Helion Energy

Director of Modules Engineering

Helion Energy$130K — $180K *
Energy & Utilities
8 - 10 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Bachelor's or master's degree in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, physics, or related field.
  • 10+ years developing complex electromechanical hardware, with 4+ years in leadership roles.
  • Proven experience transitioning hardware from prototype to production using design-for-manufacture principles.
  • In-depth knowledge of power electronics or pulsed energy systems, with familiarity in high-reliability designs or hardware production.
  • Ownership of cost, schedule, and reliability in program-scale projects, able to defend trade-offs.
  • Strong cross-functional leadership skills, with ability to partner across research, controls, and manufacturing.
  • Experience in scaling engineering teams through the prototype-to-production process.

Responsibilities

  • Own the architecture of Orion's capacitor bank, aligning it with the machine core's requirements and interfaces.
  • Lead and mentor a team of engineers in designing and qualifying pulsed power circuit modules.
  • Collaborate with manufacturing engineering to ensure designs are manufacturable and meet production rates.
  • Manage cost, schedule, and reliability for the module portfolio, overseeing qualification for hardware.
  • Work with Research, Science, and Controls to ensure module designs advance with operational learnings.
  • Build and develop engineering teams, establishing design standards for the transition from prototype to production.
  • Establish the Orion bank architecture and qualification practices for production modules within the first year.

Benefits

  • Medical, Dental, and Vision plans for employees and their families.
  • 31 Days of PTO (21 vacation days and 10 sick days).
  • 10 Paid holidays, plus a company-wide winter break.
  • Up to 5% employer 401(k) match.
  • Short term disability, long term disability, and life insurance coverage.
  • Paid parental leave and support (up to 16 weeks).
  • Annual wellness stipend.
Full Job Description
What You Will Be Doing:

The capacitor bank is the beating heart of a Helion machine: it stores the energy for every fusion pulse, delivers it in under a millisecond, and takes it back. You will own the organization that architects, designs, qualifies, and produces hardware for Orion, our first fusion power plant.

You Will:
  • Own the architecture of Orion's capacitor bank and its interdependencies with the machine core: requirements, decomposition, and the interfaces that let the bank, core, and controls behave as one machine
  • Lead and mentor a cross-functional team of electrical and mechanical engineers designing and qualifying pulsed power circuit modules for each section of the machine with ownership spanning pulsed power electrical design, mechanical and thermal solutions, and the high precision low voltage control interfaces that command them
  • Drive manufacturable design: partner day-to-day with manufacturing engineering to move modules from prototype test to production at rate, against a capacitor line building megajoules of pulsed power energy capacity per week
  • Own cost, schedule, and reliability for the module portfolio: make the architecture and design trades, set the qualification bar for hardware that must survive million-pulse campaigns and be accountable for hitting the objectives on a schedule you influenced
  • Work day-to-day with Research, Science, and Controls to keep module designs ahead of what the physics and operations teams learn from running machines
  • Build the team: hire, develop, and set the design-review and engineering standards that let the organization move from prototype to production without losing rigor
  • In your first year, you will baseline the Orion bank architecture, stand up the qualification program for the first production modules, and have production-intent hardware under test.


Required Skills
  • Bachelor's or master's degree in electrical engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Physics, or a related field
  • 10+ years developing complex electromechanical hardware, including 4+ years leading multidisciplinary engineering teams (Electrical, Mechanical, Firmware, Thermal)
  • A track record of taking hardware from prototype through qualification into production, and of the design-for-manufacture judgment that makes that transition fast
  • Technical depth in at least one of: power electronics or pulsed energy systems, high-reliability electromechanical design, or high-volume hardware production with fluency across the others
  • Demonstrated ownership of cost, schedule, and reliability at program scale, including making and defending hard trades
  • Cross-functional leadership strength: this role succeeds through tactical and strategic partnership with research, science, controls, and manufacturing
  • Experience scaling engineering teams and processes through a prototype-to-production transition


#LI-Onsite #LI-MT1

Benefits

Our total compensation package includes benefits, including but not limited to:
  • Medical, Dental, and Vision plans for employees and their families
  • 31 Days of PTO (21 vacation days and 10 sick days)
  • 10 Paid holidays, plus company-wide winter break
  • Up to 5% employer 401(k) match
  • Short term disability, long term disability, and life insurance
  • Paid parental leave and support (up to 16 weeks)
  • Annual wellness stipend

About Helion Energy

Helion Energy, Inc. is an American fusion research company, located in Everett, Washington. They are developing a magneto-inertial fusion technology to produce helium-3 and fusion power via aneutronic fusion.
Learn more about Helion Energy
Industry
Founded
2013

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