Principal Real-Time Software Engineer

About Thea Energy: Thea Energy is leveraging recent breakthroughs in stellarator physics and engineering to create a faster and simpler approach to commercializing fusion energy. The company is reinventing the stellarator using computer-controlled arrays of planar coils thereby replacing the intricate, complex modular magnets required in all other stellarator architectures. Thea Energy is on a mission to create a limitless source of zero emission energy for a sustainable future.

Position Overview: We are seeking a Principal Real-Time Software Engineer to design, develop, and deploy the real-time software framework supporting the Eos Control System. Working with the controls and physics teams, you will develop the common execution environment, interfaces, and engineering practices that allow plasma control, magnet and power supply control, real-time diagnostics, and other time-critical applications to operate as an integrated system.

This role combines substantial hands-on software development with architecture, hardware integration, verification, commissioning, and operational support. You will work closely with controls engineers, plasma physicists, diagnostic specialists, electrical engineers, and subsystem owners to turn experimental and plant requirements into reliable, maintainable real-time software.

Key Responsibility Areas:

• Develop the architecture and implementation of the Eos real-time framework in collaboration with controls and subsystem engineers, including execution services, component interfaces, configuration, deployment, diagnostics, and integration across control subsystems.

• Evaluate MARTe2 and other established fusion real-time frameworks against Eos requirements. Develop prototypes and performance measurements to support engineering decisions on reuse, adaptation, and custom development.

• Translate control and diagnostic needs into measurable requirements for cycle times, end-to-end latency, jitter, synchronization accuracy, throughput, availability, and resource margins. Define timing budgets and acceptance criteria by application.

• Establish modular boundaries between control algorithms, hardware interfaces, operating-system services, and supervisory functions so components can be tested independently and reused across Eos. Build deterministic execution services

• Develop production-quality C/C++ framework components for multirate execution, scheduling, interprocess communication, shared memory, signal exchange, and controlled application lifecycle transitions.

• Engineer and tune real-time Linux platforms, including CPU and interrupt affinity, memory locking, NUMA placement, scheduling policies, and bounded concurrency. Identify and remove sources of unpredictable latency.

• Develop reusable hardware abstraction and I/O interfaces for digitizers, FPGA systems, timing hardware, power supply controllers, and diagnostic equipment; address drivers, DMA, buffering, and data movement where required.

• Design distributed data exchange and timing interfaces, selecting shared memory, deterministic networks, PCIe, RDMA, or other technologies according to measured latency and reliability needs.

• Work with physics and controls specialists to deploy control algorithms, observers, estimators, and real-time diagnostic processing. Support interfaces to model-based development and generated code where appropriate.

• Define interfaces with supervisory control, PLCs, interlocks, machine protection, and independent safety systems. Document command authority, permissives, fault propagation, and responsibility for safe responses.

• Integrate time stamps, data quality indicators, configuration provenance, and data capture with the Eos data infrastructure to support reproducible experiments and fault investigation.

• Provide simulation, software-in-the-loop, and hardware-in-the-loop interfaces that allow the framework and subsystem applications to be exercised before integrated plant operation.

• Develop automated functional, integration, regression, and timing tests on representative hardware. Assess worst-case execution behavior, latency distributions, jitter, and deadline compliance under realistic workloads.

• Create fault-injection, endurance, and recovery tests covering device failures, dropped or delayed data, process and network faults, and loss of timing synchronization.

• Participate directly in laboratory integration and commissioning. Diagnose issues across application software, operating systems, networks, and hardware, and turn operational findings into durable improvements.

• Contribute to architecture and design reviews, develop coding and interface standards, and produce clear architecture documents, interface specifications, developer guidance, and operating procedures.

• Engage with fusion laboratories, framework maintainers, research collaborators, and suppliers to assess technology maturity and incorporate relevant experience into the Eos platform.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering, physics, or a related discipline, or equivalent demonstrated professional experience.
• Typically 10 or more years of relevant software engineering experience, including substantial responsibility for the architecture and delivery of complex real-time systems.
• Direct hands-on experience developing, deploying, and supporting real-time control, plasma control, machine protection, or real-time diagnostic systems.
• Demonstrated substantial technical contributions to a reusable real-time software platform or major framework capability, spanning requirements, architectural decisions, implementation, and validation.
• Expertise in C and modern C++, including concurrency, atomic operations, memory models, resource ownership, and techniques for controlling execution time and memory use.
• Deep practical experience with Linux-based real-time systems, such as RedHawk Linux or PREEMPT_RT, and diagnosing latency across application code, the kernel, hardware, and I/O.
• Experience with an established fusion real-time framework or plasma control infrastructure, such as MARTe2, ITER real-time infrastructure, or an equivalent deployed system.
• Experience integrating high-speed data acquisition and hardware I/O, along with distributed communication, timing, and synchronization for feedback control.
• Strong software engineering practices, including version control, code review, automated testing, reproducible builds, configuration management, and technical documentation.
• Ability to translate scientific and engineering requirements into implementable software, communicate architectural tradeoffs clearly, and carry complex technical work through deployment.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Direct MARTe2 development experience, including Generic Application Modules, DataSources, brokers, real-time states and threads, custom components, and integration with external systems.
• Experience with stellarators, superconducting magnet systems, high-current power supplies, plasma heating systems, or coordinated control across multiple fusion subsystems.
• Familiarity with EPICS, MDSplus, ITER CODAC, or comparable supervisory control and scientific data environments.
• Experience with NI PXI or CompactRIO, Speedgoat, MATLAB/Simulink, LabVIEW Real-Time, FPGA interfaces, or integration of automatically generated control code.
• Experience with PTP, hardware triggers, event timing systems, PCIe/DMA, RDMA, or high-performance diagnostic data paths.
• Experience deploying AI/ML inference or computationally intensive physics algorithms within measured timing and resource limits, including CPU/GPU integration where appropriate.
• Contributions to reusable scientific software, real-time frameworks, open-source projects, or relevant fusion controls publications.

Company Benefits:

• Salary Range: $200,000 - $230,000 per year
• Comprehensive health benefits (e.g. medical/dental/vision)
• Employee equity stock options
• 20 days PTO

Requirements:

• Ability to occasionally lift up to 50 lbs.
• Ability to perform activities such as typing, standing, or sitting for extended periods of time.
• Willingness to occasionally travel or work required nights/weekends/on-call.
• Ability to work in a facility that contains industrial hazards including heat, cold, noise, fumes, strong magnets, high voltage, high current, pressure systems, and cryogenics.

It’s not necessary to meet all of the skillsets outlined above. Please feel free to send us a note and tell us why you would still be a great fit for this role or Thea Energy.

Diversity and Inclusion: Thea Energy is an equal opportunity employer committed to creating a company of diverse backgrounds. By creating a diverse environment, we will bring new ideas and approaches to solving some of the world’s hardest (and most important) problems. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, family or marital status, age, disability, veteran’s status, or other characteristic protected by applicable laws and regulations.