Member of Technical Staff - Plasma Physics

Maritime Fusion; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

Maritime Fusion is seeking a Plasma Physicist to design and simulate marine deployable tokamaks. The role involves running advanced simulations and optimizing performance while working collaboratively with industry and academia. This is an exciting opportunity to join an early-stage startup focused on revolutionizing global shipping through fusion technology.

Qualifications

• Ph.D/M.S. in Plasma Physics, Nuclear Engineering, or Applied Physics or equivalent experience.
• Experience modeling tokamaks or similar fusion devices from grad school, postdoc, or industry.
• Willingness to handle various startup tasks, including setting up software and forming relationships.

Responsibilities

• Running simulations across the plasma and machine stack including stability and confinement.
• Using tools to analyze and optimize the full system.
• Developing models connecting simulations with real-world designs.

Skills

Modeling tokamaks

Strong coding fundamentals

Engineering fundamentals

Education

Ph.D/M.S. in Plasma Physics, Nuclear Engineering, or Applied Physics

Tools

POP-COM

TokaMaker

ANSYS

COMSOL

Job description

We’re looking for a Plasma Physicist who’s not just into theory—but wants to design, simulate, and help build marine deployable tokamaks. You’ll spend your time running transport and MHD codes, exploring divertor concepts and operational scenarios, and conducting system level tradeoff studies.

Description

AboutMaritime Fusion

Maritime Fusion is building fusion reactors for ships. We’re laser focused on designing, optimizing, and manufacturing HTS tokamaks to decarbonize global shipping and deliver operational energy and HTS technology to defense customers. Since participating in the world's leading startup accelerator, Y Combinator, we’ve moved quickly to plot the most pragmatic path to getting the First of a Kind (FOAK) fusion reactors out in the world in an application most primed to benefit from recent advances in High Temperature Superconducting (HTS) magnet technology. Our founding team brings a unique blend of hands-on engineering experience from Tesla and SpaceX, combined with deep academic expertise in plasma physics and fusion energy technology from academia and industry.

Every startup claims a “fast pace and dynamic environment” but at Maritime Fusion we truly operate in controlled chaos mode. The gravitas of the mission calls for a unique company structure, rewarding high performance and dynamically allocating resources. We’re a small company (for now) with plans to grow a world class fusion workforce. This is an opportunity to join at the very early stage, the stage where all employees wear all hats. We can’t guarantee success, but we can guarantee excitement, worthwhile projects, extreme ownership, and good (great?) vibes. Iron man 1 movie sound track plays on loop in the lab.

What You’ll Be Doing:

• Running simulations across the full plasma + machine stack:plasma equilibriumandmagnetic system optimization,stability & confinement, transport, edge physics, burning plasma physics, diagnostic system design, disruption mitigation.
• Using tools like POPCON, TokaMaker, ASTRA, TGLF, Fuse, CGYRO, BALOO, UEDGE, Bluemira, COMSOL, ANSYS, FEA, and OpenMC to analyze and optimize the full system.
• Developing models and workflows to connect simulations with real-world design constraints.
• Form relationships and foster collaboration with academic & government labs to further optimize and explore the tokamak design space.

What You Bring:

• Ph.D/M.S. in Plasma Physics, Nuclear Engineering, Applied Physics, or similar (or equivalent experience).
• Experience modeling tokamaks or similar fusion devices— from grad school, postdoc, or industry.
• Strong coding and engineering fundamentals.
• Willingness to do the dirty work involved with early stage startups; assemble the office furniture, setup software licenses, form strong external industry relationships.

Compensation:

$120k-200k salary + 0.1%-1% equity + bonuses