Program Director, Plant Control Systems

Xcimer Energy leverages decades of research on Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE) combined with groundbreaking new laser architecture. Our mission is to deploy fusion power plants to meet global decarbonization goals as fast as possible. Xcimer has assembled a team of leaders in tough tech, fusion science, and manufacturing with a track record of rapid execution. Supported by leading investors, Xcimer is uniquely positioned to deliver limitless, clean, fusion power to combat climate change. Join us in powering a better world with inertial fusion.

This is a full-time, onsite role based at our headquarters in Denver, CO.

As the Program Director, Plant Control Systems, you will serve as the program-level owner for the Plant Control System within Xcimer’s IFE Fusion Plant architecture. In this role, you will provide program leadership, integration direction, requirement ownership, and cross-functional coordination to ensure that all Plant Control System sub-elements, and all other Fusion Plant elements, work together coherently within a unified control framework.

You will partner closely with technical architects and Subject Matter Experts, subsystem engineers, and other Program Directors to ensure alignment to top-level requirements, interfaces, safety expectations, operational needs, and program milestones. This role requires exceptional systems thinking, cross-element collaboration, and the ability to guide teams without direct line authority.

Responsibilities:

Program Ownership & Integration

• Serve as the program owner for the Plant Control System within the greater IFE program, ensuring all systems maintain alignment with top-level functional, safety, cyber, and operational requirements!
• Coordinate cross-functional work across systems including Laser, Chamber, Fusion Power Systems, Fuel Processing, Hot Maintenance, Implosion, Facilities, and Power Conversion Systems to ensure proper integration of their subsystem controls into the plant-wide architecture.
• Maintain a program-level understanding of all control system interfaces across the Fusion Plant and ensure they remain synchronized with evolving designs.
• Manage project budgets, resource allocation, and schedules, implementing proactive risk mitigation and reporting on performance metrics.

Requirement Stewardship

• Own and steward top-level requirements, constraints, ICDs, and verification flows for the Plant Control System.
• Ensure subsystem owners and architects correctly interpret and implement plant-wide requirements, pushing necessary updates across other systems when architecture or system needs evolve.

Technical Coordination

• Coordinate with technical architects and SMEs who design the Plant Control System itself, ensuring program direction, priorities, and interfaces remain consistent.
• Facilitate technical decisions when multiple systems interact, ensuring cross-plant integrity without being the sole technical decision-maker.
• Manage the transition from conceptual design to detailed design, fabrication, construction, assembly, and commissioning.

Risk, Schedule, and Cross-System Alignment

• Identify integration risks early, especially those spanning multiple plant systems or critical timing/safety paths, and drive resolution through collaborative planning.
• Work with program management to reflect control system dependencies, integration timelines, and verification needs in the broader IFE schedule.
• Lead key reviews involving plant-wide control readiness, integration checkpoints, and V&V status at the program level.

Communication & Leadership

• Act as the primary interface between Plant Control Systems and the rest of the program organization.
• Communicate priorities, risks, and architectural decisions to Program Directors and Sub-System Owners.
• Collaborate with senior leadership and stakeholders, communicating program status, risks, and opportunities for continuous improvement.
• Influence outcomes without formal people management by aligning stakeholders to shared program goals and system-level reasoning.
• Direct procurement activities and vendor management for long-lead, critical-path fusion system components.

Qualifications:

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in engineering, physics, systems engineering, or equivalent; advanced degree preferred.
• Experience: 12+ years of experience in large, complex technical programs involving:
  • Industrial automation or plant-wide control systems
  • Nuclear, fusion, or high-energy physics environments
  • Safety-critical or high-reliability systems
  • Precision timing or data acquisition systems
  • Demonstrated experience in program management or systems leadership roles coordinating multi-disciplinary technical teams.
  • Strong understanding of system integration, interface control, requirements flow down, and cross-functional technical decision-making.
  • Experience in fusion, nuclear energy, pulsed-power facilities, or industrial control systems at scale.
  • Experience in distributed control systems, historians, and SCADA systems and architectures
  • Electrical power management systems.
  • Ability to lead and influence without direct people management authority.
  • Must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee of granted asylum.

Desired:

• Familiarity with systems engineering frameworks, ICD management, and V&V planning.
• Experience with ML and predictive maintenance based on data and system telemetry.
• Experience developing and building data repositories and distributed data access
• Exposure to cybersecurity practices for industrial/scientific systems.
• Experience in matrixed R&D environments with complex hardware-software integration.