Member of Technical Staff - R&D Engineering
About the role
R&D Engineer role at Maritime Fusion focusing on designing, prototyping, testing, and scaling high-power HTS hardware for fusion reactors in a multidisciplinary environment spanning electrical, mechanical, thermal, systems, manufacturing, and software.
Responsibilities
- Building and testing HTS (high-temperature superconducting) hardware: including REBCO conductors/cables, high-current power supplies, energy storage systems, cryogenic cooling systems, and integrated test fixtures.
- Standing up our R&D lab: benches, instrumentation, vacuum hardware, DAQs, software licenses, and everything in between.
- Owning your designs end-to-end: generating CAD and drawings, running FEA, sourcing components, working with vendors, and leading mechanical/electrical assembly.
- Hands-on prototyping: CNC machining and fabrication, soldering, wiring, assembling cryostats, working with LN₂, using DMMs/oscilloscopes, characterizing sensors and circuits.
- Developing and debugging electronics: from sensing circuits and high-current drivers to embedded control and data acquisition.
- Defining requirements and translating tokamak-level system attributes into subsystem performance metrics.
- Solving genuinely hard problems across physics, engineering, and manufacturing under real-world constraints.
- Collaborating closely with a small, multidisciplinary team of physicists, engineers, and technicians to share results quickly and shape the technical roadmap.
Qualifications
- A well-rounded electromechanical engineering skillset spanning CAD/FEA (SolidWorks, CATIA, Ansys, COMSOL), PCB design (Altium, KiCad), power electronics, embedded systems, and mechanical design/fabrication.
- Hands-on hardware experience across mechanical builds, electronics bring-up, test setups, and system integration.
- Comfort with lab tools and instrumentation: CNC machines, machine shop tools, soldering equipment, oscilloscopes, DMMs, high-current supplies, vacuum pumps, and cryogenic hardware.
- Familiarity with power electronics and measurement/sensing circuits.
- Software proficiency: data acquisition, PLCs, Python scripting, test automation, and control systems.
- Bonus experience: working with REBCO tape, high vacuum, high voltage, high current, cryogenic systems, or industrial test infrastructure.
- Willingness to do the work involved with early stage startups: assembling the office furniture, setting up software licenses, and forming strong external industry relationships.
Skills
About Maritime Fusion
Fusion reactors for ships
Maritime Fusion is building HTS (high-temperature superconducting) fusion reactors for defense and commercial shipping applications. Breakeven fusion is coming soon, but the first-of-a-kind (FOAK) reactors will be costly, high maintenance, and have low capacity factors, leading to 5–10x higher electricity cost on the grid. Maritime Fusion is pursuing the most widely accepted approach to fusion, the tokamak, but specifically designed for the marine environment where the challenges that arise between breakeven and a commercially viable energy source are alleviated. The market we're targeting requires 15x less power, lower up-time, and costs the same as alternative fuels but without any emissions. Since fusion does not use highly radioactive fuels or materials – unlike fission – we sidestep the vast majority of regulatory challenges and safety risks associated with nuclear energy. Our team brings over a decade of industry and research experience in plasma physics, nuclear engineering, and electrical engineering with backgrounds at SpaceX, Tesla, Columbia University, and University of Pennsylvania.
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