Simulation and Test Software 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 SPARC Software team seeks an exceptional software engineer to be a member of the Simulation and Test Software group. This team is responsible for developing and maintaining the testbeds and simulation infrastructure necessary to validate the real-time, safe-critical control software that runs the SPARC tokamak and plant.

SPARC senses thousands of physical measurements while controlling millions of amps to superconducting magnets and millions of watts of RF power to the plasma. These closed-loop systems must control at rates substantially greater than 1 kHz and must sample some parameters in the MHz range. The technology platforms involved include real-time Linux, bare-metal microcontrollers, FPGAs, and industrial PLCs. The testbeds and simulation environments must be able to validate software across all these platforms. The team will be responsible for both Hardware-in-the-Loop (HITL) and software-only testbeds.

Specific infrastructure you will help develop may include software for test orchestration, deployment to testbeds, evaluation of test success, and automatic integration into continuous integration systems. The team will also develop models or model infrastructure for both real-time simulation (e.g. for HITL or operator training) or offline analysis (e.g. for high-fidelity algorithm development).

Finally, the team will work with other software and engineering teams to define end-to-end and other integrated test cases and test plans to validate overall SPARC control software and ensure its adherence to design requirements.