Full-Time

Lead Mechanical CAD & PLM Engineer

Thea Energy

Thea Energy

51-200 employees

Develops fusion power via planar-coil stellarators

Compensation Overview

$130k - $160k/yr

+ Equity stock options

Kearny, NJ, USA

In Person

Bachelor's

Category
Mechanical Engineering (1)
Required Skills
ISO 9001
Siemens Teamcenter

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Requirements
  • A Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering or a related discipline.
  • Five to seven years of professional experience in mechanical design and computer-aided design, including ownership of complex assemblies in Siemens NX or an equivalent commercial computer-aided design package.
  • Hands-on experience administering Teamcenter or another commercial product lifecycle management platform, such as Windchill or Enovia.
  • Demonstrated ability to coordinate across engineering disciplines on shared deliverables, including interface management with systems engineering.
  • Working familiarity with engineering change management, including engineering change orders and engineering change requests, and release control.
  • Strong written and verbal communication skills, particularly in documenting configuration management and product data management administration practices and producing training materials for technical audiences.
Responsibilities
  • Serve as the named owner of a designated top-level assembly, responsible for its structure, release state, and configuration integrity from concept through production.
  • Partner with subassembly leads to maintain alignment between subordinate models and the top-level assembly, including merge cadence, naming conventions, structural standards, interfaces, space claim, and modeling best practices.
  • Drive resolution of configuration conflicts between subassemblies and ensure design intent preservation across the assembly hierarchy.
  • Partner with the Systems Engineer to track and document mechanical-to-electrical, mechanical-to-fluid, and mechanical-to-software interfaces relevant to the assigned top-level assembly.
  • Maintain a product data management-based interface register based on an authoritative source reflecting current physical and logical boundaries between subsystems.
  • Flag interface drift early, including geometry, tolerance, and connector changes, and lead the change-control conversation when shifts occur.
  • Serve as the system administrator for Teamcenter, accountable for environment uptime, system upgrades, and patch cycles.
  • Support Teamcenter licensing negotiations with Siemens and adjacent partners by providing usage information, managing seat allocation, and stewarding annual or multi-year renewals.
  • Scope, test, evaluate, and roll out new Teamcenter features and modules in coordination with information technology and engineering leadership.
  • Lead integration of Teamcenter into the broader company software stack, including interaction with manufacturing and test software platforms.
  • Own user access and permissions for Teamcenter and Siemens NX, including provisioning, role definitions, and periodic access reviews.
  • Define and maintain Teamcenter workflow templates for release, change, and review processes.
  • Audit workflow activity, identify bottlenecks, and iterate workflow design with feedback from company stakeholders.
  • Develop and deliver training on computer-aided design and configuration management practices, including modeling best practices, top-level assembly structure, subassembly coordination, and naming and merge conventions.
  • Build and maintain onboarding and ongoing-use training for Teamcenter, covering navigation, item creation, revision control, and day-to-day data management.
  • Author training and reference materials covering release workflows, including engineering change order and engineering change request initiation, review responsibilities, approval routing, and post-release obligations.
  • Maintain best-practice guides and quick-reference documents for the engineering organization as Teamcenter features and computer-aided design practices evolve.
  • Interface with and provide support to visual effects and marketing groups for graphics generation as necessary.
Desired Qualifications
  • Direct experience as the named owner of a top-level assembly on a hardware product through release.
  • Prior responsibility for product data management license negotiation or vendor management.
  • Familiarity with Model-Based Definition, Design-in-Context methodologies, and Product Manufacturing Information workflows.
  • Experience designing or auditing Teamcenter workflow templates.
  • Experience developing and delivering technical training for engineering teams involving computer-aided design, product data management, or workflows.
  • Experience in fusion energy, aerospace, defense, medical devices, or another regulated hardware environment.
  • Familiarity with NX Open or Teamcenter customization, including BMIDE, ITK, or comparable tools.

Thea Energy is developing nuclear fusion technology to provide grid-scale, zero-emission electricity for utilities and large industries. Its approach centers on reimagining the stellarator with flat, planar superconducting coils and software-controlled magnet systems, enabling continuous fusion operation and easier maintenance, while guiding the Eos neutron-source device and the Helios commercial power plant concept. This design differs from competitors by prioritizing manufacturability, lower capital costs, and agile software control over traditional twisted-magnet stellarators, supported by public-private DOE milestones. The company aims to commercialize fusion as a scalable baseload power source and secure long-term power offtake agreements to replace fossil-fuel generation.

Company Size

51-200

Company Stage

Grant

Total Funding

$145.8M

Headquarters

Princeton, New Jersey

Founded

2022

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Simplify Jobs

Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • Thea raised $100 million Series B on May 27, 2026, then extended it August 18.
  • ARPA-E awarded $20 million on July 27, 2026, funding domestic HTS magnet production.
  • May 13, 2026 full-scale coil operation validated 6T performance for Eos manufacturing.

What critics are saying

  • Eos still needs a 2026 site decision, and construction slips break the 2030 schedule.
  • Helios depends on unproven 324-coil control at scale, despite 2026 magnet tests.
  • Commonwealth Fusion Systems and Helion are chasing grid power first, starving Thea of capital.

What makes Thea Energy unique

  • Thea Energy replaces twisted stellarator coils with mass-manufacturable planar superconducting coils.
  • DOE certified Helios preconceptual design on January 13, 2026, first Milestone Program awardee.
  • Thea is building AI-controlled digital twins with NVIDIA, Synopsys, Argonne, and PPPL.

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Benefits

Health Insurance

Dental Insurance

Vision Insurance

Stock Options

Paid Vacation

Growth & Insights and Company News

Headcount

6 month growth

-1%

1 year growth

0%

2 year growth

5%
The Mirror Democrat and Savanna Times-Journal
Jul 27th, 2026
Thea Energy secures $20M from US DOE to scale domestic HTS magnet production for fusion power

Thea Energy has received a $20 million award from the US Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) through its SCALEUP programme. The New Jersey-based fusion technology company will use the funding to establish the first domestic production line for modular high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets. The company plans to use approximately 300 planar shaping coils in its first large-scale integrated stellarator system, called Eos. Over the past two years, Thea Energy has iterated its coil designs more than 100 times and validated their performance. The SCALEUP programme supports previous ARPA-E awardees in scaling technologies toward market adoption. The award follows Thea Energy's $100 million Series B funding round.

Yahoo Finance
Jun 8th, 2026
Thea Energy builds first fusion power plant digital twin with NVIDIA, Synopsys, and US labs to deliver fusion power by 2035

Thea Energy has announced collaborations with NVIDIA, Synopsys, Argonne National Laboratory and Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory to develop a digital twin of its Helios stellarator fusion power plant. The initiative supports the US Department of Energy's Genesis Mission, which aims to accelerate fusion power development using artificial intelligence. The digital twin will integrate AI and computational tools to analyse vast datasets, rapidly evolve plant designs and test system operations more efficiently than traditional methods. NVIDIA will build the platform using Omniverse libraries, whilst Synopsys will provide multiphysics simulation expertise for the breeding blanket system. Thea Energy's planar coil stellarator architecture uses AI for software controls to continuously optimise the system. The company aims to deliver fusion power by 2035, using the digital twin to shorten development cycles and reduce capital requirements.

Business Insider
May 27th, 2026
Thea Energy raises $100M Series B to accelerate commercial stellarator fusion power plants

Thea Energy, a fusion power startup advancing stellarator technology, has raised $100 million in an oversubscribed Series B round led by US Innovative Technology Fund. General Innovation Capital Partners and Linse Capital participated, alongside existing investors including Lowercarbon Capital and Prelude Ventures. The Kearny, New Jersey-based company will use the funding to expand magnet manufacturing capacity, including adding a second facility, and construct "Eos", a large-scale integrated stellarator system. Thea Energy plans to select a site for Eos this year whilst doubling its team size. Founded in 2022 as a Princeton University spin-out, Thea Energy recently became the first company to receive US Department of Energy certification for its Helios power plant preconceptual design milestone. The company aims to begin construction of its first commercial power plant before 2030.

OODA LLC
Oct 7th, 2025
Thea Energy advances with $30M funding

Thea Energy, a Kearny-based company, is advancing its fusion power goals with significant backing, including a recent fellowship from Amazon Web Services and the International Research Centre on Artificial Intelligence. A spinout from Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and Princeton University, Thea Energy focuses on commercializing stellarator fusion energy. Since its 2022 founding, the company has raised $30 million in investor funding and received additional non-dilutive funding from the U.S.

TechCrunch
Feb 8th, 2024
Thea Energy Raises $20M Series A For Pixel-Inspired Fusion Power Plants

To build a fusion power plant, engineers are forced to make some difficult choices. Do they go with the simpler design and then, while in operation, force the plasma to behave so it doesn’t snuff itself out? Or do they opt for a complex design that’s challenging to build but leads to happier plasma?Or what if there was a way to do both?Thea Energy is hoping that “both” is the right answer. The startup is betting that software can supplant manufacturing precision in its quest to deliver reliable, inexpensive fusion power. It has recently raised a $20 million Series A, TechCrunch has exclusively learned. Prelude Ventures led the round with participation from 11.2 Capital, Anglo American, Hitachi Ventures, Lowercarbon Capital, Mercator Partners, Orion Industrial Ventures and Starlight Ventures.There are two main approaches to fusion power: inertial confinement and magnetic confinement. The former made headlines at the end of 2022 for proving that net-positive fusion power isn’t just science fiction by using massive lasers to vaporize a fusion fuel pellet.Many startups, though, are using some variation of the former