during construction.
• Familiarity with how capitalization and R&D cost decisions interact with research and development tax credit substantiation.
• Experience implementing or converting a fixed asset or project accounting system.
• Experience supporting a self-performed or owner-as-general-contractor construction program, including direct review of subcontractor billings.
• Experience with asset retirement obligations, decommissioning accruals, or leases under ASC 842.
• Experience hiring or developing junior accounting staff as a function grew.
• Exposure to a VC-backed company and investor or board-level capital reporting.

The Team

As part of the Business organization, Accounting ensures the financial integrity of Valar Atomics through accurate reporting, strong internal controls, and sound financial stewardship. The team supports strategic decision-making by delivering timely financial information while maintaining compliance with accounting standards and regulatory requirements.