RF Heating & Power Balance Lead

AENU; Garching bei München; Hybrid; EUR 90,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Starforge in Munich and Garching is seeking a Lead for RF heating and power balance to drive Unit One from startup to grid. You will own heating, current drive and plant balance with close collaboration across physics, in-vessel, magnets and external partners.

The role welcomes senior and early-career scientists and engineers, with opportunities to scale the team toward factory production and maintain a strong safety culture.

Qualifications

• PhD/MSc in plasma physics or a related field.
• Experience with wave propagation and absorption modelling.
• Familiar with RF sources and transmission lines.

Responsibilities

• Define heating and current drive systems for Unit One.
• Set system requirements with physics, magnets, and in-vessel components.
• Own plant power balance including heating, cryogenics, and loads.
• Define interfaces to vacuum vessel, blanket, and electrical systems.
• Lead heating team from design to factory production.

Skills

PhD/MSc

Wave propagation

RF sources

Power balance

English communication

Education

PhD or MSc in plasma physics

Tools

Gyrotrons

Amplifiers

Antennas

Job description

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 Unit One as our RF Heating & Power Balance Lead

Unit One needs external power to start, heat and sustain its plasma. Being a compact spherical tokamak, it has little room for a central solenoid, so radio frequency waves have to carry much of the current drive as well. Every megawatt of heating comes out of the plant's own output, so the efficiency of these systems decides how much electricity Unit One actually delivers. This is your chance to decide how a fusion reactor comes to life, from the first spark of plasma to every megawatt it sends to the grid.

You will be our first heating hire and own radio frequency heating, current drive and the plant power balance end to end. You will report to the Head of Physics and Reactor Design, and work closely with our physics, in-vessel, magnet and electrical owners and our external research partners.

What you'll do

• Define Unit One's heating and current drive, starting from a blank page: which radio frequency systems (ion cyclotron, electron cyclotron or others), at what power andfrequency, and for which jobs, from plasma start-up to current drive, heating and profile control
• Set the requirements for each system with plasma physics, in-vessel and magnets
• Own the power balance of the whole plant: heating, cryogenics, magnets, and every other load
• Define and own the interfaces to the vacuum vessel, blanket, in-vessel components, electrical supply and control systems
• Integrate heating and current drive into Unit One and carry the designs towards factory manufacturing, supplier qualification and production-ready documentation
• Build and lead the heating team, growing it as the program moves from design to prototypes to factory production, with a strong safety and quality culture

What we're looking for

• PhD or MSc in plasma physics, physics, electrical and RF engineering or a related field, or equivalent experience
• Hands-on use of wave propagation and absorption codes and integrated scenario modelling
• Working knowledge of radio frequency sources, transmission lines and launchers, such as gyrotrons, amplifiers, and antennas
• Able to build a plant-level power balance and explain its trade-offs to engineers and non-specialists
• Comfortable making design calls with incomplete information and documenting the reasoning, in clear written and spoken English

Bonus points:

• Demonstrated work on radio frequency heating or current drive for a fusion experiment
• Heating, current drive or non-inductive start-up on a spherical tokamak
• Work with industrial radio frequency or microwave suppliers
• Power plant systems studies
• Experience in a nuclear or other regulated environment

What we offer

• Ownership of how a fusion reactor is heated, driven and powered, from conceptual design onwards
• Office and lab in Munich and Garching, with remote work possibility

We welcome applications from senior and early-career scientists and engineers, and from people moving into fusion from radio frequency and microwave engineering, aerospace, particle accelerators or power electronics. If you meet most of the must-haves and the work excites you, apply.