About Avalanche Energy
Avalanche Energy is a Washington-based startup building compact, deployable fusion systems through rapid hardware iteration. Rather than pursuing fusion as a single grid-scale outcome, Avalanche develops transportable fusion machines designed to be built, tested, and operated on short cycles, turning real hardware into steady progress. This approach enables near-term applications that demand extreme energy density and endurance—starting with fusion neutron production for radioisotope power and other defense and space uses—while advancing the underlying fusion platform. Backed by U.S. government programs and a team experienced in delivering complex systems, Avalanche is focused on building fusion that runs in the real world, not just on paper.
Avalanche might be a fit for you if:
You are energized by hands-on problem solving and real hardware. You enjoy working at a bench or in a lab, tracing signals, chasing noise, and making stubborn systems behave. You are comfortable moving between whiteboard design, schematic capture, and elbows-deep troubleshooting. You care about clean measurements, solid grounding, and systems that work reliably under ugly real-world conditions. You take pride in experiments that run cleanly because the fundamentals are right.
About the Role
Avalanche Energy is seeking an Electrical & Instrumentation Engineer to design, build, operate, and maintain the electrical systems that support our fusion experiments. You will work directly on active fusion devices, ion sources, diagnostics, and high-voltage laboratory systems, contributing to experiments that are designed, built, and iterated rapidly.
This is a deeply hands-on role. You will be responsible for everything from circuit design and component selection to wiring, probing, testing, and troubleshooting under demanding conditions. The work spans precision instrumentation, high-voltage systems, timing and triggering, and measurement in electrically noisy environments. This is not a desk job or a software-first role—this is lab-centered engineering focused on getting complex hardware to work, reliably and repeatably.
Responsibilities
- Design, build, and maintain electrical and instrumentation systems supporting fusion experiments, diagnostics, and supporting laboratory infrastructure.
- Work alongside physicists and engineers to conceive, implement, and refine experimental electrical systems, from initial concept through operation and iteration.
- Specify, procure, assemble, and test electrical hardware including power distribution, signal conditioning, high-voltage switching, timing and triggering systems, and diagnostic instrumentation.
- Perform hands-on troubleshooting using oscilloscopes, probes, multimeters, spectrum analyzers, and other test equipment to diagnose issues related to noise, grounding, impedance, inductance, coupling, and EMI.
- Design and implement grounding, shielding, and filtering strategies to enable reliable measurement and control in high-voltage, high-noise environments.
- Support experiment operation by setting up, validating, and maintaining measurement systems and diagnostics.
- Provide electrical insight into experimental results, helping interpret data quality, signal integrity, and system behavior.
- Contribute to continuous improvement of lab electrical practices, documentation, and build standards.
Required Qualifications
- B.S. degree or higher in electrical engineering, physics, or a closely related field.
- 5+ years of post-degree experience in hands-on electrical or instrumentation engineering roles.
- Strong command of electrical fundamentals, including circuit analysis, impedance, inductance, capacitance, and signal integrity.
- Extensive experience troubleshooting hardware systems using oscilloscopes, probes, and other bench instrumentation.
- Experience with analog and mixed-signal systems, including ADCs and DACs.
- Experience working with sensors and transducers in experimental or industrial environments.
- Experience identifying and mitigating measurement noise, ground loops, EMI, and coupling issues.
- Experience designing or implementing grounding and shielding systems.
- Comfort working directly with physical hardware in a laboratory environment.
Desired Qualifications
- Experience designing, operating, or troubleshooting laboratory experiments.
- Experience working with high-voltage systems (greater than 5 kV).
- Familiarity with scientific and fusion-related diagnostics such as Faraday cups, temperature probes, Langmuir probes, or optical diagnostics.
- Experience with timing, triggering, and synchronization of measurements across multiple instruments.
- Experience working in electrically noisy environments where clean measurements are nontrivial.
- Familiarity with basic scripting or data tools (e.g., Python) as a support tool for experiments, not as a primary focus.
Additional Considerations
Location: Prefer onsite to support hands-on laboratory wor