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Focused Energy is an international deep-tech company commercializing laser-driven nuclear fusion to provide clean, safe, and virtually unlimited energy. As Principal Control Systems Engineer, you will shape the long-term control systems architecture and technical vision across experimental and production environments in Germany and the USA.
You will design system-level architecture for control systems across facilities, making strategic platform and technology choices in collaboration with program and system owners. You will direct real-time and embedded control solution implementation, selecting and guiding use of PLC, FPGA, and other real-time platforms while balancing performance, reliability, safety, and cost trade-offs.
Key responsibilities include working with system integrators, electrical engineering, cabinet builders, and technicians to specify, design, review, test, install, and commission control cabinet hardware and field devices. You will architect and deliver fully integrated SCADA, HMI, and data systems for alarms, logging, historian, analytics, data reduction, and dashboards, ensuring scalability and high performance.
You will orchestrate system integration across multiple complex subsystems and teams, define observability and logging strategies, and lead root-cause investigations and post-mortem studies to improve continuous availability. You will shape requirements, documentation, and validation approaches at system level, including design specs, interfaces, and test strategies for reliability, safety, and long-term maintainability.
As a technical leader, you will coach and mentor senior and junior engineers, identify capability gaps, grow technical capabilities in key skill areas, and champion best practices for software engineering, testing, quality, and ways of working within the controls team and across the organization.
REQUIREMENTS:
- Degree in Electrical/Electronic Engineering, Control/Automation, Mechatronics/Robotics, Physics, or similar; PhD or equivalent experience preferred, with recognition as a technical expert in control/embedded or real-time systems
- Typically 10+ years in control/embedded systems, factory or plant automation, automated test systems, or complex scientific experimental work, with architectural ownership across multiple projects or products
- Deep experience in at least one relevant domain (e.g., high energy lasers, nuclear, robotics, power/energy, automotive, aerospace, industrial automation) with understanding of domain constraints, standards, regulations, supplier ecosystems, and main players
- Proven track record specifying control cabinet hardware; defining house standards, ensuring compliance with regulations, liaising with system integrators, and creating test plans and quality control processes
- Proven track record specifying control software and/or SCADA and data acquisition systems; defining interfaces, patterns, and coding standards across teams, and guiding technology trade-offs
- Extensive experience with embedded and real-time platforms (e.g., PLCs in ST IEC 61131-3, FPGAs, RTOS-based systems, robotics), including selecting platforms and scaling architectures with clear RAM vs. cost/reliability trade-offs
- Understanding of software/firmware engineering best practices (version control, branching, design for test, CI/CD, automated testing, defensive programming) and experience introducing or improving these practices, and organizing or conducting training programs
- Excellent communicator in English, able to influence technical direction at organization level, handle and resolve ambiguities in requirements and processes, and build alignment across hardware, software, product, and operations teams in hybrid, cross-site environments
- Practical, hands-on approach with strong track record orchestrating large-scale HW/SW integration, resolving integration challenges, and leading complex debugging and fault-finding on real systems
Desirable skills: Deep experience with PLC programming in ST (IEC 61131-3); Beckhoff PLCs and TwinCAT system design and architecture, multi-PLC distributed control; SCADA (especially Ignition) and designing and deploying SCADA systems; embedded or real-time systems (FPGAs, RTOS, microcontrollers, robotics); LabVIEW architect level (CLA) with focus on FPGA and embedded targets; experience with complex scientific equipment or large-scale facilities including diagnostics, vacuum systems, motion platforms, and safety interlocks; image processing and machine vision; motion control and robotics; high-precision stepper/piezo systems and encoders.
