About the role
WHO WE ARE
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.
Our concept advances the most mature fusion technology out there, the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator, through two next-generation machines: Alpha and Stellaris. Our work combines stellarator optimization, advanced computation, machine learning, and high-temperature superconducting magnets to unlock higher-performance designs that were previously out of reach.
Turning these designs into a functioning fusion power plant requires excellence and ownership across every discipline, from physics and engineering to software, manufacturing, law, and business functions.
BY JOINING OUR TEAM YOU’LL GET TO
Shape the architecture of the world’s first commercial fusion power plant – Own system-level decisions that determine how a first-of-a-kind energy technology is designed, integrated, and ultimately deployed at scale.
Solve some of the most complex engineering challenges – Work across tightly coupled disciplines (plasma physics, magnets, cryogenics, manufacturing, controls, and more) to resolve critical trade-offs and turn cutting-edge science into a functioning product.
Design real hardware with a pragmatic, fast-moving team from all over the world – Combine advanced simulation and systems thinking with a strong execution mindset, focusing on practical engineering solutions that accelerate the path to commercial fusion energy.
WHY JOIN PROXIMA FUSION
You will get to work on some of the most complex tech challenges to bring abundant, safe, clean energy to the world.
You'll get to join and learn from an exceptional selection of accomplished and driven individuals.
Do your life’s best work and enjoy the journey.
Get to show that big things are possible in Europe when you assemble the best talent.
YOUR IMPACT
Alpha will be the first stellarator to achieve net energy. Getting there requires building a deeply coupled machine, where plasma, magnets, structures, cryogenics, heating work as one, and work at the edge of what each discipline can deliver on its own. You will own the complex calculations that set the requirements each system needs to be designed against. You will be accountable for providing the engineering design teams with reasonably estimated and correctly validated load cases that drive the design of the machine.
WHAT YOU WILL DO
Own simulation pipelines end to end. From physics assumptions through to the machine-defining load cases you provide the subsystem to teams. You own the whole chain, not a step in it.
Build the simulators. Finite-element models where that's the right instrument, a reduced-order model coded from scratch where it isn't, all of it properly interfaced with our codebase.
Set the interfaces. Define with each engineering team what goes in, what comes out, what it means and what it doesn't cover.
Scan the space. Run parameter sweeps and simulation campaigns at scale to settle machine-level tradeoffs before they're locked in.
Prove the numbers. Benchmark, cross-check against analytical limits and experiment, and know the boundary where your model stops being trustworthy.
WHO YOU ARE
You range across physics and geometry. You are not afraid of jumping between Lorentz forces in a stellarator and the 3D geometry.
You've earned that breadth. A PhD or Master's in physics, engineering, or an adjacent field, and time spent where multiphysics analysis actually drives hardware decisions: space, accelerators, semiconductors, aircraft, or anywhere else complex machines get built at scale.
You build in code like an engineer, not a scripter. Git, CI/CD, and the PyData stack are second nature, and you've shipped real software, not a folder of one-off scripts.
You reach for whatever tool fits. Pen and paper, a solver you wrote last night, or a commercial multiphysics package, the method serves the question, never the reverse.
You think in pipelines. Automation, reproducibility, validation. And you can tell when a passing series of tests isn't actually telling the truth.
You're proactive. You find the gap before it becomes a problem, prioritize hard, and argue for the next step.
INTERVIEW PROCESS
Recruiter Interview (30-60 min)
Technical Screening (30 min)
Technical Panel (3x60 min)
*This role sits at PF3 of our framework, please inquire during the recruitment process for further information.
At Proxima Fusion, our mission is bold: making limitless clean energy a reality. To get there, we need a high-performing, diverse team that brings different perspectives, challenges assumptions, and builds together with purpose. We know that diversity of thought and experience leads to better ideas, stronger execution, and a more resilient team. We don’t look at how you identify, what you look like, who you choose to worship or what ethnicity you are. We care about what you can bring to the table.
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