Mechanical Engineering Director (f/m/d)

About Focused Energy Focused Energy is building the future of clean energy through laser-driven inertial fusion. Backed by our $240M Series A - the largest fully secured Series A in the global fusion industry we are scaling rapidly across multiple geographies. Based in Germany and the US, we have brought together the top scientific and engineering minds using proven technologies to unlock fusion power at commercial scale. Focused Energy is working to realize game-changing scientific innovation that promises to deliver a clean, sustainable and abundant source of power globally. Your Role As the Mechanical Engineering Director at Focused Energy, you will design, build, and lead the Mechanical Engineering department, establishing its organizational structure, operating model, engineering standards, and budget. You will oversee end-to-end mechanical capability across key delivery programs, managing peer Chief Mechanical Engineers. Your leadership will ensure that mechanical subsystems are rigorously designed, manufactured, verified, and delivered on schedule to Systems Integration. What You'll Do • Own the Mechanical Engineering department's structure, headcount, budget forecasting, and capacity allocation across active delivery programs. • Lead and develop peer Chief Mechanical Engineers and emerging capability leads, defining delegated technical authority frameworks and clear accountability. • Scale and build out the five core mechanical capability areas in phased stages aligned with funded project workloads. • Enforce robust mechanical design review governance, ensuring all released designs contain verified load cases, tolerances, and interface evidence. • Establish manufacturing and supplier engineering capabilities early in the lifecycle to optimize design-for-manufacture, assembly, and test readiness. • Partner cross-functionally with Systems Integration, Engineering Operations, Procurement, Quality, and Facilities to ensure seamless subsystem handovers at readiness gates. Who You Are Must-Haves • Extensive leadership experience building, structuring, and scaling engineering organizations, teams, and departmental budgets. • Strong background across the full mechanical engineering lifecycle, spanning initial concept, supplier manufacturing, assembly, testing, and integration handover. • Proven track record of establishing formal design review cadences, delegated authority models, and engineering release standards. • Experience managing engineering resource allocation and resolving capacity trade-offs across concurrent, complex technical programs. • Demonstrated capability in mentoring technical leads and creating distinct career progression pathways for both management and specialist individual contributors. • Excellent cross-functional leadership skills with the ability to communicate project risks, trade-offs, and commitments transparently to executive stakeholders. Nice-to-Haves • Technical familiarity with high-complexity domains such as vacuum systems, cryogenics, thermal management, fluids, or precision mechanical systems. • Working knowledge and governance fluency with configuration and release management tools such as Autodesk Inventor and Vault. • Experience utilizing requirements traceability and verification platforms like Jama for complex systems. • Prior experience establishing supplier-ready engineering package workflows in close collaboration with commercial Procurement and Quality teams. • Background operating within high-tech, fusion energy, aerospace, or advanced hardware development environments. • Experience transitioning early-stage specialist engineering groups into structured, high-volume development and manufacturing departments. What We Offer • Innovative Technology & Mission: Be