Technical Project Manager - Implosion

Responsibilities

• Maintain and analyze the integrated schedule set by the Heads and technical leaders – milestones, dependencies, risks, issues, resource commitments, and deliverables – incorporating their updates and decisions.
• Plan, schedule, and track project progress for Implosion systems and sub-systems using Jira, Flow, and other program planning tools, in coordination with Project Controls & Planning. Assess schedule changes, budget variances, and emerging issues for impact across workstreams, partner commitments, and resources. Surface gaps or conflicts to the relevant Heads and leaders for resolution.
• Monitor target design, experiment planning, and design-review efforts to assess progress toward Implosion System milestones, identify risks, and escalate issues to the Implosion System leaders and Program Management as needed.
• Manage project documentation, including project plans, requirements/design-review packages, meeting minutes, and action items, ensuring clear communication and record-keeping across target design, target physics, and fabrication sub-teams.
• Coordinate activities and staffing resource allocation across target design, target physics, fabrication, metrology, procurement, and external partner teams (national labs, universities, consultants, and industry partners), facilitating issue resolution and ensuring smooth execution of Implosion System design loops, builds, and experimental campaigns — including tracking each partnership's scope, milestones, deliverables, budget, and points of contact.
• Assist in tracking System cost and accounting, develop execution spend plans, and coordinate the development and administration of partner contracts and statements of work with technical leads and the Contracts, Procurement, Finance, and Legal offices.

Qualifications

Education: Bachelor's degree in engineering, physics, project management, or a related field.
Experience: 5+ years in project engineering, project coordination, project planning and controls, administration, or a similar role supporting target design, target physics, ICF implosion, or other complex scientific/engineering R&D in a national-lab, aerospace, defense, or research environment.
Problem-solving mindset with a proactive approach to identifying and addressing technical and schedule challenges across target and implosion sub-systems.
Demonstrated ability with build and sequencing of critical path schedules.
Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to collaborate effectively across engineering, scientific, and indirect support teams.
Experience coordinating contracts, statements of work, purchase orders, or other commitments through internal approval workflows.
Must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum.

Desired

Experience with complex target design, target physics, or ICF implosion projects, ideally in nuclear fusion, high-energy density physics, directed energy, or aerospace.
Strong technical acumen with an understanding of target design, target physics, or high-energy-density hardware development processes (e.g., design reviews, requirements flow-down, engineering change requests) and product/experiment lifecycles.
Working familiarity with the design, assembly, integration, and test of target systems or ICF implosion experiments.
Proficiency in AI enabled workflows and data presentation.
Familiarity with Agile & Waterfall project management methodologies.
Proficiency with Jira, Confluence, Flow, and other requirements/program management tools.
Experience with procurement, vendor management, or contract administration for national-lab, university, or industry partner agreements.
Strong analytical skills with experience in program planning tools such as Primavera P6.