Site Development Program Manager

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'll hold Proxima Fusion's site development portfolio together as one program, spanning projects such as Stellaris, our manufacturing and testing infrastructure, and other site development work. Working closely with the project managers who lead each project, you'll make sure feasibility, key partner relationships and permitting strategy are handled coherently across the portfolio. Without this role, projects risk optimizing for themselves while the issues that cut across them fall through the gaps.

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  Lead Proxima Fusion's site development program across multiple parallel projects, owning feasibility, key partner and stakeholder relationships, and permitting strategy

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  Work closely with the project managers leading each site, aligning their schedules, budgets and deliverables to a single program roadmap

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  Define and run the program's decision-gate structure, from initial project approval through to final investment decision, including deliverables, readiness levels, and cost and schedule tracking

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  Represent Proxima Fusion to site owners, utility partners and other key stakeholders, building constructive, diplomatic partnerships across sites with different contexts and regulatory histories

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  Own the permitting landscape across the portfolio, including radiation protection law, environmental permitting, building permits and other approvals where relevant, and sequence parallel approval processes into one coherent strategy

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  Build organizational and infrastructure scaling plans that look beyond near-term needs, from initial capacity towards multi-GW scale

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  Report program status, risks and key decisions to senior leadership

• Extensive experience leading greenfield or brownfield energy or industrial site development programs through to final investment decision, ideally on former or adjacent nuclear sites or other heavily regulated sites

• A track record of managing multiple projects in parallel at different stages of maturity, using a structured, gate-based approach

• Skilled at building productive relationships with incumbent site owners and utilities, and comfortable working within formal, process-driven stakeholder cultures

• Able to pull together detailed technical requirements from engineers and specialists without needing a deep engineering background yourself

• Fluent in German and English, which the regulatory and stakeholder landscape requires

• Comfortable building program structure from scratch in a fast-scaling, first-of-a-kind environment

• 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.