{"id":41662,"url":"https://alion.io/job/proximafusion-burning-plasma-physicist","title":"Burning Plasma Physicist","company":{"id":8931,"name":"Proxima Fusion","domain":"proximafusion.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/proximafusion","size_band":"51-200","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":83,"open_postings":12,"ghost_share":0.083,"stale_share":0.25,"repost_share":0.083,"time_to_fill_p50_days":84,"computed_at":"2026-10-17T05:46:00Z"}},"role":"Science & Research","role_family":"Science & Research","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":["Munich, Germany"],"countries":["DE"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":56000,"max_usd":146000,"period":"year","method":"role_country_seniority_unknown","sample_n":42},"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"C++","optional":false},{"name":"Fortran","optional":false},{"name":"Julia","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"Machine Learning","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-05-29T07:00:26Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-05-29","last_verified_at":"2026-10-18T11:40:41Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":142,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":0,"flags":[],"days_open":141},"description":"WHO WE ARE\nProxima Fusion is Europe’s fastest-growing fusion company and the continent’s best-funded fusion player, as well as the first spin-out from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP). Backed by over €650M and powered by a growing team across Munich, Zurich, and Oxford, we are developing the hardware and infrastructure needed to deliver the world’s first commercial stellarator fusion power plant.\nOur concept advances the most mature fusion technology out there, the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator, through two next-generation machines: Alpha and Stellaris. Our work combines stellarator optimization, advanced computation, machine learning, and high-temperature superconducting magnets to unlock higher-performance designs that were previously out of reach.\nTurning these designs into a functioning fusion power plant requires excellence and ownership across every discipline, from physics and engineering to software, manufacturing, law, and business functions.\nTEAM AND ROLE\nShape the architecture of the world’s first commercial fusion power plant - Own system-level decisions that determine how a first-of-a-kind energy technology is designed, integrated, and ultimately deployed at scale.\n\nSolve some of the most complex engineering challenges in industry - Work across tightly coupled disciplines (plasma physics, magnets, cryogenics, manufacturing, controls, and more) to resolve critical trade-offs and turn cutting-edge science into a functioning product.\n\nBuild real hardware with a pragmatic, fast-moving team from all over the world - Combine advanced simulation and systems thinking with a strong execution mindset, focusing on practical engineering solutions that accelerate the path to commercial fusion energy.\n\nWHY JOIN PROXIMA FUSION\nWorking with us, you have the chance to:\nOwn critical aspects of burning plasma physics that govern the viability and performance of steady-state fusion reactors.\n\nDevelop and apply state-of-the-art kinetic and hybrid simulation tools to assess plasma and reactor performance.\n\nTranslate your results directly into stellarator design decisions with reactor-scale consequences.\n\nContribute to the European initiative leading the critical path to a fusion power plant.\n\nCollaborate closely with theorists, computational physicists, and engineering teams in a highly interdisciplinary environment focused on building real fusion devices.\n\nYOUR IMPACT\nIn a fusion reactor, fusion-born alpha particles play a central role in plasma self-heating and overall reactor performance. Their confinement, transport, and interaction with collective plasma instabilities directly determine whether a burning plasma can remain stable, efficient, and economically viable. At reactor scale, energetic particle driven Alfvénic activity can enhance fast ion losses, exacerbating plasma loads on the first wall and other in-vessel components. As such, this interaction is critical to include in the design of reactor relevant magnetic configurations and their corresponding operational scenario.\nAs an Burning Plasma Physicist at Proxima, you will lead efforts to understand, model, and optimize energetic particle behavior in reactor-scale stellarator plasmas. Your work will focus on fast-ion confinement, energetic particle transport, and bulk plasma interactions mediated through Alfvénic activity. You will develop and apply advanced numerical tools to assess alpha particle confinement, characterize instability-driven transport, and guide stellarator optimization toward robust burning plasma operation.\nThis role offers a rare opportunity to shape the physics foundations of a commercial stellarator power plant. Your work will directly influence plasma performance, reactor operating limits, and the ability of future devices to achieve reliable steady-state fusion power. By connecting first-principles plasma physics to reactor design decisions, you will help define the path toward practical burning plasma operation in optimized stellarators.\nWHAT YOU WILL DO\nLead the development, validation, and application of advanced energetic particle transport workflows for assessing burning plasma physics in reactor-scale stellarator plasmas.\n\nInvestigate energetic particle driven instabilities, including Alfvén eigenmodes and related EP-MHD interactions, and assess their impact on plasma performance.\n\nEnsure alpha particle confinement remains within the tolerable limits of plasma facing components under reactor-relevant operational scenarios.\n\nWork closely with stellarator optimization teams to incorporate energetic particle physics constraints into magnetic configuration design.\n\nDevelop reduced-order models and analysis workflows to accelerate reactor design studies and scenario optimization.\n\nWHO YOU ARE\nHold a postgraduate degree in plasma physics, or a related discipline.\n\nHave strong expertise in energetic particle transport, burning plasma physics, or kinetic plasma instabilities.\n\nBring experience studying EP-MHD interactions, including Alfvén eigenmodes, fast-ion driven instabilities, or related wave-particle interaction physics.\n\nHave experience using advanced simulation tools for kinetic, orbit-following, gyrokinetic, or hybrid MHD modeling.\n\nBe proficient in scientific programming languages such as Python, Julia, C++, and/or Fortran.\n\nBe comfortable working across disciplines, collaborating closely with physicists and engineers to solve open-ended reactor design challenges.\n\nTake initiative, communicate clearly, and be motivated by solving open-ended physics challenges critical to commercial fusion energy.\n\nINTERVIEW PROCESS\nRecruiter Interview (30-60 min)\n\nTechnical Screening (30 min)\n\nTechnical Panel (3x60 min)\n\n*This role sits at L2 of our framework, please inquire during the recruitment process for further information.\nAt Proxima Fusion, our mission is bold: making limitless clean energy a reality. To get there, we need a high-performing, diverse team that brings different perspectives, challenges assumptions, and builds together with purpose. We know that diversity of thought and experience leads to better ideas, stronger execution, and a more resilient team. We don’t look at how you identify, what you look like, who you choose to worship or what ethnicity you are. 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