Systems Engineering and Interfaces Lead

Munich, Garching Full-time On-site, remote work possible

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 Starforge as our Systems Engineering & Interfaces Lead

Designing and building a fusion reactor of any kind is a massive undertaking, with over 20 individual systems each with interacting performance requirements. Because ours is built in modular blocks that are factory-made and replaced on site, every boundary between these systems is a joint, a pipe, a cable or a tolerance that has to be agreed, checked and kept, requiring a holistic view of the completed engineering system and ensuring well-disciplined tradeoffs to arrive at a design solution that works. Orchestrating it all is the Systems Engineering & Interfaces lead, who directs the system balances, maintains interface control, prioritizes tradeoffs, and keeps a robust well-documented engineering library of requirements and design solutions.

You will be Starforge's first Systems Engineering lead, owning architecture, requirements, interfaces and configuration across Unit One. You will report to the Head of Physics & ReactorDesign and work closely with all engineering leads.

What you'll do

• Build Unit One's systems engineering practice from a blank page, sized for a fast-moving team: architecture, requirements, interfaces, configuration and verification
• Own the system architecture and the breakdown of Unit One into subsystems and modular blocks
• Own the interface register and interface control documents between subsystems, and between the reactor, the building and the power plant
• Flow requirements from top level down to each subsystem, and keep them traceable to safety and licensing considerations
• Run the integrated configuration: space allocation, technical budgets, design baselines and change control
• Lead design reviews and trade studies across subsystem boundaries, and make sure decisions are recorded and acted on
• Plan how each requirement will be verified, whether by analysis, test or inspection

What we're looking for

• Degree in engineering, physics or a related field, or equivalent experience
• Demonstrated systems engineering experience on a complex, multi-disciplinary hardware system with regulatory significance, such as an aircraft, spacecraft, power plant, accelerator or fusion device
• Hands-on requirements management and interface control: writing, flowing down, tracing and closing them
• Experience running configuration and change control, design reviews and trade studies across several teams
• Enough depth in at least one engineering discipline to challenge subsystem owners on substance
• Comfortable making decisions with incomplete information and documenting the reasoning, in clear written and spoken English Bonus points:
• Systems engineering experience on a mature nuclear fission device or spacecraft program
• Model-based systems engineering tool proficiency (SysML, Cameo, Capella) or requirements tools (DOORS, Jama, Polarion)
• Work under a nuclear quality assurance programme or towards a similar safety-critical regulatory environment
• Experience within a lean, fast-paced environment such as a scaleup or industrial tiger team

What we offer

• Ownership of how Unit One fits together as one machine, from conceptual design onwards
• Makerspace membership provided by the company
• Office and lab in Munich and Garching, with remote work possibility

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