Senior Recruiter, Manufacturing

As a Senior Recruiter, you'll join Proxima Fusion's Talent Acquisition team, reporting into our Recruiter lead, at a moment when we're scaling on two fronts at once: growing our deep-tech engineering and science teams, and building out the manufacturing workforce behind Alpha and Stellaris. You'll take full ownership of complex, often niche searches, act as a trusted advisor to hiring managers, and help shape how the TA team hires for manufacturing and industrial roles alongside our technical hiring. This is a senior, hands-on role for someone who wants more scope and more say in how we build the function, without stepping away from the recruiting itself.

Responsibilities

Own and execute full-cycle recruitment for critical roles, with a focus on manufacturing roles; Lead recruitment for manufacturing and production roles as we ramp up facilities — technicians, operators, quality and manufacturing engineers — building sourcing channels beyond the usual technical hiring playbook; Partner closely with hiring managers, including senior technical and manufacturing leaders, to define hiring needs and build tailored sourcing strategies that go well beyond LinkedIn; Drive top-of-funnel strategy: proactively source and engage exceptional passive talent, in German and English, via recruitment events, conferences, and talent communities across the DACH region and beyond; Act as a senior voice within the TA team: mentor junior recruiters, share sourcing craft, and help set the bar for what good looks like; Champion an outstanding candidate experience at every touchpoint, adapting your approach for very different audiences — from a senior scientist to a shop-floor hire; Contribute to TA projects beyond your own reqs: improving workflows and tooling, building out our German-market employer brand, or delivering interview training; Help the Head of Talent Acquisition build a high-trust, high-rigor process that supports scaling without compromising on quality

Requirements

Professional-fluency German speaker with full professional fluency in English, comfortable recruiting and building relationships in both languages; Several years of hands-on, full-cycle recruitment experience in a startup or scale-up; Experience recruiting internationally for niche and difficult-to-fill roles; Used to working with very selective, technically demanding hiring teams; Direct exposure to hiring for manufacturing, production, or industrial operations roles; Understanding of how manufacturing hiring differs from hiring engineers or scientists; Thrives in fast-paced, high-stakes environments and takes ownership seriously; Deeply motivated by quality with high standards; Exceptional sourcing instincts and ability to identify overlooked talent; Thinks outside the box on sourcing and attraction, using LinkedIn as one tool among many, including events, talent communities, and conferences; Organized, autonomous, and eager to improve systems and processes that let a TA team scale; Communicates clearly, acts decisively, and works well with demanding stakeholders; Genuinely excited to help build something audacious and help shape a growing TA team

Nice to have

Ideally spanning both technical and manufacturing/industrial hiring

Benefits

Work on a civilisation-scale problem - Clean, baseload fusion energy is one of the few genuinely world-changing challenges, and every hire in Finance, People, or Legal directly accelerates the path to a working stellarator; Grow as fast as the company does - With headcount set to roughly 5x in a few years and major technical milestones ahead on the path to our demo machine and first power plant, your role grows under you; today's hire is tomorrow's function lead; Tackle problems that don't exist elsewhere - Fusion sits at a rare intersection of deep-tech R&D, industrial procurement, government relations, and venture financing, so non-tech functions face challenges no other workplace can offer