R&D Instrumentation and Control Engineer

Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) has the fastest, lowest cost path to commercial fusion energy.
CFS collaborates with MIT to leverage decades of research combined with groundbreaking new high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnet technology. HTS magnets will enable compact fusion power plants that can be constructed faster and at lower cost. Our mission is to deploy these power plants to meet global decarbonization goals as fast as possible. To that end, CFS has assembled a team of leaders in tough tech, fusion science, and manufacturing with a track record of rapid execution. Supported by the world’s leading investors, CFS is uniquely positioned to deliver limitless, clean, fusion power to combat climate change. To implement this plan, we are looking to add dedicated people to the team who treat people well, improve our work by adding multifaceted perspectives and new ways of solving problems, have achieved outstanding results through a range of pursuits, and have skills and experience related to this role.
The role of an I&C Engineer is to collaboratively develop, test, and deliver data acquisition, control hardware, a software suite and associated instrumentation. These systems will be used during integration, development, qualification and production testing of CFS magnets and other critical SPARC components. This engineer will also be responsible for leading multidisciplinary teams of engineers and technicians to produce instrumentation and control systems that generate reliable data in support of critical company missions. They will organize and drive a cohesive instrumentation and control program for R&D and perform as a technical mentor for I&C engineers and test engineers on the team. They must work collaboratively across manufacturing, R&D, procurement, and SPARC teams to achieve these goals.

This team member will:

• Work within a multi-disciplinary team of engineers and physicists
• Work with small engineering teams through the design, procurement, fabrication, commissioning, and demonstration of prototype engineering subsystems and customer-facing magnet products
• Develop HMI/GUI software running on remote control workstations
• Develop Real-Time software running on DAQ systems i.e. Labjack, National Instruments
• CompactRIO, CompactDAQ, or other hardware.
• Implement bidirectional cross-platform communication for data and control.
• Develop drivers for all analog and digital peripheral system components
• Implement open-/closed-loop and scheduled control schemes
• Implement system safety features including interlocks and fault-detection
• Implement data-logging
• Develop and maintain other non-LabVIEW (e.g. Python) code bases, and/or transfer those code bases into or out of LabVIEW
• Maintain, edit, and improve existing code bases
• Coordinate with system owners to identify instrumentation, DAQ systems, and capabilities to meet the needs of identified experiments
• Perform as a technical expert, a project lead and people leader as necessary to meet the unique project demands.
• Report on progress to the R&D Project Managers

The ideal candidate will have most, if not all, of these requirements:

• Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, physics or another related engineering field with significant hands-on laboratory experience
• 5+ years in an integration and test engineering role, working with physical lab equipment
• 5+ years’ experience designing, testing, troubleshooting, and debugging electronics hardware and test software
• 2+ years LabVIEW development
• Experience with a variety of instrumentation such as thermocouples, load cells, vacuum gauges, strain gauges, current shunts, etc.
• Experience with control systems for test applications including, PID, real time, etc.
• Experience building HMIs/GUIs
• Experience developing P&ID, electrical, and wiring schematics and diagrams, and then working with a team to translate these into a functioning system for the acquisition of decision quality data
• Experience documenting and handing-off software applications, and hardware setups to both internal and external customers
• Experience assembling and troubleshooting basic electrical and mechanical hardware; and electrical instrumentation (oscilloscopes, signal generators, power supplies for example)
• Experience with remote communication including industrial automation protocols (e.g. Modbus), TCP/IP, RS-232, GPIB, DAQmx, CompactDAQ, VISA
• Experience successfully working closely with IT teams and research/engineering personnel
• Strong fundamentals with Python development.
• Experience with user event structures and concurrency
• Experience handling controls and indicators via VI Server
• Experience maintaining or