About Avalanche Energy

Avalanche Energy is a Washington-based startup building compact, deployable fusion systems through rapid hardware iteration. Rather than pursuing fusion as a single grid-scale outcome, Avalanche develops transportable fusion machines designed to be built, tested, and operated on short cycles, turning real hardware into steady progress. This approach enables near-term applications that demand extreme energy density and endurance—starting with fusion neutron production for radioisotope power and other defense and space uses—while advancing the underlying fusion platform. Backed by U.S. government programs and a team experienced in delivering complex systems, Avalanche is focused on building fusion that runs in the real world, not just on paper.

Avalanche might be a fit for you if:

You enjoy building exceptional teams and believe that hiring great people is one of the highest-leverage ways to shape a company's future. You like partnering with leaders to solve organizational problems, not just fill open positions, and you're energized by finding creative ways to attract world-class talent in competitive markets. You enjoy balancing strategy with execution, building recruiting systems that scale, and helping candidates experience the company at its best. Most importantly, you're excited by the opportunity to help build the team that will bring fusion energy from the laboratory into the real world.

About the Role

Avalanche is seeking a Director of Talent Acquisition to help build the team that will bring fusion to the real world. This role is responsible for leading the company's recruiting efforts—from helping determine when and how we hire, through sourcing, interviewing, offers, and onboarding. Working closely with hiring managers, executives, HR, and Finance, the Director of Talent Acquisition ensures that Avalanche hires exceptional people while continually improving the systems and processes that support recruiting.

This is far more than a traditional recruiting role. The Director of Talent Acquisition serves as a strategic advisor to leadership, helping define hiring priorities, shape job descriptions, understand talent market dynamics, and develop recruiting strategies that support the company's long-term growth. As Avalanche scales, this person will play a key role in building a recruiting function that is thoughtful, efficient, and capable of attracting world-class talent across science, engineering, operations, and business functions.

In this role, you will:

Workforce Planning & Hiring Strategy

• Partner with leadership to develop hiring plans that support company strategy, organizational growth, and evolving business priorities.
• Partner with hiring managers to develop thoughtful job descriptions, candidate profiles, interview plans, and recruiting strategies.
• Develop a deep understanding of Avalanche’s scientific, engineering, manufacturing, and business functions, and use that understanding to advise hiring managers on role scope, candidate profile, and recruiting strategy.
• Provide talent-market intelligence that informs role scope, level, compensation, hiring timelines, and the realism of the hiring plan.
• Partner with HR and Finance to help ensure compensation and leveling remain competitive and aligned with market conditions.

Recruiting & Candidate Experience

• Personally own full-cycle recruiting for priority roles across technical, scientific, manufacturing, operations, and business functions, while using external partners where they add value.
• Build creative sourcing strategies for niche scientific, engineering, manufacturing, operations, and leadership talent using direct outreach, referrals, recruiting partners, universities, industry networks, and other channels as appropriate.
• Conduct candidate screening and assessment while partnering with hiring teams throughout the interview process.
• Own candidate communications, offer development, negotiation, and offer execution.
• Maintain a responsive, transparent, and professional candidate experience through screening, interviews, offers, negotiation, and closing.

Recruiting Operations, Systems & Process Improvement

• Develop and continuously improve recruiting processes, interview frameworks, scorecards, and hiring practices.
• Stand up and continuously improve scalable recruiting systems, workflows, metrics, and reporting, including implementation and administration of an applicant tracking system.
• Manage relationships with external recruiters, recruiting agencies, and other talent partners.
• Identify opportunities to improve recruiting efficiency, candidate quality, interviewer effectiveness, and hiring consistency.
• Develop scalable recruiting practices that evolve with the company's growth.

Cross-Functional Partnership

• Partner closely with HR to ensure a seamless transition from accepted offer through onboarding.
• Work with Marketing to strengthen Avalanche's employer brand and recruiting materials.
• Collaborate with executives and functional leaders to anticipate future hiring needs and proactively build talent pipelines.
• Serve as a trusted advisor to hiring managers throughout the recruiting process, helping balance speed, quality, and long-term organizational needs.

Required Qualifications

• 8–12 years of experience in recruiting or talent acquisition, including significant experience recruiting for technical organizations.
• Demonstrated success recruiting engineering, science, manufacturing, operations, and leadership roles.
• Experience partnering directly with executives and hiring managers on workforce planning and organizational growth.
• Strong understanding of recruiting strategy, sourcing techniques, candidate assessment, and interview design.
• Experience managing recruiting agencies, external search firms, and other talent partners.
• Strong communication, relationship-building, and influencing skills.
• Ability to operate independently while managing multiple concurrent searches and priorities.
• Strong organizational skills with exceptional attention to detail and follow-through.
• Comfortable operating in fast-moving, ambiguous environments where priorities evolve rapidly.

Bonus Experience

• Experience recruiting within hard-tech, deep-tech, aerospace, energy, defense, robotics, or advanced manufacturing organizations.
• Experience helping scale organizations.
• Experience partnering on compensation benchmarking, organizational design, or workforce planning.
• Experience integrating AI and automation tools into recruiting processes, candidate sourcing, and talent operations.
• Familiarity with applicant tracking systems, recruiting analytics, and talent operations.
• Experience building interviewer training, recruiting playbooks, or structured hiring processes.
• Experience recruiting highly specialized scientific or engineering talent.
• Existing network within fusion, nuclear, aerospace, defense, or adjacent technical communities.

Additional Considerations

• Location: Prefer onsite to work with in-person team.
• Sites: Tukwila, Washington.
• Travel: Occasional travel for team events as needed.
• Schedule: Standard business hours, with flexibility during critical periods.

Benefits

• Excellent medical, dental, and vision benefits.
• 10 paid holidays and a company-wide December holiday break.
• Generous paid vacation and sick time.
• Small, tight-knit team with low barriers to action.
• Exposure to a wide range of challenging, hands-on engineering problems.
• Meaningful equity in the form of stock options.

We value people of all backgrounds. We are an equal opportunity employer, and you do not need to match every listed qualification to apply. If you like being hands-on, all over the system, and making difficult hardware work in the real world, we encourage you to apply.

This position may require access to export-controlled information. In order to comply with U.S. export control laws, applicants must be a “U.S. person” as defined by U.S. trade control laws (U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, or protected individual).