Director of Materials

What You Will Be Doing:

We are looking for a Director of Materials to lead the integrated effort to develop and qualify materials for Helion's fusion generators. The scope of your work will involve definition and coordination of materials selection, materials testing, irradiation studies, development of material property correlations and models, working with supply chain development, and coordinating with licensing teams. You will report to the leader of the Radiation Safety and Nuclear Science (RaSNS) team at our Everett, WA office.

You Will:

• Create and maintain a world-class materials team with regard to technical thoughtfulness and speed of execution in thrust areas to include material R&D, radiation effects, and material testing
• Lead the development and deployment of important materials for a commercial fusion system
• Work with Helion's leadership to establish goals and balance risks for the Materials team that align with our strategy and take full ownership of accomplishing these goals
• Establish partnerships and processes with the Engineering team and other RaSNS teams to improve the Materials team's success (bill of material tracking, material testing, material design and R&D) and identify directions with the highest return on investment
• Manage managers on the Materials team on milestones planning, resource planning, and performance management.
• Advise the management of strategic material testing capabilities to promote rapid testing/design iterations, balance in-house and external capabilities, near-term milestone execution, and long-term capability expansion
• Improve Helion's plan for generator mass-production, including incorporating changes based on new generator data, refining factory models, and communicating updates to the leadership team
• Build materials programs designed to develop an understanding of complex mechanical properties and materials degradation phenomena (e.g., creep, fatigue, stress, corrosion, erosion, neutron irradiation effects, hydrogen embrittlement); take into consideration cost estimation and scheduling to meet program needs and constraints
• Learn about radiation effects on materials (neutron damage and activation), and incorporate radiological considerations into decisions based on the advisement of nuclear engineers on your team, nuclear engineers on parallel RaSNS teams, and the Radiation Safety Officer (RSO)

Required Skills:

• 10 years of materials-related industry experience, including 5 years of experience managing technical teams that deliver materials science/engineering projects cradle-to-grave to a commercial product. Growing a talent-dense team of at least five subject matter experts, and overseeing the schedule for multiple planning facets of company milestones
• Successful and autonomous mentorship and leadership of employees with many expertise, experience, and backgrounds
• Hands-on experience with material testing and characterization
• Experience managing material research and development, resulting in materials used in a commercial product or necessary product to a large, singe-unit project

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