Mechanical Engineer, Magnets

Munich, Garching · Full-time · On-site

About Starforge

Starforge is on a mission to make fusion energy a practical utility by factory-manufacturing modular, fleet-deployable fusion reactors. We are fusion's Henry Ford moment.

Our first reactor product line, Unit One, is a 250 MWe spherical tokamak, built from demountable high-temperature superconducting magnets and designed in modular blocks so that every component can be factory-manufactured as well as replaced on site.

Our team comes from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, MIT, Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Tokamak Energy, KIT, Lilium, and GE.

Come and join us in building the future.

Build Unit One's magnets as our Mechanical Engineer, Magnets

The primary function of a superconducting magnet in a fusion reactor is to constrain and shape the plasma by generating a strong magnetic field. To do this, it carries large electrical currents, which lead to large forces while sitting at cryogenic temperatures inside a vacuum vessel, shrinking and growing with every cooldown. And to make fusion viable, it also has to come apart and go back together during regular maintenance.

Our magnet team is developing an exciting commercial product while moving from joint tests and small test coils towards larger prototype coils, with the cryostats, vacuum vessels and test stands around them. Every one of those builds needs a mechanical owner. This is your chance to be the engineer whose designs will establish the future of producing industrial grade HTS based magnets at scale.

You will be the magnet team's first mechanical engineer: owner of the structures, vessels and fixtures, and the person who sets design and simulation direction for our CAD engineers. You will report to the Head of Magnets, working closely with our magnet design, manufacturing and cryogenics engineers.

What you'll do

• Own the mechanical design of our magnet hardware: coil structures, clamping and supports, cryostats, vacuum vessels, and test fixtures
• Design structures and vessels to operate under electromagnetic, thermal, and pressure loads, specifying geometry, working materials, and fabrication methods
• Set the design and simulation standards for our CAD and simulation engineers and approve their work
• Take parts from concept to drawing to supplier, and see them through assembly and test
• Bring the magnet structural perspective into Unit One's structural design, together with the reactor design team
• Help set up Starforge's analysis practice with tools, verifications, and documentation

What we're looking for

• Degree in mechanical, aerospace or a related engineering field, or equivalent experience
• At least 5 years’ experience in either industry or as post-doctoral researcher specific to mechanical design of magnetic structures with hardware feedback
• Demonstrated ownership of parts or assemblies from design through build and test
• Hand calculations and finite element analysis of structures under combined mechanical and thermal loads, with ANSYS, Abaqus, COMSOL or equivalent
• Working knowledge of 3D CAD, technical drawings, tolerances and fits
• Comfortable making design calls with incomplete information and documenting the reasoning, in clear written and spoken English Bonus points:
• Design of vacuum systems or pressure vessels, including design to a pressure equipment code
• Experience with superconducting or high-field magnet systems or another field with large electromagnetic loads such as fusion, medical, high-energy physics, or electrical machines
• Cryogenic system design: material properties, heat leaks, thermal effects
• Experience with first-of-a-kind hardware at a scaleup or industrial lab

What we offer

• Ownership of the magnet system design stack and a chance to shape how the company does mechanical engineering
• Makerspace membership paid by the company
• Office and lab in Munich and Garching

We welcome applications from senior and mid-career engineers, and from people moving into fusion from aerospace, particle accelerators, cryogenics, vacuum or scientific instruments or any other relevant engineering field. If you meet the must-haves and the work excites you, apply.

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