---
title: 'Test Engineering Manager at Thea Energy'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/test-engineering-manager-thea-energy-kearny-b6b39djqhkav'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-10-14'
---

# Test Engineering Manager at Thea Energy

- **Company:** Thea Energy
- **Location:** Kearny, NJ
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-06-24
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-14
- **Apply:** https://jobs.lever.co/thea.energy/7fea3859-d4e5-4069-8bf1-2882af56fbd1

## 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 a Test Engineering Manager to serve as a cornerstone of our hardware validation strategy. This role is central to the organizational build-up of a leading fusion energy company and requires a high degree of autonomy. You will lead the verification and validation efforts for our superconducting magnets as well as other critical technology, ensuring that our hardware meets the rigorous demands of a fusion environment. The role will require close alignment and cross-functional leadership across test, manufacturing, mechanical, and physics organizations. Your efforts will directly contribute to ensuring design success, enabling us to drive forward towards our commercial fusion energy goal. Thea Energy’s dynamic team is made up of self-motivated individuals with an excitement for solving complex problems.

Key Responsibility Areas:

- Develop and own test validation strategy, including defining the testing milestones required to qualify High-Temperature Superconducting (HTS) magnets, cryogenic systems, and high vacuum components.
- Act as a subject matter expert for the test engineering team. You will lead, mentor, and grow a team of engineers and technicians, fostering a culture of rigorous data integrity and "first-principles" problem-solving.
- Oversee the high-level design and build of large, custom, cryogenic and high power test stands. You will coordinate test needs across projects, identify test capability requirements, and allocate test resources across projects.
- Analyze complex datasets to troubleshoot system-level failure modes. You will work closely with magnet, electrical, and controls teams to ensure test results directly inform and de-risk the next generation of stellarator design.
- Lead relationships with key vendors for specialized hardware and for advanced test facilities, managing high-value procurement contracts and coordinating external design, build, and validation efforts to meet aggressive project timelines.
- Establish and enforce rigorous commissioning, maintenance, and calibration procedures as well as safety protocols for high-voltage, high-field, and cryogenic environments, ensuring all operations meet or exceed IEEE, ANSI, and IEC standards where applicable.

Required Experience & Skillsets:

- 7–10+ years of hardware-centric test engineering experience in high-stakes environments (e.g., fusion, aerospace, superconducting magnets).
- BS or MS in Electrical Engineering, Applied Physics, or a related field.
- Proven track record of leading people, hiring to build out teams, and managing the verification and validation lifecycle for integrated systems.
- Mastery of LabVIEW and Python, with expertise in automating complex, multi-day cryogenic and electromagnetic tests.
- Demonstrated ability to work with a high degree of autonomy and make critical engineering decisions under tight deadlines.
- Exceptional ability to translate complex test data into actionable insights for executive leadership and external stakeholders.
- Ability to work through and solve highly multidisciplinary engineering problems.
- Ability to take initiative, work independently and as part of a team.
- Exceptional work ethic, with clear communication and collaboration skills.
- Ability to occasionally lift objects up to 50 lbs.

## #LI-RD1

Company Benefits:

- Salary Range $145,000 - $185,000
- Comprehensive health benefits (e.g. medical/dental/vision)
- Employee equity stock options
- 20 days PTO

Requirements:

- Ability to occasionally lift up to 50 lbs.
- Ability to perform activities such as typing, standing, or sitting for extended periods of time.
- Willingness to occasionally travel or work required nights/weekends/on-call.
- Ability to work in a facility that contains industrial hazards including heat, cold, noise, fumes, strong magnets, high voltage, high current, pressure systems, and cryogenics.

## #LI-RD1

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)

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