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Thea Energy

Develops fusion power via planar-coil stellarators

Electrical Engineering Manager

Full-TimePosted on 10/21/2026
$150k - $185k/yr+ Employee equity stock options
Senior
Bachelor's, Master's
Kearny, NJ, USA
In Person
Engineering ManagementEngineering Leadership

About the job

Requirements
  • A bachelor's degree or higher in electrical engineering or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
  • Six or more years of engineering experience across at least two relevant areas, such as industrial or facility power systems, electrical distribution, high-power electronics, power conversion, custom electronics hardware, embedded control hardware, or electrical systems for complex test facilities.
  • Three or more years of experience directly supervising engineers or leading an engineering team with responsibility for work assignment, coaching, performance feedback, and delivery.
  • A record of delivering complex electrical or power supply systems from requirements and design through prototype validation, integration, commissioning, and operational support.
  • Strong electrical safety judgment in high-voltage and high-current converters, stored energy systems, and industrial environments, including protection, grounding, isolation, interlocks, and safe test planning.
  • Experience with requirements, interfaces, verification planning, design reviews, configuration control, technical documentation, schedules, risks, and supplier execution.
  • Clear communication across technical disciplines and willingness to work directly with equipment during build, commissioning, maintenance, and troubleshooting.
Responsibilities
  • Set clear work ownership and goals for direct reports; provide coaching, technical guidance, and performance feedback; and conduct reviews and recommend hiring, promotion, compensation, and development actions.
  • Translate program milestones into engineering work packages, resource estimates, schedules, review points, and acceptance criteria; track progress, risks, dependencies, and recovery actions across concurrent development efforts.
  • Build collaboration across multidisciplinary engineering and program teams and resolve working-level interface issues.
  • Develop detailed electrical architecture for assigned test stands and prototype equipment, including load lists, single-line diagrams, equipment specifications, cable and conductor sizing, panel and switchgear designs, grounding and bonding details, and equipment interfaces.
  • Perform or coordinate load-flow, short-circuit, protection coordination, transient, and power quality studies; keep models aligned with approved equipment, operating modes, and credible fault conditions.
  • Lead development and integration of high-power converters, DC power supplies, superconducting magnet power supplies, and approved energy storage or compensation equipment; coordinate thermal, sensing, protection, and controls interfaces.
  • Oversee analog, digital, mixed-signal, power, and embedded control hardware; guide component selection, schematic and PCB design, design review, prototype bring-up, design for manufacture, design for test, and hardware release.
  • Define electrical requirements, interface documents, verification methods, and acceptance criteria with systems engineering and equipment owners; maintain configuration control as prototypes and test programs evolve.
  • Manage the technical execution of approved supplier work packages, including submittal review, interface coordination, test witnessing, and acceptance evidence.
  • Lead working-level design reviews, prototype bring-up, load testing, failure mode and effects analysis, root cause analysis, factory and site acceptance tests, installation, commissioning, and troubleshooting.
  • Implement electrical protection, isolation, interlocks, emergency responses, lockout and tagout provisions, and fail-safe behavior; contribute to hazard analyses and verify protective functions before release.
  • Control electromagnetic interference and noise across boards, cabinets, cables, grounding, shielding, high-power switching equipment, instrumentation, and mixed-signal interfaces.
  • Establish inspection, preventive maintenance, spare parts, obsolescence, and change control practices for assigned systems; investigate recurring failures and improve availability, serviceability, and maintainability.
  • Maintain engineering records for assigned systems, including calculations, models, drawings, schematics, bills of material, cable and wiring schedules, test procedures, configuration baselines, operating instructions, maintenance instructions, and acceptance records.
Desired Qualifications
  • Experience with electrical distribution, switchgear, transformers, protection relays, grounding and bonding, short-circuit and coordination studies, power quality, harmonics, transient behavior, and dynamic loads.
  • Experience with high-power converters, rectifiers and inverters, DC power supplies, superconducting magnet power supplies, energy storage or compensation systems, gate drives, sensing, protection, control, and thermal management.
  • Experience with analog, digital, mixed-signal, and embedded electronics; schematic capture and PCB layout; component derating; prototype bring-up; hardware debugging; and design for manufacture and test.
  • Experience with ETAP, DIgSILENT PowerFactory, PSCAD, SKM, CYME, PLECS, LTspice, MATLAB and Simulink, Altium Designer, OrCAD, or equivalent tools.
  • Experience with oscilloscopes, logic and power analyzers, electronic loads, high-voltage and current probes, insulation and hipot test equipment, and safe load testing.
  • Experience with fusion devices, superconducting magnet test facilities, accelerators, advanced nuclear or energy systems, aerospace test systems, or other large scientific or high-power industrial facilities.

About the company

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'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

6 month growth

-4%

1 year growth

-4%

2 year growth

-6%
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