_{17th July, 2026}

Equal Opportunity Statement: We are an equal opportunity employer and are committed to creating an inclusive and diverse workplace. We believe that diversity strengthens our team and are dedicated to providing a work environment free from discrimination and harassment. 


Who We Are 
OpenStar Technologies is on a mission to repeat the feats of Māui and capture the power of the Sun. By mastering fusion - the process that powers the stars - we can generate safe, clean, carbon-free, base-load electricity in a way that is economically scalable to the challenge of mitigating climate disaster and giving birth to the next industrial revolution. Our team is currently made up of talented engineers and physicists, based in Wellington, New Zealand. 

At OpenStar Technologies, our culture is founded on a commitment to making a positive impact on the world. We empower every member of our team with meaningful responsibility, fostering an environment where creativity and innovation thrive in pursuit of our collective mission. 

About the Role 
The Experiment Manager owns the end-to-end delivery of OpenStar's Experiment Iterations - the fixed cycles of design, build, integration, and campaign that take the machine from one physics milestone to the next. You set the plan for each iteration with the technical leads, keep the magnet, electronics, cryogenics, plasma, and controls teams synchronised against it, and are accountable for the iteration landing on time with its objectives met. 

Why This Role Matters 
OpenStar advances by iteration: each cycle has to turn ambitious physics and engineering goals into a scoped, achievable plan, and then into hardware and data on a fixed timeline. Without a single owner driving that cadence, cross-team dependencies stall, scope creeps, and iterations slip. The Experiment Manager is that owner - the person who turns the iteration roadmap into a rhythm the whole company can plan around. 

Key Responsibilities 
Iteration Planning & Scope 

• Produce a schedule in partnership with technical leads across magnet, electronics, cryogenics, plasma, and controls teams, which achieves the objects set by the CSO & CTO. 
• Build and maintain the iteration roadmap, sequencing work across sub-teams and identifying the critical path. 
• Facilitate scoping and planning meetings, ensuring the iteration goals are realistic, and its dependencies are understood before work begins. 

Execution & Coordination 

• Run the iteration planning, stand-ups, and reviews - across all contributing teams. 
• Track progress against the roadmap, surface schedule risk early, and re-sequence work when priorities or blockers change. 
• Act as the primary point of contact for cross-team dependencies, unblocking issues that span more than one sub-team. 
• Reporting & Continuous Improvement 
• Report iteration status, risks, and key metrics to engineering leadership on a regular cadence. 
• Run retrospectives at the close of each iteration, capturing lessons learned and process improvements. 
• Maintain the iteration documentation and ensure hand-off notes are ready for the team planning the next cycle. 

Key Relationships 

• Technical leads across the magnet, electronics, cryogenics, plasma, and controls teams. 
• Engineering leadership - for roadmap, resourcing, and risk escalation 

  
What We’re Looking For 
Essential 

• Experience managing complex, cross-functional technical programmes or projects, ideally in hardware or R&D-intensive environments. 
• Working knowledge of Agile practices (sprint planning, retrospectives, backlog management) and comfort adapting them to a hardware context. 
• Strong organisational skills — able to hold a multi-team schedule and its dependencies in your head and communicate it clearly to others. 
• Excellent written and verbal communication; able to translate technical detail into a plan non-specialists can follow. 
• Comfortable making trade-off calls on scope and schedule and escalating early when something is at risk. 
• Ability to work through ambiguity in a fast-paced, rapidly changing environment. 

Highly Regarded 

• Experience in fusion, aerospace, or another hardware-intensive deep-tech industry. 
• Background in mechanical, electrical, or systems engineering, or physics. 
• Project management training or equivalent practical experience. 

Join Us 
This opportunity boils down to the chance to work on something truly meaningful. The scariest thing about the climate crisis today is that, for all of our bluster and protest, there are very few of us who actually have a chance to do meaningful work solving this problem. Carbon-free energy is an absolute necessity if we want to be able to recognise the world that our children and grandchildren inherit. Please join us in making this a reality.

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