R&D Control Systems Lead — LabVIEW, FPGA & AI-Driven

Helion Energy; Everett (WA); On-site; USD 170,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

31 days PTO

10 paid holidays

Company 401(k) match

Disability & life insurance

Parental leave

Wellness stipend

Job summary

Helion Energy in Everett, WA, is seeking a lead for its Controls Engineering team within R&D to deliver reliable control and data acquisition systems for high-profile plasma experiments. You will standardize architectures across LabVIEW and NI hardware, including PXI and real-time systems, with Python interfaces and APIs, driving scalable, maintainable solutions.

The role reports onsite to the R&D Manager and partners with scientists, engineers, and operators to accelerate development and ensure

Qualifications

• Demonstrated technical leadership experience; prior formal management experience is not required.

Responsibilities

• Lead the Controls Engineering team in the timely delivery of reliable control and data acquisition systems supporting R&D operations.
• Set technical direction and improve development practices across architecture, coding, testing, deployment, configuration management, and documentation.
• Advance scalable, maintainable blended architectures and use AI-assisted tools to accelerate code development, unit testing, and workflow automation.
• Partner closely with scientists, engineers, machine operators, production teams, and other stakeholders to translate operational needs into effective controls solutions.
• Lead, coach, and mentor engineers through clear expectations, actionable feedback, and technical rigor.
• Anticipate technical and staffing constraints and demonstrate potential to take on broader strategic and organizational leadership.

Skills

Technical leadership

LabVIEW

NI hardware

FPGA

Real-time systems

Python

C/C++

Cross-functional

Tools

LabVIEW

PXI

cRIO

MATLAB

Job description

Helion Energy in Everett, WA, is seeking a lead for its Controls Engineering team within R&D to deliver reliable control and data acquisition systems for high-profile plasma experiments. You will standardize architectures across LabVIEW and NI hardware, including PXI and real-time systems, with Python interfaces and APIs, driving scalable, maintainable solutions.

The role reports onsite to the R&D Manager and partners with scientists, engineers, and operators to accelerate development and ensure