---
title: 'R&D Manager – Control Systems at Helion'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/r-d-manager-control-systems-helion-everett-59g1gz5213e8'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-11-07'
---

# R&D Manager – Control Systems at Helion

- **Company:** [Helion](https://feeny.ai/companies/helion)
- **Location:** Everett, WA
- **Compensation:** $182k–$214k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-01-14
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-07
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/helion/424e1bb6-efd4-4306-b659-ff4fea3eb7f2/application

**Skills:** LabVIEW, NI Hardware, PXI, cRIO, RT, FPGA, PLCs, C, Matlab, Control Systems, Data Acquisition

> Manage the control systems team in the R&D department, leading the development and maintenance of control and data acquisition systems for fusion power plant prototypes. The role involves overseeing cross-team collaborations, particularly for the Orion machine, and ensuring successful delivery of technical specifica...

## Job description

## About Helion

We are a fusion power company based in Everett, WA, with the mission to build the world's first fusion power plant, enabling a future with unlimited clean electricity. Our vision is a world with clean, reliable, and affordable energy for everyone.

Since Helion's founding in 2013, we have raised $1.5 billion from long-time investors such as Sam Altman, Mithril, and Capricorn Investment Group as well as new investors including Thrive Capital, LightSpeed Venture Capital, SoftBank, and others to propel us forward. Our current prototype, Polaris, has reached record-breaking plasma temperatures of 150 million degrees Celsius (13 keV). Helion is continuing to iterate and on the path to the world's first fusion power plant, Orion.

This is a pivotal time to join Helion. You will tackle real-world challenges with a team that prizes urgency, rigor, ownership, and a commitment to delivering hard truths – values essential to achieving what no one has before. Together, we will change the future of energy, because the world can't wait. What You Will Be Doing: You will manage the Control Systems team within Helion’s R&D department in delivering reliable control and data acquisition systems that enable rapid experimentation while creating a scalable foundation for increasingly complex machines. This team delivers and maintains systems for high-voltage electrical test bays, plasma-technology test bays, production and manufacturing end-of-line testing, and large field-reversed configuration (FRC) plasma machines. Your near-term focus will be strengthening and standardizing control system architectures, hardware, software, and development practices across these applications. This includes advancing blended systems that use LabVIEW and NI hardware for FPGA and real-time layers, with API wrappers enabling Python or other text-based user interfaces and workflows. Over time, the team’s scope may expand to include contributions to the control system for Orion, Helion’s first fusion power plant. This is an onsite role that reports directly to the R&D Manager at our Everett, WA office. You Will:

- Manage 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
- Manage and develop a high-performing engineering team through clear expectations, actionable feedback, accountability, and technical rigor
- Partner with your manager and company leaders to define the team’s strategy, build cross-team alignment, advocate for growth, and hire the talent needed to deliver it

Required Skills:

- 2+ years of technical and performance management experience, including setting clear expectations, providing actionable feedback, and building accountability
- Strong proficiency with LabVIEW and NI hardware in control system applications, including PXI, cRIO, real-time systems, and FPGA, with the ability to increase the team’s technical capability
- Demonstrated experience driving cross-team collaboration, developing team strategy with other leaders, building support for growth, and hiring new talent
- Experience developing control and data acquisition systems for large-scale, complex hardware
- Strong cross-functional communication and collaboration skills
- Experience designing or integrating blended control systems that connect LabVIEW and NI layers with Python, C/C++, MATLAB, or other text-based code through well-defined APIs
- Experience using AI-assisted coding tools to accelerate code development, unit testing, or workflow automation

#LI-Onsite

## Benefits

Our total compensation package includes benefits, including but not limited to:

- Medical, Dental, and Vision plans for employees and their families
- 31 Days of PTO (21 vacation days and 10 sick days)
- 10 Paid holidays, plus company-wide winter break
- Up to 5% employer 401(k) match
- Short term disability, long term disability, and life insurance
- Paid parental leave and support (up to 16 weeks)
- Annual wellness stipend

Helion is an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. If you need assistance or an accommodation during the interview process, please let us know.

## About Helion

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Helion is building the world’s first fusion power plant to deliver clean, reliable, and affordable baseload electricity.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series G – $465M raised in 2026 at a $15.5B post-money valuation, led by Thrive Capital)
- **Headquarters**: Everett, Washington, USA (with additional facilities in Chelan County, WA)
- **Founded**: 2013
- **Founders**: David Kirtley (CEO), Anthony Pancotti, and others

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Fusion energy generation (clean energy / climate tech)
- **Target customers**: B2B – utilities, large-scale energy buyers (e.g., Microsoft, Nucor), and data center operators
- **Mission**: Build the world’s first fusion power generators to provide clean, reliable, and affordable electricity for everyone.

## Products & Services
- **Polaris**: The latest prototype fusion machine – a 19‑meter device with 50 MJ capacitor banks that demonstrated deuterium‑tritium fusion in early 2026. It is a pulsed, field‑reversed configuration (FRC) reactor designed to directly convert fusion energy into electricity (no steam turbine).
- **Orion**: The planned first commercial fusion power plant, targeting 50 MW of electricity to Microsoft data centers by 2029. Modular, factory‑built generators that can be shipped to customers.
- **HERCULES Program**: A $4M initiative funding 20 research institutions to develop enabling technologies for scaled fusion deployment.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: $15.5 B (post‑money Series G, 2026)
- **Key Metric**: Total funding raised – $465 M (Series G) plus prior rounds (undisclosed total). Annual revenue not applicable (pre‑revenue).
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Sam Altman (early backer, recently stepped off board), Thrive Capital (lead Series G), Microsoft (first PPA for fusion energy), Nucor (500 MW development deal)
- **Growth Signals**: ~600 employees (up from 51‑200 in earlier years); Polaris achieved first privately‑developed DT fusion demonstration; signed first ever fusion power purchase agreement (Microsoft); expanding manufacturing capacity in Washington.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Direct energy conversion**: Helion’s pulsed FRC design recovers electricity directly from the expanding plasma at >95% efficiency, skipping the inefficient steam cycle used by most fusion concepts.
- **Pulsed approach**: The reactor pulses rapidly (sub‑second), producing fusion energy in bursts that can be synchronized to the grid, and uses solid‑state switches capable of hundreds of millions of pulses.
- **Simpler magnets**: FRC plasma is self‑confining, requiring fewer and lower‑field magnets than tokamaks or stellarators, reducing cost and complexity.
- **Fuel flexibility**: Uses deuterium and tritium (with tritium breeding planned) and ultimately can burn advanced fuels (D‑D, D‑He3) as the technology matures.

## Strategic Focus
- **Commercial deployment**: Delivering 50 MW to Microsoft by 2029 (Orion plant); scaling up manufacturing to produce modular generators in factories.
- **Technology maturation**: HERCULES program to solve tritium breeding, materials, and other enabling challenges; advancing Polaris toward net electricity generation.
- **Partnership growth**: Expanding power purchase agreements and development deals with industrial and tech customers to meet surging demand (especially AI data centers).

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: “Urgency, rigor, ownership, and hard truths” – a mission‑driven environment focused on solving the hardest problems in fusion engineering.
- **Work**: Hands‑on with real hardware (capacitors, magnets, plasma diagnostics) across mechanical, electrical, and physics disciplines.
- **Location**: Based in the Pacific Northwest (Everett & Chelan County) with immediate access to skiing, hiking, and water sports.
- **Benefits**: Premier medical/vision/dental (fully employer‑paid options), HSA contributions, wellness stipend, 5% 401(k) match, stock options, up to 12 weeks paid parental leave + 4 weeks for birthing parents, 21 vacation days, 10 sick days, 11 holidays + winter break.
- **Hybrid/Remote**: Not explicitly stated; roles appear to be on‑site in Washington (given the hardware‑focused nature).
- **Open Roles**: Engineers (mechanical, electrical, simulation, controls), magnet analysts, experimental scientists, technicians, machinists – over 100 positions listed.

## Sources
1. [helionenergy.com](https://www.helionenergy.com/) – Company overview, funding, technology, updates
2. [helionenergy.com/careers](https://www.helionenergy.com/careers) – Careers page, values, benefits
3. [helionenergy.com/careers/open-positions](https://www.helionenergy.com/careers/open-positions) – Current job listings
4. [scientificamerican.com](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/helion-energy-is-building-a-fusion-power-plant-can-its-technology-deliver/) – In‑depth profile, 600 employees, Microsoft PPA, Polaris details
5. [indeed.com](https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Helion-Energy?campaignid=mobvjcmp&from=mobviewjob&fromjk=9e3fd74c2e72805f&tk=1jrv4ci0di9cp800) – Company size, revenue, 108 jobs

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