X

Xcimer Energy

Develops inertial fusion power using laser

Vice President of Human Resources

Full-Time
$210k - $250k/yr
Expert
Bachelor's, Master's, MBA
Denver, CO, USA
In Person
People & HRHR Generalist & Employee Relations
No H1B Sponsorship
US Citizenship Required

About the job

Requirements
  • A bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Organizational Psychology, or a related field is required; a master's degree or Master of Business Administration is preferred.
  • At least 15 years of progressive Human Resources leadership experience, including executive-level leadership in high-growth technology, aerospace, advanced manufacturing, energy, defense, or similarly complex engineering organizations.
  • Experience scaling organizations through rapid growth while building modern Human Resources systems, processes, and leadership capability.
  • Experience partnering directly with executive leadership teams on organizational strategy and executive decision-making.
  • Deep expertise across organizational design, leadership development, employee relations, total rewards, performance management, Human Resources operations, compliance, and workforce planning.
  • Experience building and leading high-performing Human Resources teams.
  • Experience shaping culture through leadership development, organizational design, performance systems, and manager capability building.
  • Strong business acumen connecting people strategy to organizational performance and business outcomes.
  • Executive communication, influence, and change-management skills demonstrated through enterprise-wide transformation initiatives.
  • Ability to assess cultural health, identify organizational risks, and guide leadership through complex culture-related decisions or interventions.
  • Experience leveraging Human Resources technology, analytics, and workforce data to improve organizational effectiveness and business performance.
  • Must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident, or lawfully admitted into the United States as a refugee or granted asylum.
Responsibilities
  • Serve as a strategic advisor to the Executive Leadership Team on organizational strategy, leadership effectiveness, workforce planning, succession planning, and culture.
  • Partner with executive leadership to define, articulate, and reinforce cultural principles and leadership expectations for the company's next stage of growth.
  • Develop and execute a long-term People strategy supporting rapid growth from research and development through commercialization and multi-site expansion.
  • Build, mentor, and lead a Human Resources organization spanning Human Resources Business Partners, Total Rewards, Human Resources Operations, Learning and Development, and Employee Experience.
  • Partner with executive leadership on organizational design, executive coaching, leadership development, and succession planning.
  • Develop a leadership principles framework that drives accountability, collaboration, respectful debate, and decision-making across engineering, scientific, and manufacturing teams.
  • Lead compensation, equity, executive compensation, performance management, promotion, and career development programs while ensuring market competitiveness and internal equity.
  • Develop scalable people systems, policies, and operating rhythms that enable high performance while preserving the company's entrepreneurial culture.
  • Build cultural operating mechanisms including onboarding, feedback systems, recognition programs, manager-effectiveness processes, and leadership rituals across sites and functions.
  • Drive workforce planning that develops and retains exceptional technical and business talent.
  • Champion organizational health through employee engagement, leadership effectiveness, performance management, recognition, and continuous feedback programs.
  • Monitor cultural health through engagement analytics, manager-effectiveness metrics, retention trends, and qualitative insights; proactively identify cultural drift or emerging organizational risks.
  • Develop programs that reinforce desired cultural behaviors and address gaps, including manager capability building, leadership development, and cross-team collaboration initiatives.
  • Lead complex employee-relations matters, investigations, risk management, and employment-law compliance while partnering with Legal and executive leadership.
  • Establish governance mechanisms that reinforce cultural expectations, address misaligned leadership behaviors, and ensure organizational consistency as the company grows and diversifies.
  • Oversee Human Resources technology, people analytics, reporting, and workforce insights to enable data-driven decision-making.
  • Build and scale programs supporting onboarding, leadership development, manager capability, learning, internal mobility, and succession planning.
  • Ensure compliance with federal, state, and local employment regulations while establishing Human Resources operational excellence.
  • Develop annual people budgets, headcount planning models, and organizational investment strategies aligned with company objectives.
  • Serve as a member of the leadership team, contributing to enterprise strategy, organizational scaling, capital planning, and company performance.
  • Serve as a visible leader and culture champion across the organization while reinforcing the company's mission and values.
  • Develop organizational strategies supporting geographic expansion.
Desired Qualifications
  • Experience supporting organizations that scaled from fewer than 200 employees to more than 1,000 employees.
  • Experience supporting engineering, scientific research, hardware development, manufacturing, or deep-technology organizations.
  • Experience designing executive compensation and equity programs for venture-backed companies.
  • Experience leading organizations through commercialization, manufacturing scale-up, or international expansion.
  • Familiarity with government contracting, export controls, security-cleared workforces, or regulated industries.
  • Experience implementing enterprise Human Resources Information Systems, talent-management, and people-analytics platforms.
  • Demonstrated success building high-performance cultures within mission-driven organizations.
  • Experience scaling culture through rapid growth, multidisciplinary technical teams, and multi-site expansion in engineering-centric environments.

About the company

Xcimer Energy develops inertial fusion energy technology aiming to generate fusion-powered electricity. Its system uses a 10+ megajoule KrF laser to ignite a hydrogen fusion target inside a HYLIFE-style liquid-wall chamber, which absorbs fusion energy and shields reactor walls for long life. The approach combines a high-energy laser, a consumable fusion target, and a liquid-wall chamber to pursue scalable, laser-driven inertial confinement fusion for power generation. The company’s goal is to make commercial fusion power a reality for utilities within the next decade.

Company Size

51-200

Company Stage

Grant

Total Funding

$148.3M

Headquarters

Denver, Colorado

Founded

2021

Get referred to Xcimer Energy

See people who can refer or advise you

Simplify Jobs

Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • Xcimer raised $100 million in June 2024 and nearly $200 million total.
  • The company expanded Denver in May 2026 and planned to double headcount.
  • DOE funding, June 2026 approval, and RTX backing improve financing and recruiting access.

What critics are saying

  • Vulcan site selection slipped past 2025; further delays push commercialization beyond 2035.
  • Athena needs multi-megajoule lasers, tritium breeding, and grid integration before any revenue.
  • Any Phoenix-to-Anvil performance miss would strand Xcimer’s capital-intensive laser platform.

What makes Xcimer Energy unique

  • Xcimer’s June 2026 DOE-approved Athena roadmap validates its KrF inertial-fusion architecture.
  • Phoenix started operations June 3, 2026, proving 1-kJ excimer amplification and 38-meter SBS compression.
  • RTX partnered September 9, 2026, giving Xcimer defense-market validation beyond fusion alone.

Help us improve and share your feedback! Did you find this helpful?

Benefits

  • Health Insurance
  • Dental Insurance
  • Vision Insurance
  • Life Insurance
  • Disability Insurance
  • 401(k) Company Match
  • Paid Vacation
  • Paid Sick Leave
  • Paid Holidays
  • Company Equity

Growth & Insights and Company News

Headcount

6 month growth

-3%

1 year growth

-3%

2 year growth

-3%
StreetInsider
Oct 6th, 2026
Xcimer Energy secures $30.5M DOE funding for laser fusion development, bringing total federal support to $43.5M

Denver-based Xcimer Energy has secured an additional $30.5 million from the US Department of Energy's Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program. This brings the company's total potential DOE milestone funding to $39.5 million, with an additional $4 million previously received from ARPA-E in 2024. The laser fusion company is developing excimer laser technology designed for commercial fusion power plants. Unlike conventional solid-state approaches, Xcimer's architecture uses cost-effective gas lasers and a two-beamline configuration. In June, Xcimer launched Phoenix, the world's largest privately owned laser system. The company recently partnered with RTX to develop directed-energy air defence systems, with RTX also making an investment in Xcimer. Xcimer targets putting electricity on the grid by the mid-2030s. The company has raised approximately $200 million from investors including Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Lowercarbon Capital.

Associated Press
Sep 10th, 2026
RTX invests in Xcimer Energy to develop laser fusion technology for air defense systems

RTX Ventures has made a minority investment in Xcimer Energy Corporation to support development of scalable pulsed-laser technologies. Xcimer has raised nearly $200 million from investors including Hedosophia and Breakthrough Energy Ventures. The companies signed a teaming agreement to explore integrating Xcimer's laser technology into RTX's defence systems for defeating airborne threats. Xcimer's fusion pilot power plant design was approved by the US Department of Energy in June as part of the Milestone-based Fusion Development Program. The excimer laser system aims to deliver longer-range performance at lower cost than current directed energy systems. Xcimer expects to deliver fusion energy to the grid by the mid-2030s. RTX's chief technology officer Juan de Bedout said the partnership will explore integrating Xcimer's technology with RTX's expertise in advanced sensing and air defence.

Business Wire
Jun 10th, 2026
DOE approves Xcimer's fusion power plant design, clears path to commercial laser fusion

Xcimer Energy has secured US Department of Energy approval for its preconceptual design and technology roadmap for Athena, its fusion power plant architecture. The milestone, part of the DOE's Fusion Milestone Development Program, positions the Denver-based startup amongst frontrunners to commercialise fusion energy. Xcimer's 724-page submission detailed plant performance targets, economics, engineering requirements, safety analyses and development pathways. Athena integrates the company's proprietary excimer laser platform with target delivery, fusion chamber, tritium breeding and power generation systems designed for industrial scale. The approval follows Xcimer's launch of Phoenix, the world's largest privately owned laser system, at its 74,000-square-foot Denver facility. Founded in 2022, Xcimer is developing laser fusion technology targeting costs under $100 per joule with a chamber design requiring no first-wall replacement.

TechCrunch
Jun 3rd, 2026
World's largest privately owned laser switched on by fusion startup Xcimer Energy

Fusion startup Xcimer Energy has activated its Phoenix laser system, which the company claims is the world's largest privately owned laser. The system uses excimer amplification to generate over one kilojoule of energy through a 38-metre-long krypton-fluoride laser core. Xcimer's approach mirrors the National Ignition Facility, which in December 2022 demonstrated a controlled fusion reaction producing more power than required to ignite it. The company aims to improve upon this concept using more powerful, less complex lasers that compress fuel targets in nanoseconds rather than microseconds. Phoenix represents an early step towards a commercial fusion power plant, which Xcimer estimates would require lasers exceeding 12 megajoules. The company plans to complete a prototype by 2028 and build its first commercial-scale power plant in the mid-2030s.

Business Wire
May 12th, 2026
Xcimer Energy hires defence VP as fusion startup scales team to 400 amid $90M facility build

Xcimer Energy has hired Doug Kunzman as Vice President of Defence as the Denver-based fusion startup scales towards commercial operations. Kunzman brings extensive military and aerospace experience, including commanding US Navy warships and leading operations at Blue Origin and Astra. The company, which now employs nearly 200 people, plans to double its workforce over the next year to advance Vulcan, its next-generation laser fusion facility. Xcimer is developing excimer-laser architecture for scalable inertial fusion energy with applications in energy resilience and national security. Recent leadership additions include Brad Appel as Chief Engineer for Vulcan, previously CTO at Ursa Major and SpaceX; Justin Brynestad as Senior Vice President overseeing Vulcan programme execution; and Rachel Konrad as Senior Vice President of Strategic Communications. Founded in 2022, Xcimer has secured Department of Energy funding.