Site Development Program Manager

Proxima Fusion GmbH; München; On-site; EUR 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Proxima Fusion GmbH in Munich seeks an experienced Senior Program Manager to lead the site development program across multiple projects, ensuring feasibility, stakeholder alignment and a coherent permitting strategy.

You will coordinate with project managers, manage schedules and budgets, build scalable infrastructure plans, and report to senior leadership in a fast‑growing deep‑tech environment.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience leading site development programs (greenfield or brownfield) in energy/industrial sectors.
• Proven ability to manage multiple projects in parallel through a structured, gate-based approach.
• Strong stakeholder management with site owners and utilities.
• Ability to extract technical requirements from engineers without deep engineering background.
• Fluency in German and English required by regulatory and stakeholder landscapes.
• Capable of building program structures from scratch in a fast‑scaling environment.

Responsibilities

• Lead Proxima Fusion's site development program across multiple parallel projects, owning feasibility, partner relationships, and permitting strategy.
• Coordinate schedules, budgets and deliverables with project managers to align on a single program roadmap.
• Define and run the program's decision-gate structure from initial approval to final investment decision.
• Represent Proxima Fusion to site owners, utility partners and regulatory bodies, building constructive partnerships.
• Own the permitting landscape across the portfolio, integrating radiation protection, environmental permitting and building permits where relevant.
• Develop organizational and infrastructure scaling plans moving toward multi-GW scale.
• Report program status, risks and key decisions to senior leadership.

Skills

Program management

Stakeholder management

Cross-functional leadership

Requirements gathering

German & English fluency

Building program structure

Job description

Who We Are

Proxima Fusion is Europe’s fastest-growing fusion company and the continent’s best-funded fusion player, as well as the first spin‑out from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP). Backed by over €650M and powered by a growing team across Munich, Zurich, and Oxford, we are developing the hardware and infrastructure needed to deliver the world’s first commercial stellarator fusion power plant.

Who We Are

Proxima Fusion is Europe’s fastest-growing fusion company and the continent’s best-funded fusion player, as well as the first spin‑out from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP). Backed by over €650M and powered by a growing team across Munich, Zurich, and Oxford, we are developing the hardware and infrastructure needed to deliver the world’s first commercial stellarator fusion power plant. Our concept advances the most mature fusion technology out there, the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator, through two next-generation machines: Alpha and Stellaris. Our work combines stellarator optimization, advanced computation, machine learning, and high-temperature superconducting magnets to unlock higher-performance designs that were previously out of reach. Turning these designs into a functioning fusion power plant requires excellence and ownership across every discipline, from physics and engineering to software, manufacturing, law, and business functions.

BY JOINING OUR TEAM YOU’LL GET TO

• Build the machine that builds the machine. Join TechOps at the forefront of advanced manufacturing, we’re building the production system that will enable commercial fusion. The Production lines, tooling, and processes are being developed from the ground up; you’ll create the ways of working, not inherit them.
• Work at the frontier of manufacturing technology. Bring your creativity to evaluate, qualify, and deploy processes with no industry playbook, every component you build and every process you shape goes directly into the core of the stellarator magnet technology.
• Do work that matters, and see it grow. The hardware you build is the product and your career grows with it, from prototyping and process development through quality and industrialization, alongside exceptional colleagues from around the world.
• Make an impact you can point to. In a small, fast-moving team, your calls on equipment, quality, and process directly shape how a world-class deep-tech company produces superconducting magnets with results visible on the shop floor, not buried in a slidedeck.

YOUR IMPACT

You’ll hold Proxima Fusion’s site development portfolio together as one program, spanning projects such as Stellaris, our manufacturing and testing infrastructure, and other site development work. Working closely with the project managers who lead each project, you’ll make sure feasibility, key partner relationships and permitting strategy are handled coherently across the portfolio. Without this role, projects risk optimizing for themselves while the issues that cut across them fall through the gaps.

What You Will Do

• Lead Proxima Fusion’s site development program across multiple parallel projects, owning feasibility, key partner and stakeholder relationships, and permitting strategy
• Work closely with the project managers leading each site, aligning their schedules, budgets and deliverables to a single program roadmap
• Define and run the program’s decision-gate structure, from initial project approval through to final investment decision, including deliverables, readiness levels, and cost and schedule tracking
• Represent Proxima Fusion to site owners, utility partners and other key stakeholders, building constructive, diplomatic partnerships across sites with different contexts and regulatory histories
• Own the permitting landscape across the portfolio, including radiation protection law, environmental permitting, building permits and other approvals where relevant, and sequence parallel approval processes into one coherent strategy
• Build organizational and infrastructure scaling plans that look beyond near‑term needs, from initial capacity towards multi‑GW scale
• Report program status, risks and key decisions to senior leadership

Who You Are

• Extensive experience leading greenfield or brownfield energy or industrial site development programs through to final investment decision, ideally on former or adjacent nuclear sites or other heavily regulated sites
• A track record of managing multiple projects in parallel at different stages of maturity, using a structured, gate‑based approach
• Skilled at building productive relationships with incumbent site owners and utilities, and comfortable working within formal, process‑driven stakeholder cultures
• Able to pull together detailed technical requirements from engineers and specialists without needing a deep engineering background yourself
• Fluent in German and English, which the regulatory and stakeholder landscape requires
• Comfortable building program structure from scratch in a fast‑scaling, first‑of‑a‑kind environment

INTERVIEW PROCESS

• Recruiter Interview (30-60 min)
• Technical Screening (30 min)
• Technical Panel (3x60 min)

At Proxima Fusion, our mission is bold: making limitless clean energy a reality. To get there, we need a high‑performing, diverse team that brings different perspectives, challenges assumptions, and builds together with purpose. We know that diversity of thought and experience leads to better ideas, stronger execution, and a more resilient team. We don’t look at how you identify, what you look like, who you choose to worship or what ethnicity you are. We care about what you can bring to the table.