Chief of Staff, Systems Architecture

About the role

This position is responsible for shaping the foundational architecture of Proxima Fusion's first commercial fusion power plant, defining how complex systems interact to transform stellarator science into a deployable energy technology. The hire will own critical system-level decisions that govern the integration of plasma physics, magnet technology, cryogenics, and controls, ensuring alignment with long-term commercial and operational goals. You will act as a strategic partner to the Chief Scientist, translating ambitious design objectives into coherent, executable architectures that can scale from prototype to gigawatt-level infrastructure. The role requires navigating high-stakes trade-offs between performance, manufacturability, and schedule across a globally distributed, multidisciplinary team. You will drive durable processes and institutional knowledge, building systems that outlive individual contributors and maintain clarity as the organization grows rapidly. Success in this role will be measured by the quality of decisions you enable, the robustness of the architectures you steward, and the degree to which you accelerate execution across the entire fusion stack. You will also own cross-functional initiatives that cut across departments, ensuring alignment and accountability where no natural owner currently exists.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Support the Chief Scientist on strategic projects within their scope, drafting and communicating the department's strategy, plans, and priorities with clarity and precision.
• Build and maintain systems across Systems Architecture teams that support rapid development, including coherent reporting formats, decision-making processes, and operational cadences that keep execution aligned.
• Coordinate cross-team special projects, for example aligning Proxima with external stakeholders and converging on a clear direction, then consolidating information from multiple teams into decision-ready formats.
• Interface with external stakeholders on high-priority topics, contributing to board reporting and preparing the department's quarterly strategy sessions with rigorous, structured thinking.
• Scope and drive strategic projects and organisational change, proactively identifying bottlenecks before they slow the department down and orchestrating solutions that preserve momentum.
• Support budget planning for the department, translating architectural choices into financial implications and enabling informed trade-offs under uncertainty.
• Own the people side of the department, improving onboarding, sourcing candidates through your domain network, and guiding hires from first contact to successful onboarding.
• Translate high-level design intent into concrete system requirements that flow down to plasma, magnetics, cryogenics, controls, and manufacturing teams without loss of fidelity.
• Establish durable infrastructure for decision documentation, ensuring that critical rationale is preserved and accessible to future stakeholders.
• Synthesize complex technical inputs from plasma physics, engineering, and manufacturing into integrated system models that guide architecture selection.
• Evaluate competing technologies and architectures using structured frameworks, balancing performance, risk, schedule, and cost in a fast-moving context.
• Lead the definition of top-level requirements for the Alpha stellarator, ensuring they are measurable, testable, and traceable through the full stack.
• Drive coherence between upstream scientific goals and downstream manufacturing and operational constraints, enabling pragmatic, scalable solutions.
• Act as a primary point of coordination for cross-functional initiatives that demand ownership beyond any single discipline.

Requirements

• You have a technical background and can move comfortably between "plasma beta" and "316LN steel", demonstrating fluency in both physical and engineered systems.
• You are comfortable in high-growth teams, thriving in environments where priorities evolve quickly and ambiguity is the default condition.
• You take things to the finish line, not the 80% mark, showing hands-on accountability and a drive for impact and urgency in delivery.
• You switch cleanly between strategic thinking and execution mode, navigating multi-stakeholder environments with ease while maintaining professionalism in all interactions.
• You can synthesize highly technical information for diverse audiences, from plasma physicists to board-level decision-makers, without sacrificing accuracy or depth.
• You have a strong instinct for building processes that scale, creating structures that remain coherent as teams, tools, and technologies evolve.
• You are rigorous in your approach to requirements and architecture, ensuring that decisions are traceable, justified, and resilient under changing conditions.
• You bring credibility through demonstrated experience in complex technical or engineering environments, enabling trust with peers who are deeply specialized.

Practical notes

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