{"id":2177544,"url":"https://alion.io/job/focused-principle-control-systems-engineer-fmd","title":"Principle Control Systems Engineer (f/m/d)","company":{"id":24087,"name":"Focused Energy","domain":"focused.ai","url":"https://alion.io/company/focused-ai","size_band":"201-500","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"A","score":95,"open_postings":6,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":71,"computed_at":"2026-10-10T05:45:15Z"}},"role":"Industrial Engineering","role_family":"Industrial Engineering","seniority":null,"employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Darmstadt, Germany"],"countries":["DE"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"RTOS","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-09T12:25:54Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-09","last_verified_at":"2026-10-12T03:03:15Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":2,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":2},"description":"About Focused Energy\nFocused Energy is an international deep-tech company based in Germany and the US, working to commercialize laser-driven nuclear fusion. Our mission is to provide clean, safe, and virtually unlimited energy to the world. We are rapidly scaling and looking for talented individuals who thrive in building clarity and structure within fast-growing environments.\nJoin us as a Principal Control Systems Engineer and help to provide the clean energy of the future. In this role, you will help shape the long-term control systems architecture and technical vision, defining standards and leading the end-to-end delivery of critical control systems across our experimental and production environments in Germany and the USA, in collaboration with a passionate, cross-functional team.\nWhat You’ll Do\nDesign the system-level architecture for control systems across facilities, making strategic platform and technology choices in collaboration with program and system owners\n\nDirect real-time and embedded control solution implementation, selecting and guiding use of PLC, FPGA and other real-time platforms, balancing performance, reliability, safety and cost trade-offs\n\nWork together with system integrators, electrical engineering, cabinet builders, and technicians to specify, design, review, test, install, and commission control cabinet hardware and field devices\n\nWork together with the software team to architect and deliver fully integrated SCADA, HMI and data systems for alarms, logging, historian, analytics, data reduction, dashboards, etc., ensuring scalability and high performance\n\nOrchestrate system integration across multiple complex subsystems and teams; define observability, logging and diagnostic strategies and lead root-cause investigations and post-mortem studies of active systems to deliver lessons learned and contribute to continuous availability improvement\n\nShape requirements, documentation and validation approaches at system level, including design specs, interfaces and test strategies for reliability, safety and long-term maintainability\n\nCoach and mentor senior and junior engineers, identify capability gaps, grow technical capabilities in key skill areas, and champion best practices for software engineering, testing, quality, and ways of working within the controls team and beyond\n\nWho You Are\nDegree in Electrical/Electronic Engineering, Control/Automation, Mechatronics/Robotics, Physics or similar; PhD or equivalent experience preferred, with recognition as a technical expert in control/embedded or real-time systems\n\nTypically 10+ years in control/embedded systems, factory or plant automation, automated test systems, or complex scientific experimental work, with architectural ownership across multiple projects or products\n\nDeep experience in at least one relevant domain (e.g., high energy lasers, nuclear, robotics, power/energy, automotive, aerospace, industrial automation) with understanding of domain constraints standards and regulations, as well as supplier ecosystems and main players\n\nProven track record specifying control cabinet hardware; defining house standards, ensuring compliance with regulations, liaising with system integrators, and creating test plans and quality control processes\n\nProven track record specifying control software and/or SCADA and data acquisition systems; defining interfaces, patterns and coding standards across teams, and guiding technology trade-offs\n\nExtensive experience with embedded and real-time platforms (e.g., PLCs in ST IEC 61131-3, FPGAs, RTOS-based systems, robotics), including selecting platforms and scaling architectures with clear RAM vs cost/reliability trade-offs\n\nUnderstanding of software/firmware engineering best practices (version control, branching, design for test, CI/CD, automated testing, defensive programming) and experience introducing or improving these practices, and organizing or conducting training programs across teams or organizations\n\nExcellent communicator (English), able to influence technical direction at organization level, handle and resolve ambiguities in requirements and processes, and build alignment across hardware, software, product and operations teams in hybrid, cross-site environments\n\nPractical, hands-on approach with a strong track record orchestrating large-scale HW/SW integration, resolving integration challenges, and leading complex debugging and fault-finding on real systems\n\nDesirable skills and knowledge (please highlight any of the following in your application):\nDeep experience with PLC programming in ST (IEC 61131-3); Beckhoff PLCs and TwinCAT system design and architecture, multi-PLC distributed control\n\nSCADA (especially Ignition) and/or designing and deploying SCADA systems and applying cross-site HMI standards for large-scale and complex systems\n\nEmbedded or real-time systems (FPGAs, RTOS, microcontrollers, robotics), including platform selection and long-term maintainability strategies\n\nLabVIEW architect level (CLA) with focus on FPGA and embedded targets,\n\nExperience with complex scientific equipment or large-scale facilities, including diagnostics, vacuum systems, motion platforms and safety interlocks\n\nImage processing and machine vision, motion control and robotics, high-precision stepper/piezo systems and encoders\n\nFocused Energy is an equal opportunity employer committed to creating an inclusive environment. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender perception or identity, national origin, age, marital status, protected veteran status, or disability status.\nPursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, Focused Energy will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.\nCompensation offered will be determined by factors such as location, level, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Certain roles may be eligible for incentive compensation, equity, benefits.","description_format":"text","description_chars":6017,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"phd","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[{"language":"English","level":"All levels","optional":false}]},"benefits":["Equity"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Electrical & Electronic Engineering"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-09T14:20:20Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":90,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.903,"p_room":1,"age_days":0,"expected_fill_days":71,"reasons":["conf:3","velocity","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-10-10T05:45:15Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/focused-principle-control-systems-engineer-fmd","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/focused-principle-control-systems-engineer-fmd.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-12T06:33:00Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":10565,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-13T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":24087},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=24087"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Ffocused-principle-control-systems-engineer-fmd"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Ffocused-principle-control-systems-engineer-fmd"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Ffocused-principle-control-systems-engineer-fmd"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/focused-principle-control-systems-engineer-fmd\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Ffocused-principle-control-systems-engineer-fmd"}]}