Full-Time
Pulsed Power Engineer
Updated on 5/12/2026
Zap Energy
51-200 employees
Develops and licenses fusion plasma confinement
Compensation Overview
$110k - $160k/yr
San Diego, CA, USA
In Person
Travel 12-25% (every 4-8 weeks) to Seattle HQ and other locations.
 Electrical Engineering (2) |
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- BS or MS in Electrical Engineering, Engineering Physics, Applied Physics or similar
- 4-7 years experience with Pulsed Power/High Voltage Electronics design and testing
- Experienced with high voltage pulsed power systems (20kV+, 100kA+, 10’s ns – 100us’s) and architectures including marx generators, LTD, high energy capacitor banks
- Familiar with typical pulsed power components such as spark gap switches, thyristors, capacitors
- Understands pulsed power diagnostics such as rogowskis, high voltage probes, b-dot / magnetic probes
- Familiar with 3D Finite Element Analysis modeling tools for Electrostatic, transient dynamic, and circuit modeling
- Proficient with Ansys Maxwell 3D
- Experienced with high voltage safety equipment and procedures such as safing capacitor banks, discharge and grounding sticks, high voltage energy dump systems
- Enjoys working in the lab, has good lab housekeeping habits, comfortable developing, assembling, and using test fixtures for high voltage systems
- Knowledgeable in various insulating systems including vacuum, pressurized insulating gas like SF6, breakdown in air, and insulating materials like polymers and ceramics
- Experienced with hi-potting and high voltage power supplies
- Good communication skills developing project plans and providing status and reporting to management and stakeholders
- Strong testing and troubleshooting skills. Competent with typical electronics bench tools such as oscilloscopes, probes, signal generators, power supplies, impedance analyzers
- Decent soldering and rework skills
- Maintain excellent safety environment and complete all safety training on time
- Design and implement high voltage pulsed power components, test fixtures, and assemblies that are manufacturable, professional, and commercially applicable
- Test high voltage pulsed power components and systems safely and effectively
- Participate in engineering development process including conducting design reviews, and team/project meetings
- Follow established development processes and workflows and use industry best practices
- Participate in Review and Planning (R&P) activities supporting company, team, and personal periodic milestones and goals, and have regular 1:1 discussions with manager
- Communicate effectively using various tools including email, Slack, Confluence, Jira, Microsoft Office
- Familiar with PCB development and tools such as Altium or KiCad, PCB manufacturing, and PCB testing
- Experience with control systems
- Programming in Python, C, or NI Labview
- Familiar with power electronics and switch mode power supplies
- Experienced using solid modeling tools like Solidworks
Zap Energy designs and commercializes fusion energy using plasma confinement with a sheared-flow stabilized Z-pinch. The system uses electric currents and magnetic fields to compress plasma until fusion occurs, seeking a more compact and potentially lower-cost path to fusion compared with traditional approaches. The company monetizes through licensing and selling its technology to large energy providers and government entities, supported by patents and ongoing development. Differentiation comes from its specific Z-pinch approach, emphasis on licensing, and focus on bringing a scalable fusion solution to market rather than building full-scale power plants alone. The goal is to provide a clean, abundant energy source by enabling fusion power generation for customers through its technology licensing and partnerships.
Company Size
51-200
Company Stage
Series D
Total Funding
$337.8M
Headquarters
Seattle, Washington
Founded
2017
Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- FuZE-3 achieved 1.6 gigapascals plasma pressure, record for Z-pinch systems in November 2025.
- CEO Zabrina Johal brings nuclear program expertise from General Atomics and U.S. Navy.
- Mizuho Financial Group investment signals institutional confidence from conservative Japanese financial institutions.
What critics are saying
- Helion Energy achieves net electricity gain from fusion by mid-2026, outpacing Zap's timeline.
- Commonwealth Fusion Systems delivers SPARC tokamak first plasma in 2026, securing major utility contracts.
- DOE prioritizes inertial confinement fusion, sidelining Z-pinch funding amid Zap's fission pivot.
What makes Zap Energy unique
- Sheared-flow Z-pinch eliminates expensive magnets and cryogenics required by tokamak competitors.
- Integrated fission-fusion strategy generates near-term revenue while fusion technology matures over decades.
- Century platform develops dual-use liquid-metal cooling for both fission and fusion systems.
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Benefits
Health Insurance
Dental Insurance
Vision Insurance
Paid Vacation
Paid Holidays
401(k) Retirement Plan
Growth & Insights and Company News
6 month growth
↑ 2%1 year growth
↑ 2%2 year growth
↑ 5%Zap named to TIME's list of Top GreenTech Companies 2026. Zap Energy ranks #16 on TIME and Statista's annual list of America's Top GreenTech Companies, making it the top fusion company and the top company located in Washington state.
Fusion Fuel EfficiencyNuclear Fusion is potentially the ultimate green energy source, producing no dangerous byproducts, radioactivity (the only “waste” is helium), or greenhouse gases. And it could be powered by a fuel so abundant that it is a significant percentage of the entire Universe: deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen.But this is also a very difficult to achieve form of energy generation. It requires replicating on Earth the conditions in the core of the Sun, with tremendous pressures and tens or hundreds of millions of degrees.Nuclear fusion has been achieved in physics laboratories for decades, but a net energy-positive fusion reaction is still to be reached. This is what many are racing to accomplish, from the international megaproject ITER to commercial fusion projects like Commonwealth Fusion Systems and Proxima Fusion.Commercial viability will depend not only on achieving stable and energy-positive plasma generation, but also on the general efficiency of the process.One open question is the fuel efficiency. Deuterium is known to be partially absorbed by the walls of the tokamak fusion reactors. Researchers at Princeton University, University of California, University of Tennessee, Sandia National Laboratory, and General Atomics are figuring it out.They published their results in Nuclear Materials and Energy1, under the title “Deuterium retention behaviors of boronization films at DIII-D divertor surface”.Deuterium, Tritium FusionThe lighter an atom is, the more potential energy is released when it undergoes nuclear fusion
Fusion, The Ultimate Energy SourceAs stable, reliable, cheap, and carbon-neutral energy supplies become an increasingly pressing issue, all eyes have been on nuclear solutions.This includes nuclear fission, or the splitting of heavy atoms like uranium, thorium, or plutonium. This technology is making a dramatic comeback on the back of the phasing out of coal and gas power plants, despite the need for baseload power generation, as well as the trends of electrification of transportation, heating, and industrial production.It is, however, not without problems, even for the more advanced 4th generation of nuclear power plants. Most notably, it still involves the handling of highly radioactive materials, something the public is still wary of and never going to be fully environmentally neutral.This is why scientists have been looking at the promises of nuclear fusion, which merge together atoms like hydrogen, the same phenomenon powering the Sun.This would use a fuel that is the most abundant element in the Universe and produce only harmless helium or lithium. It would also be powerful enough to make available essentially infinite energy, with zero risk of explosion or runaway chain reaction.The problem is that producing the required conditions is so hard to achieve that no fusion reactor has ever come close to commercialization so far.This might change in less than a decade, at least according to Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS). The company has just announced that it is moving toward building the first commercial fusion reactor in Virginia .CFS Reactor ProjectCommonwealth Fusion Systems is aiming for its ARC reactor to generate 400 MW for the Virginian power grid, which is enough to power 150,000 homes.This is a radical advancement for the field of nuclear fusion, as it always seemed that the first scale-up reactor was 20-30 years away. Even the massive international endeavor that is ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) is not expected to be finished before 2039.In comparison, the CFS reactor is planned to be built on a site owned by the energy company Dominion (D +0.2%)
Clockwise from upper left: Chris Dunckley of TerraPower Isotopes (with Alexia Cosby); Stoke Space CEO Andy Lapsa; Ingrid Swanson Pultz at the Institute for Protein Design (with Clancey Wolf); and Uri Shumlak, co-founder of Zap Energy. This week on the GeekWire Podcast, we sit down with some of the Seattle region’s “Uncommon Thinkers” — inventors, scientists, technologists and entrepreneurs transforming industries and driving positive change in the world.We recorded the episode on location, backstage at the GeekWire Gala, where we recognized five Uncommon Thinkers through this annual awards program, presented in partnership with Greater Seattle Partners. GeekWire co-founder John Cook, left, and Greater Seattle Partners COO Rebecca Lovell, fourth from left, with the “Uncommon Thinkers” honorees, Andy Lapsa, Ingrid Swanson Pultz, Uri Shumlak, and Chris Dunckley, at the GeekWire Gala. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Lisota)Speaking on the episode are: Uri Shumlak of Zap Energy, right, with GeekWire’s Todd Bishop. (GeekWire Photo / Curt Milton)Uri Shumlak, co-founder and chief scientist at Zap Energy, a physicist leading a team in pursuit of fusion energy, taking a different approach from others in the field. Read the profile.“Uncommon Thinkers” honoree Ingrid Swanson Pultz, a protein design researcher at the University of Washington, is interviewed for the Saturday, Dec
Sustainability: News about the rapidly growing climate tech sector and other areas of innovation to protect our planet. SEE MOREUri Shumlak, co-founder of Zap Energy and professor in the University of Washington’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. (Zap Photo)Editor’s note: This is part of a series profiling five of the Seattle region’s “Uncommon Thinkers”: inventors, scientists, technologists and entrepreneurs transforming industries and driving positive change in the world. They will be recognized at the GeekWire Gala on Dec. 12. Uncommon Thinkers is presented in partnership with Greater Seattle Partners.When he was growing up in Houston, Uri Shumlak used to pump gas at a local station