---
title: 'Plant Controller at Vulcan Elements'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/plant-controller-vulcan-elements-research-triangle-park-p2zp2djvdxxb'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-11-08'
---

# Plant Controller at Vulcan Elements

- **Company:** Vulcan Elements
- **Location:** Research Triangle Park, NC
- **Posted:** 2026-09-24
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-08
- **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/vulcanelements/jobs/5427899008

## Job description

Vulcan Elements is manufacturing American rare-earth permanent magnets for a secure, resilient future. With a focus on national security and economic resiliency, we serve critical industries such as defense, aerospace, and automotive powering a high-technology future. Vulcan Elements is building a team of ambitious professionals committed to Mission Focus, Technical Excellence and Integrity. We are seeking a dedicated Plant Controller to join our dynamic and growing team as we scale our operations.

Position Overview: The Plant Controller will own site-level financial leadership at our commercial manufacturing facility in Benson, NC. This role is the financial backbone of plant operations — partnering daily with finance and operations leadership while reporting into the corporate finance organization.

This is a hands-on role in a fast-moving environment. You'll build cost accounting infrastructure, stand up controls, and drive financial discipline in a facility that will scale rapidly. You will play a key role in ensuring the company’s financial health as we expand our domestic manufacturing capabilities and support critical industries with innovative rare-earth permanent magnet technology.

Key Responsibilities:

- Own daily and monthly plant financial results and KPIs, including reporting to plant and corporate leadership.
- Serve as the site finance lead for ERP and MES initiatives, including data integrity between production systems and the general ledger.
- Collaborate with FP&A to oversee all aspects of inventory costing and management ensuring accurate financial reporting.
- Partner with operations and manufacturing engineering to translate MES/shop-floor data into accurate costing, yield, and other reporting.
- Manage plant-level fixed asset accounting and reporting.
- Own the site-level month-end close, including inventory, fixed assets, accruals, and intercompany activity, on a corporate close calendar.
- Design, document, and operate site-level internal controls over inventory, costing, fixed assets, and procurement; support SOX-readiness and external audit requests.
- Build and develop a site finance/cost accounting team as the plant scales.

Responsibilities and tasks outlined are not exhaustive and may change as determined by the needs of the business.

Qualifications:

- Bachelor’s degree in accounting, finance, or a related field.
- 7–10+ years of progressive accounting/finance experience, including significant time in a plant controller, cost accounting manager, or similar site-level manufacturing finance role.
- Deep experience in manufacturing, industrial or technology environments.
- Experience in a high-growth or scaling enterprise — comfort building processes, not just running them.
- Strong US GAAP knowledge in areas relevant to manufacturing and fixed assets (ASC 330 Inventory, ASC 360 Fixed Assets).
- Excellent analytical skills, attention to detail, and ability to work in a fast-paced environment.
- Proven leadership and communication skills with the ability to collaborate across departments.
- Experience with government contracting is a plus.

Must be a U.S. Person due to required access to U.S. export-controlled information or facilities.

## About Vulcan Elements

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Vulcan Elements manufactures American rare-earth permanent magnets to build a resilient, Western supply chain for critical industries including defense, aerospace, automotive, and AI datacenters.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Seed + Series A + Debt financing)
- **Headquarters**: Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States (primary R&D operations also in Research Triangle Park, NC)
- **Founded**: 2023
- **Founders**: John Maslin (CEO) and Dr. Piotr Kulik (CTO)

## Core Business
- Primary industry: Advanced manufacturing of rare earth permanent magnets (neodymium).
- Target customers: B2B and government/defense – enterprise customers in defense, aerospace, automotive, industrial, consumer electronics, AI datacenters, semiconductor fabrication.
- Mission: "Improving U.S. and allied security by producing the Rare Earth Magnets that are critical to economic and national security." – [vulcanelements.com](https://vulcanelements.com/)

## Products & Services
- **Rare Earth Permanent Magnets (Neodymium)**: High-performance sintered and bonded magnets used in motors, generators, sensors, and actuators. Application areas include defense systems, satellites, AI datacenters, semiconductor fabrication, consumer electronics, industrial motors, power tools, and non-drive train motors. – [vulcanelements.com](https://vulcanelements.com/)
- **R&D and Process Optimization**: Developing next-generation magnetic technologies and advanced manufacturing processes focused on efficiency, cost competitiveness, and supply chain transparency. – [vulcanelements.com](https://vulcanelements.com/)

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: Not publicly disclosed.
- **Total Funding**: $690.2 million (as of November 2025) across three rounds:
  - Seed Round (Dec 2023): $5.2M – 3 investors.
  - Series A (Sep 2025): $65M – led by Washington Harbour Partners and Altimeter.
  - Debt Financing (Nov 2025): $620M – led by the Department of Defense’s Office of Strategic Capital (OSC). – [cbinsights.com](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/vulcan-elements) / [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/vulcan-elements)
- **Key Metric**: Total funding $690.2M; production output of 10 metric tons in 2025.
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Department of Defense’s Office of Strategic Capital, Washington Harbour Partners, Altimeter.
- **Growth Signals**: 
  - Announced a $1.4 billion partnership with the United States government.
  - Selected Benson, North Carolina, for a 1.1 million sq ft facility – the largest magnet manufacturing plant outside China.
  - Employee headcount of 38 (+200% YoY) as of mid-2026.
  - Rapidly scaling pilot operations; 37 open job listings on Greenhouse. – [vulcanelements.com](https://vulcanelements.com/) / [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/vulcan-elements) / [greenhouse.io](http://job-boards.greenhouse.io/vulcanelements)

## Competitive Advantages
- **Domestic Supply Chain**: The only U.S. company vertically integrating rare earth magnet production, reducing reliance on Chinese supply.
- **Technical Expertise**: Co-founder Dr. Piotr Kulik is one of four rare earth magnet science professors in the U.S. and opened the first academic rare earth magnetics lab in the country in over 20 years.
- **Government Backing**: Strong ties to U.S. national security agencies and over a billion dollars in government-funded partnerships.
- **Process Innovation**: Proprietary process optimization methods aimed at cost competitiveness without sacrificing performance.
- **National Security Focus**: All operations require U.S. Person status, aligning with defense and aerospace customer needs.

## Strategic Focus
- **Scale Production**: Transition from pilot-scale (10 metric tons/year) to mass production at the Benson, NC facility to meet surging demand from defense, AI, and automotive sectors.
- **Supply Chain Resilience**: Partnering exclusively with U.S. and allied-country suppliers (UK, Australia, Japan).
- **R&D**: Developing next-generation magnetic materials and advanced manufacturing processes.
- **Talent Acquisition**: Actively hiring engineers, scientists, operations, and business development talent to support rapid growth. – [greenhouse.io](http://job-boards.greenhouse.io/vulcanelements)

## Why Work Here
- **Mission-Driven Culture**: Employees contribute directly to national security and economic resilience, with values of Mission Focus, Technical Excellence, and Transparency. – [vulcanelements.com](https://vulcanelements.com/careers/)
- **Benefits**: Competitive equity, unlimited PTO, 90% health insurance (100% for employee), 99% dental and vision, 401K, fully stocked kitchen. – [vulcanelements.com](https://vulcanelements.com/careers/)
- **Work Environment**: Fast-paced startup with a "startup manufacturer" ethos; roles are largely on-site in Research Triangle Park, NC or Benson, NC. Internship opportunities available with mentorship and real impact on critical projects.
- **Growth Opportunity**: Extremely high headcount growth (+200% YoY) and large-scale facility expansion offer rapid career advancement.
- **U.S. Person Requirement**: Many positions require U.S. Person status due to government contracts.

## Sources
1. [vulcanelements.com](https://vulcanelements.com/)
2. [vulcanelements.com/careers](https://vulcanelements.com/careers/)
3. [greenhouse.io (Vulcan Elements jobs)](http://job-boards.greenhouse.io/vulcanelements)
4. [linkedin.com/company/vulcan-elements](https://www.linkedin.com/company/vulcan-elements)
5. [cbinsights.com/company/vulcan-elements](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/vulcan-elements)

## Other roles at Vulcan Elements

- [Career Fair - Warehouse](https://feeny.ai/job/career-fair-warehouse-vulcan-elements-benson-n5405817jadv) — Benson, NC
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