---
title: 'Senior Materials Engineer, Ceramic Fabrication at Helion'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-materials-engineer-ceramic-fabrication-helion-everett-y1cpswmcs9e0'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-05'
---

# Senior Materials Engineer, Ceramic Fabrication at Helion

- **Company:** [Helion](https://feeny.ai/companies/helion)
- **Location:** Everett, WA
- **Compensation:** $164k–$236k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-04-06
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-05
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/helion/f1844ffb-0a67-4152-95c1-93ef595fa422/application

**Skills:** Ceramic processing, Ceramic forming, Ceramic densification, Scale-up, Bulk ceramics, CMCs, Ceramic powder processing, Firing, Post-processing, Testing, Characterization, Materials Engineering, Project Management, Radiation-exposed ceramics, Extreme environment testing

> The Senior Materials Engineer leads the fabrication, scale-up, and deployment of advanced ceramic and CMC components for fusion energy applications. This role involves managing multi-disciplinary projects from lab-scale development to full-scale hardware, ensuring performance under extreme conditions while collabora...

## 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 contribute to the fabrication, scale‑up, and deployment of advanced ceramic and CMC components, taking materials from lab‑scale development through small‑scale prototypes to full‑scale functional hardware designed for extreme fusion environments. You will report to the Manager of Nuclear Ceramics, in this onsite role located at our Everett, WA office.

You Will:

- Lead high‑impact, multi‑disciplinary projects focused on ceramic processing, forming, densification, and scale‑up for materials operating under fusion generator conditions, including high neutron radiation.
- Drive the translation of ceramic materials from laboratory formulations to prototype parts and full‑scale components, ensuring repeatability, performance, and manufacturability at each stage.
- Contribute to the delivery of Helion’s inorganic hardware needs, including plasma containment vessels, electrical insulators, resistive components, and structural ceramics, with hands‑on ownership of fabrication methods.
- Serve as the internal ceramics fabrication owner, acting as the “go‑to” person for scalable ceramic processing routes, scale‑up risks, vendor capabilities, and production readiness across the company.
- Navigate an environment with technical obstacles and evolving requirements, balancing fabrication risk, schedule, and performance without compromising delivery.
- Partner with internal Helion teams, external vendors, national laboratories, and universities to develop scalable ceramic fabrication capabilities, qualify processes and suppliers, and close technical gaps.
- Represent Helion in technical discussions, supplier reviews, and conferences related to ceramic processing, prototyping, and scale‑up.

Required Skills:

- Demonstrated achievement performing bulk and CMCs ceramic process development and fabrication for a material or component used in a commercial product or integral to a large, single‑unit system (e.g., engines, turbines, reactors, or large pressure vessels).
- 8+ years of industry experience in ceramics or materials engineering, including delivering projects from lab development through prototype fabrication to full‑scale components, including design reviews.
- Proven experience planning and executing ceramic component development efforts guided by milestone schedules, with accountability for hardware delivery.
- Hands‑on experience with ceramic powder processing, forming, firing, post‑processing, testing, and characterization.
- Experience using ceramic processes to produce large ceramic components and implementation of strategies to reduce scale-up risks.
- Desired but not required: experience with radiation‑exposed ceramics or extreme environment testing.
- A strong bias for action, with the ability to learn through rapid prototyping, hands‑on fabrication, and iterative scale‑up, executing with urgency in high‑uncertainty environments.

#LI-Onsite #LI-TM1

## 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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