Principal Control Systems Engineer

About Focused Energy

Focused Energy is an international deep-tech company based in Germany and the US, working to commercialize laser-driven nuclear fusion. Our mission is to provide clean, safe, and virtually unlimited energy to the world. We are rapidly scaling and looking for talented individuals who thrive in building clarity and structure within fast-growing environments.

Join us as a Principal Control Systems Engineer and help to provide the clean energy of the future. In this role, you will help shape the long-term control systems architecture and technical vision, defining standards and leading the end‑to‑end delivery of critical control systems across our experimental and production environments in Germany and the USA, in collaboration with a passionate, cross‑functional team.

What You’ll Do

• Design the system‑level architecture for control systems across facilities, making strategic platform and technology choices in collaboration with program and system owners

• Direct real‑time and embedded control solution implementation, selecting and guiding use of PLC, FPGA and other real‑time platforms, balancing performance, reliability, safety and cost trade‑offs

• Work together with system integrators, electrical engineering, cabinet builders, and technicians to specify, design, review, test, install, and commission control cabinet hardware and field devices

• Work together with the software team to architect and deliver fully integrated SCADA, HMI and data systems for alarms, logging, historian, analytics, data reduction, dashboards, etc., ensuring scalability and high performance

• Orchestrate system integration across multiple complex subsystems and teams; define observability, logging and diagnostic strategies and lead root‑cause investigations and post-mortem studies of active systems to deliver lessons learned and contribute to continuous availability improvement

• Shape requirements, documentation and validation approaches at system level, including design specs, interfaces and test strategies for reliability, safety and long‑term maintainability

• Coach and mentor senior and junior engineers, identify capability gaps, grow technical capabilities in key skill areas, and champion best practices for software engineering, testing, quality, and ways of working within the controls team and beyond

Who You Are

• Degree in Electrical/Electronic Engineering, Control/Automation, Mechatronics/Robotics, Physics or similar; PhD or equivalent experience preferred, with recognition as a technical expert in control/embedded or real‑time systems

• Typically 10+ years in control/embedded systems, factory or plant automation, automated test systems, or complex scientific experimental work, with architectural ownership across multiple projects or products

• Deep experience in at least one relevant domain (e.g., high energy lasers, nuclear, robotics, power/energy, automotive, aerospace, industrial automation) with understanding of domain constraints standards and regulations, as well as supplier ecosystems and main players

• Proven track record specifying control cabinet hardware; defining house standards, ensuring compliance with regulations, liaising with system integrators, and creating test plans and quality control processes

• Proven track record specifying control software and/or SCADA and data acquisition systems; defining interfaces, patterns and coding standards across teams, and guiding technology trade‑offs

• Extensive experience with embedded and real‑time platforms (e.g., PLCs in ST IEC 61131‑3, FPGAs, RTOS‑based systems, robotics), including selecting platforms and scaling architectures with clear RAM vs cost/reliability trade‑offs

• Understanding of software/firmware engineering best practices (version control, branching, design for test, CI/CD, automated testing, defensive programming) and experience introducing or improving these practices, and organizing or conducting training programs across teams or organizations

• Excellent communicator (English), able to influence technical direction at organization level, handle and resolve ambiguities in requirements and processes, and build alignment across hardware, software, product and operations teams in hybrid, cross‑site environments

• Practical, hands‑on approach with a strong track record orchestrating large‑scale HW/SW integration, resolving integration challenges, and leading complex debugging and fault‑finding on real systems

• Desirable skills and knowledge (please highlight any of the following in your application):

  • Deep experience with PLC programming in ST (IEC 61131‑3); Beckhoff PLCs and TwinCAT system design and architecture, multi-PLC distributed control

  • SCADA (especially Ignition) and/or designing and deploying SCADA systems and applying cross-site HMI standards for large-scale and complex systems

  • Embedded or real‑time systems (FPGAs, RTOS, microcontrollers, robotics), including platform selection and long‑term maintainability strategies

  • LabVIEW architect level (CLA) with focus on FPGA and embedded targets,

  • Experience with complex scientific equipment or large‑scale facilities, including diagnostics, vacuum systems, motion platforms and safety interlocks

  • Image processing and machine vision, motion control and robotics, high‑precision stepper/piezo systems and encoders

Focused Energy is an equal opportunity employer committed to creating an inclusive environment. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender perception or identity, national origin, age, marital status, protected veteran status, or disability status.

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, Focused Energy will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

Compensation offered will be determined by factors such as location, level, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Certain roles may be eligible for incentive compensation, equity, benefits.