---
title: 'Senior Technical Program Manager at Thea Energy'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-technical-program-manager-thea-energy-kearny-b3w70ca7w66b'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-10-28'
---

# Senior Technical Program Manager at Thea Energy

- **Company:** Thea Energy
- **Location:** Kearny, NJ
- **Compensation:** $130k–$180k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-10-23
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-28
- **Apply:** https://jobs.lever.co/thea.energy/bc7535ad-b111-4eb4-af82-0ec3258681d7

## Job description

About Thea Energy: Thea Energy is leveraging recent breakthroughs in stellarator physics and engineering to create a faster and simpler approach to commercializing fusion energy. The company is reinventing the stellarator using computer-controlled arrays of planar coils thereby replacing the intricate, complex modular magnets required in all other stellarator architectures. Thea Energy is on a mission to create a limitless source of zero emission energy for a sustainable future.

Position Overview: Thea Energy is seeking an experienced and motivated Technical Program Manager to lead a large, complex custom product development program within the fusion energy industry. This is a highly visible role in the organization leading manufacturing development of core magnet technology. This role will act as a force multiplier by increasing development velocity and raising the bar on execution standards. You will oversee the scaling of magnet production from concept to pilot and commercial scale ramps that will advance fusion technology.

Key Responsibility Areas:

- Lead cross-functional manufacturing and operations programs from concept through pilot production, including process and equipment design, installation, qualification, and ramp.

- Oversee the selection, qualification, and management of external custom manufacturing vendors, ensuring adherence to specifications, quality standards, and delivery schedules.

- Guide the transition from prototype to large-scale manufacturing, including the integration of large equipment and continuous process manufacturing techniques.

- Provide regular, detailed program updates to leadership and stakeholders, highlighting progress, technical challenges, and proposed solutions.

- Establish and track key manufacturing readiness metrics (equipment readiness, process capability, throughput, yield etc.)

- Proactively identify and manage technical, schedule, budget, and quality risks.  develop effective mitigation strategies and contingency plans.

Ideal Experience & Skillsets:

- Bachelor's degree in Engineering or a related technical field.

- 5+ years leading complex, multidisciplinary engineering programs ideally involving large scale hardware development in climate tech, aerospace, nuclear, or related industries.

- Demonstrated experience of working in a manufacturing ramp setting and delivering concept and pilot scale manufacturing development milestones.

- Demonstrated ability to work deeply with technical teams (physics, mechanical engineering, magnet engineering, manufacturing engineering) and solve first of a kind problems.

- Strong understanding of design and manufacturing processes and the realities of design, build, test cycles.

- Excellent communication skills and the ability to influence across engineering, operations, and leadership teams.

- Proven ability to distill complex technical programs into clear risks, decisions, and priorities for leadership audiences.

- Comfortable operating in a fast-moving startup environment, with high ownership and ambiguity.

Nice to have:

- Manufacturing roadmap development experience.

Company Benefits:

- Comprehensive health benefits (e.g. medical/dental/vision)

- Employee equity stock options

- 20 days PTO

It’s not necessary to meet all of the skillsets outlined above. Please feel free to send us a note and tell us why you would still be a great fit for this role or Thea Energy.

Diversity and Inclusion: Thea Energy is an equal opportunity employer committed to creating a company of diverse backgrounds. By creating a diverse environment, we will bring new ideas and approaches to solving some of the world’s hardest (and most important) problems. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, family or marital status, age, disability, veteran’s status, or other characteristic protected by applicable laws and regulations.

## About Thea Energy

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Thea Energy is developing a simplified, economical stellarator fusion energy system using arrays of mass-manufacturable planar magnets and dynamic software controls.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Startup; founded in 2022)
- **Headquarters**: Kearny, New Jersey, USA
- **Founded**: 2022
- **Founders**: Founded with technology developed at Princeton University (specific founder names not publicly listed on main site).

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Fusion Energy / Clean Energy / Climate Tech
- **Target customers**: Utilities, grid operators, industrial energy users, and governments seeking baseload, zero-emission power generation.
- **Mission**: "To create a limitless source of zero emission energy for the future of humanity." [thea.energy](https://thea.energy/)

## Products & Services
- **Eos (Neutron Source Stellarator)**: A near-term commercial neutron source designed to achieve world-leading fusion performance and de-risk their first fusion power plant. [thea.energy](https://thea.energy/)
- **Helios (Fusion Power Plant)**: The company’s first planned full-scale fusion power plant, intended for commercial electricity generation. [thea.energy](https://thea.energy/)
- **Software-Defined Magnetics Platform**: The core technology differentiator—replacing complex, expensive 3D magnet coils with arrays of simpler, mass-manufacturable planar magnets controlled by a sophisticated software stack. This transfers hardware complexity into the digital realm. [thea.energy](https://thea.energy/)

## Market Standing
- **Valuation / Total Funding**: Not publicly disclosed.
- **Key Metric**: Private startup; notable for its technological breakthrough rather than public revenue. The company has active job postings (41 roles listed on Indeed) and is in a high-growth hiring phase. [indeed.com](https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Thea-Energy/about)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Announced a collaboration with **NVIDIA**, **Synopsys Inc**, **Argonne National Laboratory**, and **Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL)** to build the first digital twin of a stellarator fusion power plant using AI physics and engineering. [indeed.com](https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Thea-Energy/about)
- **Growth Signals**: Rapidly growing team; active hiring across engineering, supply chain, finance, and marketing roles; partnership with major tech and national lab players; progression from a science project (Eos) toward a commercial power plant (Helios).

## Competitive Advantages
- **Planar Magnet Arrays**: Replaces the prohibitively complex and expensive 3D coils of traditional stellarators with simple, mass-manufacturable planar magnets. This radically reduces cost and manufacturing complexity. [thea.energy](https://thea.energy/)
- **Software-First Approach**: Transfers the geometric complexity from hardware to a dynamic software control system, leveraging decades of progress in computing and controls to simplify the physical build. [thea.energy](https://thea.energy/)
- **Stellarator Advantage**: The stellarator is the only magnetic confinement system that creates all required fields with superconducting coils, enabling steady-state operation (no plasma disruptions), which is a key advantage over tokamaks. [thea.energy](https://thea.energy/)

## Strategic Focus
- **Commercialization of Eos**: Achieving near-term fusion performance and commercial operation with their neutron source stellarator.
- **De-risking Helios**: Using Eos as a stepping stone to validate technology and reduce risk for their first full-scale fusion power plant.
- **Digital Twin Development**: Leveraging AI and simulation (with NVIDIA, Synopsys, Argonne, PPPL) to accelerate design, operation, and optimization of their fusion systems.
- **Scaling the Organization**: Building out a multi-disciplinary team spanning fusion science, engineering, supply chain, and business functions.

## Why Work Here
- **Mission-Driven Work**: Opportunity to work on one of the biggest challenges facing humanity—creating limitless, zero-emission energy. [thea.energy](https://thea.energy/careers/)
- **Culture**: Described as dynamic, flexible, and adaptive, balancing strong individual autonomy with a collective team spirit. Employees are empowered to take ownership of their career growth. [thea.energy](https://thea.energy/careers/)
- **Diversity & Inclusion**: Explicitly committed to building a diverse workplace and encourages applications even if candidates don't meet every listed requirement. [thea.energy](https://thea.energy/careers/)
- **Work Model**: Roles are listed as **On-site** in Kearny, NJ (for most technical and corporate roles) and some internships. [jobs.lever.co/thea.energy](https://jobs.lever.co/thea.energy)
- **Benefits**: Competitive salaries, health benefits (medical/dental/vision), employee equity, 20 days PTO, paid holidays and sick time, paid parental leave, 401k, life and disability insurance, and office perks. [thea.energy](https://thea.energy/careers/)

## Sources
1. [thea.energy](https://thea.energy/)
2. [thea.energy/about-us](https://thea.energy/about-us/)
3. [thea.energy/careers](https://thea.energy/careers/)
4. [jobs.lever.co/thea.energy](https://jobs.lever.co/thea.energy)
5. [indeed.com](https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Thea-Energy/about)

## Other roles at Thea Energy

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