Mechanical Engineering Director (Fusion Energy)

Location: Darmstadt, Germany; onsite role

Company

hirify.global is developing laser-driven inertial fusion technology to deliver clean, sustainable power at commercial scale, with operations in Germany and the US.

What you will do

• Build and lead the Mechanical Engineering department, including its structure, headcount, budget forecasting, and capacity allocation.
• Lead Chief Mechanical Engineers and capability leads while defining delegated technical authority and accountability frameworks.
• Scale five core mechanical capability areas in phases aligned with funded project workloads.
• Establish design review governance requiring verified load cases, tolerances, and interface evidence for released designs.
• Develop manufacturing and supplier engineering capabilities to improve design-for-manufacture, assembly, and test readiness.
• Coordinate with Systems Integration, Engineering Operations, Procurement, Quality, and Facilities on subsystem handovers and readiness gates.

Requirements

• Extensive experience building, structuring, and scaling engineering organizations, teams, and departmental budgets.
• Strong experience across the full mechanical engineering lifecycle, including concept development, supplier manufacturing, assembly, testing, and integration handover.
• Proven experience establishing formal design review cadences, delegated authority models, and engineering release standards.
• Experience allocating engineering resources and resolving capacity trade-offs across concurrent, complex technical programs.
• Demonstrated ability to mentor technical leads and create career progression paths for management and specialist individual contributors.
• Excellent cross-functional leadership and transparent communication of project risks, trade-offs, and commitments to executive stakeholders.

Nice to have

• Technical familiarity with vacuum systems, cryogenics, thermal management, fluids, or precision mechanical systems.
• Experience with Autodesk Inventor, Vault, and requirements traceability or verification platforms such as Jama.
• Experience establishing supplier-ready engineering package workflows with Procurement and Quality teams.
• Background in high-tech, fusion energy, aerospace, or advanced hardware development.
• Experience transitioning early-stage specialist engineering groups into structured, high-volume development and manufacturing departments.

Culture & Benefits

• Work on clean-energy and scientific innovation in an international environment with scientists, engineers, and technical professionals.
• Opportunity for career development in an early-stage, growing company.
• Competitive salary, stock options, and a 30-day annual vacation allowance.
• Private pension support covering 20% on top of monthly contributions, plus loyalty incentives.
• Office equipment, snacks, drinks, daily canteen options in Darmstadt, mobility support through NAVIT, and fitness and wellness access through Wellhub.
• Regular events supporting collaboration and team connection.