Risk and Change Manager - Alpha Delivery PMO

Proxima Fusion is Europe’s fastest-growing fusion company and the continent’s best-funded fusion player, as well as the first spin-out from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP). Backed by over €650M and powered by a growing team across Munich, Zurich, and Oxford, we are developing the hardware and infrastructure needed to deliver the world’s first commercial stellarator fusion power plant.

Our concept advances the most mature fusion technology out there, the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator, through two next-generation machines: Alpha and Stellaris. Our work combines stellarator optimization, advanced computation, machine learning, and high-temperature superconducting magnets to unlock higher-performance designs that were previously out of reach.

Turning these designs into a functioning fusion power plant requires excellence and ownership across every discipline, from physics and engineering to software, manufacturing, law, and business functions.

You keep Alpha's cost and schedule baselines honest against each other. Without a credible risk register and change process, changes slip into the program outside any controlled path, the IMS and cost forecast quietly drift apart, and a gate review surprises leadership with numbers nobody signed off on. Your job is to prevent that by making risk and change management a live, trusted function from the earliest stage of delivery, rather than something bolted on once problems have compounded.

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  Establish and maintain the Alpha risk register across infrastructure, manufacturing and machine workstreams, facilitating structured risk identification, assessment and assignment of mitigation owners

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  Own the change control process end to end, from intake and schedule, cost and technical impact assessment through to approval routing and the change log, working closely with the Cost Controller and Programme Schedule Manager so all baselines reflect the same accepted changes

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  Prepare risk-adjusted inputs for release gate decisions, including quantified schedule and cost exposure and mitigation status

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  Run regular risk reviews with workstream owners and escalate emerging risks early, before they reach senior leadership as surprises

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  Build risk and change governance standards that scale as Alpha and Stellaris grow in parallel, with different partners and delivery models

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  Support the PMO's wider reporting cadence alongside the PMO Analyst/Coordinator

• Experienced in risk and change management on major capital programs in energy, industrial, research infrastructure or similarly complex multi-discipline settings

• Able to build a risk and change framework from scratch, not just administer an inherited one; you know what good governance looks like before it exists

• Confident holding the line on change discipline with internal engineers and external partners who have their own priorities, combining analytical rigor with the communication skills to make it stick

• Comfortable working with high autonomy while program structure is still being built

• Fluent in English; German is a strong advantage given the contractor and regulatory landscape

• Familiar with AI tools and digital ways of working, and quick to adapt in a lean, fast-paced environment
  
  INTERVIEW PROCESS

• Recruiter Interview (30-60 min)

• Technical Screening (30 min)

• Technical Panel (3x60 min)

At Proxima Fusion, our mission is bold: making limitless clean energy a reality. To get there, we need a high-performing, diverse team that brings different perspectives, challenges assumptions, and builds together with purpose. We know that diversity of thought and experience leads to better ideas, stronger execution, and a more resilient team. We don’t look at how you identify, what you look like, who you choose to worship or what ethnicity you are. We care about what you can bring to the table.