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Proxima Fusion, Europe's fastest-growing and best-funded fusion company, is seeking a Microwave Design Engineer to join the Alpha Heating System team in Munich. The company is a spin-out from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, backed by over €650M, with offices across Munich, Zurich, and Oxford. You will help design and develop millimeter-wave RF hardware that acts as the spark plug to initiate fusion plasma and raise temperatures to over 100 million degrees.
In this role, you will provide innovative solutions to complex RF engineering challenges by collaborating closely with physicists to ensure component designs meet Alpha plasma physics and thermal-mechanical constraints. You'll develop designs and evaluate vendor designs to determine optimal paths for efficiently delivering power to the stellarator, driving down input power requirements and costs. You will contribute to mechanical and thermal analysis and sensitivity studies for component viability under vacuum, magnetic fields, high temperatures, and MW-scale RF loads. You'll interface with Alpha project management teams to realize RF component delivery and meet Proxima's aggressive timelines, while drawing from and contributing to the stellarator development process.
Proxima is developing next-generation fusion machines (Alpha and Stellaris) that advance the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator concept through stellarator optimization, advanced computation, machine learning, and high-temperature superconducting magnets. The company is experiencing rapid growth with headcount expected to 5x in coming years, offering significant opportunity for professional growth and impact on a civilization-scale clean energy challenge.
REQUIREMENTS:
- Highly capable RF engineer with experience in millimeter waves and knowledge of tools and best practices for designing these systems
- Demonstrated familiarity with RF modeling codes (SURF3D, CST, COMSOL, GdfidL, openEMS, or self-developed Python codes) capable of performing modeling at 200 GHz frequencies
- Experience validating first-of-a-kind designs with uncertain performance, working as part of a team on multi-scale and multi-physics simulations, testing, and prototyping
- Exceptional communication and interpersonal skills with ability to articulate complex technical concepts clearly and persuasively
- Experience with gyrotrons and associated components (transmission systems, launcher antennas, RF loads); plasma physics experience is a plus
