Pros
Working at a nuclear power plant offers many challenges on a regular basis and will require a lot of effort in understanding government regulations and gathering industry knowledge. If you like being consistently challenged, this is a good working environment for that. The annual salaries are in the mid to lower side of the industry average. Bonuses have been good and relatively consistent over the past few years.
Cons
As noted above, this job will ask a lot of you and your patience. If you’re in the right engineering working group, it can be fun and a great learning opportunity. Over time is becoming more frequent and is expected during refueling outage (i.e. ‘qualifying events’). Overtime for engineering is only paid during qualifying events. However, outside of these events, engineering does not receive overtime pay where overtime may be required. Workloads are generally high and a lot of on the job training is necessary to perform one’s job. For those coming from outside the industry, there is a lot of Jargon (think NASA) and becoming comfortable in the industry can take from 3-5 years.
