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Helion is a fusion power company on a mission to build the world's first commercial fusion power plant. Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Everett, WA, the company has raised $1.5 billion from leading investors including Sam Altman, SoftBank, Thrive Capital, and others. Helion's prototype, Polaris, has achieved record-breaking plasma temperatures of 150 million degrees Celsius, and the company is advancing toward Orion, its next-generation fusion power plant.
As Director of Semiconductor Technology, you will lead Helion's semiconductor strategy and execution—a critical function for fusion power generation. Every fusion pulse relies on semiconductor switches operated far beyond commercial ratings. Your role is to architect and deliver the next generation of custom semiconductor devices, packaging, and manufacturing capabilities that will enable reliable, high-frequency operation of Helion's power plants at scale.
Key responsibilities include:
- Own Helion's semiconductor roadmap in partnership with technical leadership, defining device requirements, making build-versus-buy decisions, and ensuring capabilities align with successive generations of fusion machines.
- Build and lead a multi-disciplinary team of semiconductor scientists, device R&D engineers, technicians, and technical project managers.
- Establish a development-scale device fabrication, characterization, and reliability capability, including tooling, process, and facility decisions.
- Direct in-house device design, exploring alternative device topologies optimized for Helion's pulsed-power circuits.
- Drive novel packaging and integration strategies: multi-die packages for gated devices in series, integrated thermal management for repetitive operation, and comprehensive reliability qualification programs.
- Establish and lead partnerships with high-volume fabrication facilities to transition in-house designs into production at scale, while maintaining and developing existing vendor relationships.
- Plan and execute a multi-million-dollar development program with rigorous scope management, reporting, and risk mitigation, including externally funded research partnerships.
- Collaborate with electrical, mechanical, science, operations, and systems leadership to co-develop semiconductor capabilities and machine architecture.
You will work in a fast-paced, mission-driven environment that values urgency, rigor, ownership, and delivering hard truths. Your decisions will directly impact how reliably Helion's power plants operate, how frequently they can pulse, and how effectively the company can manufacture and deploy future plants.
REQUIREMENTS:
- 12+ years in semiconductors, including 5+ years leading technical teams
- Proven track record of hiring, developing engineers and technical leaders, and building high-performance delivery cultures
- Deep expertise in power semiconductor device physics and design, including device modeling and design for reliability
- Hands-on expertise in high-power packaging and module integration: die attach, interconnect, and thermal management
- Experience taking custom semiconductor devices from concept through fabrication, characterization, qualification, application integration, and high-volume production with external fabricators
- Experience owning multi-year R&D programs with budgets in the tens of millions, including planning, vendor contracting, and executive-level reporting
- Ability to set technical direction across disciplines outside your direct practice and make build/buy tradeoffs considering performance, reliability, cost, schedule, and manufacturing scale
- Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Physics, Materials Science, or related field
