Senior Systems Engineer - Fusion Engine

Overview

Inertia Enterprises Inc. is developing the technologies for a fusion energy power plant. We are seeking a Senior Systems Engineer to help define and integrate the fusion engine systems that capture fusion energy and support its conversion into usable power within a coherent, verifiable plant design.

Reporting to the Chief Systems Engineer, this senior individual contributor will lead systems engineering for the fusion engine in close partnership with Thunderdome leadership and technical teams.

The role will connect the first wall, blanket, vessel, chamber gas handling, heat and tritium transfer, and balance of plant interfaces; balance performance, safety, lifetime, availability, and cost budgets; and represent the fusion engine at system-level technical meetings.

The role supports design owners with requirements, analyses, trade studies, and evidence, while technical design decisions remain with the responsible leads.

What You’ll Get to Do

• Develop and maintain fusion engine functions, architecture, requirements, and verification approaches, tracing key engine specifications to plant needs, operating scenarios, and target physics.
• Work with technical leads to allocate and balance budgets for heat capture, tritium recovery, radiation dose, materials lifetime, maintainability, availability, thermal performance, and cost across engine subsystems.
• Define operating modes, system boundaries, and critical interfaces among the first wall and blanket, vacuum vessel, chamber gas, primary heat and tritium systems, and balance of plant; coordinate plant interfaces with lasers, targets, injection, controls, and facilities.
• Maintain interface control records for mechanical, thermal, fluid, neutronic, electrical, control, and safety interactions; partner with modeling teams to test assumptions, sensitivities, design margins, and plant consistency.
• Facilitate focused trade studies, design reviews, and change impact assessments. Represent the engine at system-level meetings, communicate consequences for the plant, and bring decisions back to the responsible teams for action.
• Introduce practical routines for requirements, configuration, risks, interfaces, and decision records; help multidisciplinary teams use them to resolve integration questions as the program matures.
• Plan the evidence needed to verify engine performance and plant interfaces, linking analyses, experiments, prototypes, tests, and review criteria to the risks that must be retired before detailed design.

What You Bring to Inertia

• Degree in engineering, physics, or a related technical field, or equivalent relevant experience. Post-graduate qualifications preferred.
• Demonstrated systems engineering contribution to a complex energy, nuclear, fusion, or related multidisciplinary hardware program, from concept and allocation through integration or verification planning.
• Practical command of requirements, architecture, interface definition, quantitative budgets, trade studies, technical risk, and change control, with sound judgment about applying these methods in a start-up.
• Ability to work with physics, mechanical, thermal, materials, controls, and facility specialists; facilitate decisions without line authority and communicate concise, defensible technical conclusions.

Bonus Points

• Experience with fusion or nuclear systems, high heat flux and radiation environments, first wall or blanket design, heat transfer, tritium systems, shielding, or remote maintenance.
• Familiarity with integrated plant models, relevant engineering codes and standards, or verification and validation of first-of-a-kind energy systems.

Salary & Benefits:

• The base salary range for this role is $150,000 - $265,000; The pay range provided is an estimated base range for this role. Exact compensation may vary based on skills, experience, and education.
• We offer market-competitive compensation and an excellent benefits program, including Medical, Dental, and Vision plans, company-paid holidays, matching 401k, and more!

About Inertia

Inertia is taking the most direct, scientifically-proven path to commercializing fusion, leveraging the only successful achievement of fusion ignition, using a process that was pioneered at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL).

With groundbreaking innovation, transformative technology, and multi-year investment, Inertia is committed to commercializing fusion energy in the next decade.

This position requires access to technology, software and other information that is subject to governmental access control restrictions, due to export controls, security classification and/or designation as Controlled Unclassified Information.

Employment in this position is conditioned on the candidate’s eligibility for, obtaining and maintaining appropriate government authorization to access technology or information, to the extent required, including without limitation a security clearance, export license, or other documentation required to establish authorization to receive access to such items technology or information.