Overview In this role you lead Helion's Materials Interactions and Diagnostics team to advance materials for fusion environments. You'll shape long-term technical roadmaps, oversee infrastructure and modeling platforms, and drive cross-functional collaboration to extend material life and reliability. You will guide high-impact R&D in a fast-paced setting, ensuring delivery of tools to monitor and predict material performance at extreme conditions. This is a strategic, onsite leadership role central to achieving Helion's mission of a world with unlimited clean electricity.
Compensation / Benefits- Medical, Dental, and Vision plans
- 31 Days of PTO
- 10 paid holidays plus winter break
- Up to 5% employer 401(k) match
- Paid parental leave and support (up to 16 weeks)
- Annual wellness stipend
Responsibilities- Set and execute the strategic vision and roadmaps for materials interactions and diagnostics across characterization, modeling, monitoring, and lifetime prediction.
- Lead and develop subject matter experts to deploy new lab infrastructure and monitoring technologies, and build predictive models.
- Own end-to-end delivery of infrastructure and platforms including advanced characterization systems, in-situ monitoring, and integrated modeling frameworks.
- Build a network of internal and external collaborations to develop materials capable of surviving fusion environments.
- Translate annual goals into concrete tasks and manage planning and schedules to meet milestones.
Key requirements- 10+ years of materials-related industry experience
- 3+ years of management experience
- Proven track record leading R&D teams delivering complex technologies
- Deep expertise in materials characterization, degradation mechanisms, and lifetime prediction (high temperature and stress-driven phenomena)
- Experience with multiphysics modeling (Matlab, COMSOL, Python) and integrating modeling into decision-making
- Expertise in NDT and in-situ diagnostics with proven monitoring capability advancements
- Demonstrated success in hiring, mentoring, and developing managers and senior technical talent
- Ability to operate autonomously in ambiguous, fast-paced environments with strategic thinking
- leadership
- strategic thinking
- communication
- materials characterization
- degradation mechanisms
- lifetime prediction
