Stellarator Systems Architect

Proxima Fusion is Europe’s fastest-growing fusion company and the continent’s best-funded fusion player, as well as the first spin-out from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP). Backed by over €650M and powered by a growing team across Munich, Zurich, and Oxford, we are developing the hardware and infrastructure needed to deliver the world’s first commercial stellarator fusion power plant. This role is for a Stellarator Systems Architect to shape the architecture of Alpha, the first stellarator to achieve net energy.

Responsibilities

Shape the architecture of a fusion power plant; Own system-level decisions for a first-of-a-kind energy technology; Solve complex engineering challenges across coupled disciplines; Design real hardware with a pragmatic, fast-moving team; Shape first-of-a-kind machine Alpha; Own the coherence of the design; Be accountable for whether Alpha's concept resolves into an elegant and efficient design; Hold the whole machine in view; Close the loop between architecture and engineering; Hunt the uncertainties that drive the design; Find the levers to cut cost or unlock performance

Requirements

PhD or Master's in physics, engineering, or an adjacent field; years of experience in industries where integration challenges are at the heart of the design (e.g., aerospace, semiconductors, Formula 1); comfortable reasoning about Lorentz forces on a coil and about microwave-plasma coupling; know when a back-of-envelope calculation beats a week of simulation; reach for whatever tool fits (pen-and-paper calculation, simulator, commercial multiphysics package); iterate to win; make things land with actionable insight and clear next step; build in code like an engineer (Git, CI/CD, PyData stack)