Cryogenics Engineer

MAGNOTHERM builds refrigerant-free magnetocaloric cooling systems. Its next-generation STELLAR program replaces permanent magnets with high-temperature superconducting (HTS) coils, which need to live at cryogenic temperature, cryogen-free, inside an industrial machine that ships to customers. This hire owns that cold world end to end: the thermal design, the cryostat specification and its manufacturer, the cryocooler selection, the current leads, the build, and the validation campaign that measures the physics the whole program depends on.

Key Responsibilities

• Build and maintain the thermal-network model of the cold mass: heat-load budgets across the cold and shield stages, multi-layer insulation and radiation shielding, conduction through supports and feedthroughs, and AC loss from the moving magnetocaloric regenerator, and optimization of the hybrid current leads
• Design and specify the bespoke cryostat, including vacuum vessel, MLI, thermal shield, cold-mass supports, with a warm bore housing a room-temperature regenerator moving through it
• Write the cryostat specification, run the RFQ, and coordinate the cryostat manufacturer through build and first-article acceptance
• Evaluate, select, and qualify cryocoolers and their helium compressors: manufacturer evaluation, test purchases, commissioning, and duration testing
• Design and procure current leads feeding the coils, solving the heat-leak-vs-ohmic-loss optimization
• Assemble and integrate the cryogenic module: vacuum leak-checking, pump-down iteration, cooldown, steady-state heat-load measurement, and the AC-loss-under-cycling measurement
• Support the high-field test bench as its cryogenics hand: helium handling, vacuum systems, cryostat operations, and safe cryogenic work practices across the lab

Requirements

Essential: hands-on cryostat and vacuum-technology design experience, including vessels, MLI, thermal shields, supports and feedthroughs, hardware that got cold and stayed cold; thermal and structural analysis capability including FEM (ANSYS or similar) plus first-principles thermal-network modelling, able to defend a heat-load budget line by line; strong CAD and drawing craft (NX, Fusion360, Inventor, or similar), producing manufacturing drawings a workshop can build from; supplier and manufacturing interface experience, writing specifications and RFQs, coordinating contractors, designing for what a manufacturer can actually make; practical experience with cryogenic fluids (LN2, LHe, and/or LH2) and the safety culture that goes with them; autonomous working style suited to owning a full module with a pragmatic build-test-iterate mindset; English (C1+) and German (C1+).

Desirable: cryocooler integration experience (GM or pulse-tube cold heads, helium compressors, cryogen-free systems); exposure to superconducting magnet systems (HTS/REBCO coils, quench considerations, current leads, cold-mass mechanics); process simulation and liquefaction-cycle background; scripting for analysis and automation (Python, C++); FEM for convection and shield design; pressure-equipment and relief-device experience for cryogenic service.