Muon Beamline Engineer (m/f/d) in Hamburg

MuRay Tech is a deeptech spinout from DESY, Hamburg. We're hiring a Muon Beamline Engineer to own how our muon beam travels from converter to scanned object. You'll design capture and transport optics, model shielding against background without a full Geant4 run on every iteration, and carry that work from today's PRIMA beamline to our own LPA-based muon source. Direct ownership of the physical link between muon production and the image.

The role

As Muon Beamline Engineer, you'll own how the muon beam gets from converter to scanned object. That spans capture, transport, and shielding. You will:

• Develop concepts for efficient muon capture and controllable transport. Start with our current beamline's 35° tunnel bend. Extend the work to our own LPA-based muon source next.
• Develop a holistic model for beamline shielding. More shielding cuts background, but it cuts muon signal too. Treat that tradeoff as the core design constraint. Account for scattering in the converter and shielding, without a full G4 run on every design iteration.
• Build fast simulation tools for beamline optimization. Use them on today's beamline and on our LPA-based one.
• Optimize the beamline's collection and transport optics. The configuration comes out of one design study: permanent magnets vs electromagnets, weighed on achievable field strength, demagnetization risk, cost, supply chain reliability, serviceability, and tunability. Lead the procurement that follows from that decision.

What you'll bring

• GEANT4 fluency. Our full-scale reference models run in G4. You validate your fast models against it directly.
• Shielding and background physics. You know what shielding stops gamma, electron/positron, and neutron background. You know that more shielding also cuts muon signal. You treat that tradeoff as the central design constraint, not an afterthought.
• Beam optics experience. You've designed magnetic transport lines inside constrained geometries, like a 35° tunnel bend. Our beam is polychromatic, with energy spread well above the sub-percent level standard optics assume. You design for the chromaticity that creates, not around it.
• Fast-model development. Our energy spread means numerically integrating every particle's path through the real fields. You've built faster approximations before. You've proven they hold up.
• Radiation-aware magnet engineering. Neutron flux demagnetizes permanent magnets. You weigh that against cost, tunability, and supply chain when picking and procuring magnets.

How we work

• Skunkworks approach: We work in small teams with full ownership. We keep it simple, stupid.
• Move fast: a shiny prototype means we spent too long on it. We build to learn. We polish later.
• Disagree together, commit together: we debate and challenge, regardless of title. Then we deliver the decision as one team. We win as a team. We pivot as a team.
• Courage: we always make the call. A mistake isn't a failure: it's proof we're improving. Either way, we own the outcome.
• Honesty and transparency: we share what's really happening, good or bad. That lets everyone make the right call. We stay open. We stay honest.

What we offer

• Impact: you'll own the physical link between muon production and the image. Every efficiency gain you find becomes scan time, resolution, or both.
• Pace: your beamline design reaches a real experiment fast. Within a few years, that work is inside a shipped product, not a paper.
• Network: research collaborators include DESY, DLR, CERN, and Imperial College London. Commercial partners include Siemens Energy, Airbus, Caelora, and ZAL.
• Infrastructure: MuRay has on-demand time at multi-GeV beamlines, including DESY's PRIMA. Collaboration pathways extend to ELI Beamlines, EPAC, and ATLAS.
• Ownership: an equity plan gives you a meaningful stake in the company.
• Compensation: a salary that reflects your contribution to MuRay's growth.
• Relocation: we support your move. If you're relocating from outside the EU, we help with the paperwork.

About MuRay Tech

MuRay builds compact laser-plasma accelerators that generate a controlled muon beam. Muon scans today are passive and take days. Active Muon Imaging produces the same scan in seconds, at higher resolution. We work with partners in aerospace, defence, and energy today. Next: security, customs, and medical imaging.

MuRay Tech develops safe, rapid and accurate active muon imaging solutions for industrial quality assessment, security and customs inspection and medical diagnostics. Our platform combines laser-plasma-accelerator-driven muon sources, next-generation particle detectors and AI to enable high-resolution 3D imaging with automated decision-making.

The company operates at DESY in Hamburg, Germany, and Tehnopol in Tallinn, Estonia. Our main development partners span the energy, defence, aerospace and security industries. Our initial technology and business focus is on the quality and safety assessment of critical metallic and ceramic components, such as rocket engines, gas turbines, jet engines, and large-scale nuclear or industrial systems.