Engineering Physics Intern

About Marathon Fusion

We are building the fuel processing technology to manage and recycle tritium the fuel to unlock clean and abundant fusion energy. Efficient tritium recycling is essential as it minimizes the tritium inventory needed and reduces fuel processing system costs, improving fusion economics and mitigating safety and regulatory challenges around fusion deployment. By working alongside universities, national labs, and industry partners, we aim to ensure the safe and economic deployment of fusion energy at meaningful speed and scale.

Progress and Milestones

We have secured over $10M in funding from a diverse group of mission aligned investors (1517, Strong Atomics, AngloAmerican, and Shared Future), and the US Department of Energy's ARPA-E, with letters of intent from Helion and Commonwealth Fusion Systems—two industry leaders. We also have letters of intent for the plasma centrifuge we are developing, needed today by fission energy companies like Naarea. Our breakthrough achievements include demonstrating a scaling pathway for super-permeable pumps and inventing a novel scheme for differential pumping in the fusion fuel cycle based on the plasma centrifuge concept. (Differential pumping helps separate different types of atoms and molecules, which is vital for fuel recycling).

About the team

Kyle and Adam founded Marathon Fusion to remove roadblocks to fusion deployment and meet the demands of the burgeoning industry. Kyle comes from the policy and grantmaking world, previously reporting to the CIO of Schmidt Futures, and with a background in software engineering for machine learning applications. Adam was a research engineer at Otherlab developing high efficiency heat pumps, worked on the DEMO-2 mission at SpaceX to return humans to the ISS, and received his MA from Princeton in Plasma Physics.

Our growing team includes a materials scientist, a computational research engineer, mechanical engineers and an operations manager working out of our office in San Francisco.

Engineering at Marathon Fusion

Our research engineering team is responsible for enabling experimentation, working alongside scientists to understand the objectives and constraints on our devices, and constantly striving to find opportunities to accelerate our R&D roadmap.

During your time, you’ll work to:

• Conduct hands on design and rapid prototyping
• Integrate power systems, pneumatics, sensors and mechanical subsystems into our prototypes and test bed
• Perform mechanical/electrical design in CAD
• Uphold standards and requirements for ultra-high vacuum environments
• Procure equipment to meet testing requirements, material standards, and project timelines

Job Requirements

Our work requires a willingness to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances and shifting priorities, while keeping an eye on the long-term goals that ultimately drive success. Navigating this environment necessitates effective communication across roles and backgrounds, a high degree of trust between team members, and the willingness to learn and develop new skills on the job. We place particular weight on a team member's ability to be self-directed and proactive.

Ideal candidates will have experience and interests spanning:

• Hands on fabrication and rapid prototyping
• Engineering analysis
• Excellent written and oral communication skills
• Progress towards a degree in engineering, physics or related fields

Marathon Fusion considers all qualified applicants equally for employment. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, protected veteran status, religion, physical or mental disability, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, or any other basis protected by law, ordinance, or regulation.