Mission Engineer

About Us

At Antares our long-term mission is to make clean energy abundant from Earth to the Asteroid Belt. Were fueled by the belief that advanced nuclear energy can strengthen our military solve the climate crisis elevate global living standards and expand humanitys presence in outer space. To achieve our mission were building mass-producible inherently safe deployable microreactors that can be used terrestrially underwater and in space.

Formed in 2023 the Antares team hails from SpaceX The White House MIT Rigetti Computing The Air Force General Atomics Relativity Space Ursa Major and National Laboratories like Los Alamos Idaho and Oak Ridge. Antares has raised over $130M in venture capital from top-tier investors and has over $13M in government funding.

About the Role

As a key member of the Mission Engineering team you will lead programs across commercial defense and real-world microreactor missionsboth on Earth and in space. You will serve as the primary point of contact for a broad range of stakeholders driving the development and deployment of Antares systems to meet mission needs. You will operate at the intersection of systems engineering and business development bridging technical product development with operational execution supporting capture and execution of contracts and funding opportunities.

Qualifications include strong engineering and physics fundamentalsparticularly in thermodynamics energy systems aerospace and engineering economicswith demonstrated proficiency in systems-level thinking and high technical rigor across disciplines. You will own product integration into operational end-user environments.

Responsibilities include managing project costs schedules deliverables and translating user feedback into actionable internal requirements. You will be expected to contribute to internal product development to ensure Antares systems can meet mission objectivesincluding deployment logistics facility interface definition transportation requirements commissioning and decommissioning of nuclear systems. Success in this role requires a generalist mindset cross-disciplinary problem-solving and relentless focus on delivering value to our customers.

The ideal candidate has direct experience interfacing with or working within DoD/DOE and understands government procurement processes is comfortable with the technical details of complex aerospace or defense systems and can communicate effectively across all associated engineering disciplines.

Roles and Responsibilities:

• Lead delivery for customer-facing programsowning cost/schedule/quality contractual compliance and milestone executionwhile driving engineering collaboration across disciplines and internal/external reviews to align stakeholders and ensure mission success.

• Establish closed-loop requirements management that connects customer feedback to engineering design inputs and maintains alignment with user requirements and intended use cases.

• Ideate and propose new development programs to DoD and DOE sponsors and support proposal development and contract acquisition by drafting technical content interface requirements operational use case descriptions and system performance justifications.

• Perform market/use-case analysis and CONOPS research and develop internal technical roadmaps to ensure product readiness for specific deployments and customer mission needs.

• Lead and contribute to system architecture and interface specifications for strategic energy applications ensuring that engineering decisions incorporate business considerations and cost-benefit tradeoffs across design integration and delivery.

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelors degree in an engineering discipline (mechanical aerospace nuclear systems etc.) physics or applied science.

• 3 years of experience in complex safety-critical or defense/aerospace programs with accountability for cost/schedule/technical performance and formal review gates.

• Systems engineering proficiency and agile best practices in deep technology with demonstrated cross-disciplinary systems thinking for complex technical systems.

• Strong foundations in thermodynamics/thermofluids energy systems and engineering economics with experience developing or integrating hardware in energy automotive nuclear or aerospace.

• Strong communication and technical writing skills with pragmatic business-minded decision-making that links technical choices to commercial outcomes.

Preferred Skills & Experience:

• Masters degree or PhD in an engineering field.

• Proficiency in Python for numerical/multiphysics work and familiarity with modern toolchains (Git and CI/CD)

• Experience in transportation logistics.

• Experience with government sponsors (DoD DOE NASA USAF/USSF) and a track record of winning proposals and contracts or high impact / ROI contributions.

• Strong interpersonal and collaborative skills enthusiasm for problem-solving and a desire to optimize modern nuclear design and operation.

• PMP or other relevant professional project management certification.

• Excellent negotiation conflict resolution and leadership skills.

• Leadership experience on a project or research team.

• Experience working in a start-up environment.

Additional Requirements

• Ability to work long hours and weekends as necessary to support critical milestones.

• Ability to travel to customer and mission-relevant locations as needed.

• Ability to obtain a Top Secret or Top Secret SCI clearance is preferred.

Location

• We are located in Torrance CA in a 145000 square foot brand new facility featuring large open spaces for team collaboration R&D and production as well as easy access to the 405 105 and 110 freeways. Our facility is in the heart of Los Angeles vibrant emerging tech ecosystem alongside many other high growth startups and enterprises.

Culture

At Antares we like to specifically tie each role to our founding documents set of valueshere are the top five cultural values we think you should believe at your core to be successful:

• Think in Systems - Energy and Defense are complex ecosystems with numerous stakeholders with competing priorities conflicting policies perverse incentives and emergent and path-dependent properties. First principles thinking alone is insufficient. Think probabilistically and then take action. If you want to be certain then you are apt to be obsolete. Over-optimizing the components often degrades the system

• Obsess over the End User - The customer and end user are often not the same. We will never build globally competitive commercial products if we lose sight of our end users and their entire interaction with the product life cycle

• Be Unconstrained by Convention - Our only limits are the laws of physics. Many even experts will say what we are working on is impossible. They said the same about SpaceX reusing rockets. Generationally impactful companies by definition must accomplish the seemingly impossible. If it were easy it would have already been done. Never shy away from a solution because it has never been tried before and never choose to do something because thats how its always been done

• Craftsmen - We also focus on the inputs. We aspire to high-quality engineering for its own sake. As such we invest in personal growth learning and developing a long-term career path for exceptional individual contributors. We embrace a beginners mindset share knowledge and never condescend the curious

• Seriously Optimistic - Were ambitious and we believe were capable of achieving things others believe are impossible. We reward audacity and dont let cynicism sarcasm snark or belittlement influence us to lower the bar

Equal Opportunity

Antares is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Employment decisions are based solely on merit competence and qualifications without regard to race color religion gender national origin/ethnicity veteran status disability status age sexual orientation gender identity marital status mental or physical disability or any other legally protected status.

ITAR Requirements

To conform to U.S. Government export regulations applicant must be a (i) U.S. citizen or national (ii) U.S. lawful permanent resident (aka green card holder) (iii) Refugee under 8 U.S.C. 1157 or (iv) Asylee under 8 U.S.C. 1158 or be eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about the ITAR here.

Required Experience:

IC