Firmware Engineer I-II

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.

The Antares team hails from SpaceX the White House the Pentagon the Department of Energy MIT Rigetti Computing General Atomics Relativity Space Ursa Major and National Laboratories like Idaho Oak Ridge Los Alamos and Savannah River. Antares has raised over $600M in venture capital from top-tier investors and has hundreds of million-dollars on contract with the military services NASA and the Department of Energy.

About the Role

Antares is seeking a Firmware Engineer to build the embedded software that enables our first-of-a-kind microreactor hardware to operate reliably in real time. This firmware sits at the interface between custom electronics and reactor control infrastructure translating sensor signals device commands timing requirements diagnostics and fault responses into dependable behavior at the hardware level.

In this role you will develop firmware for embedded controllers instrumentation electronics data acquisition systems and test hardware. You will help define how reactor hardware is initialized monitored commanded diagnosed and protected across development integration and qualification environments.

You will work closely with electrical controls reactor software safety and test teams to design implement bring up and validate firmware that interacts directly with sensors actuators custom electronics communication buses control algorithms and hardware-in-the-loop systems. Your work will be central to ensuring Antares reactor hardware can be safely operated tested diagnosed qualified and eventually deployed.

Key Responsibilities

• Design develop test and maintain firmware for reactor instrumentation control monitoring and electrical support systems.

• Develop embedded software in C/C for microcontrollers embedded processors and real-time hardware platforms.

• Bring up new hardware debug board-level issues and validate firmware behavior using oscilloscopes logic analyzers multimeters power supplies and other lab equipment.

• Implement communication interfaces such as SPI I2C UART CAN Ethernet RS-485 or similar protocols.

• Develop firmware for sensor acquisition actuator control telemetry diagnostics fault detection and system health monitoring.

• Collaborate with electrical engineers on schematics board design reviews signal integrity concerns interface definitions and hardware/software requirements.

• Collaborate with systems software test and licensing teams to ensure firmware supports safety reliability and regulatory requirements.

• Participate in design reviews and ensure firmware designs are technically sound testable and traceable.

• Support hardware-in-the-loop and hardware-in-the-loop testing automated test frameworks data acquisition systems and integration campaigns.

• Develop firmware test plans verification procedures and documentation for configuration-controlled hardware and software releases.

• Analyze failure modes define safe states and implement fault-handling logic for embedded systems.

• Drive root-cause investigations for firmware electrical and integration issues through bench testing and system-level debugging.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelors degree in Computer Science Computer Engineering Software Engineering or a related technical field.

• 2 years of experience developing production software in C C Python Rust or similar languages for hardware-integrated distributed embedded robotics aerospace automotive industrial or mission-critical systems.

• Experience building multi-threaded or multi-process software systems including IPC networking message passing or publish/subscribe architectures.

• Experience integrating software with sensors controllers DAQs power supplies embedded systems or other hardware-facing interfaces.

• Strong debugging skills across software hardware and system-integration boundaries.

• Ability to design clear software interfaces data models state machines and testable system behaviors.

• Comfortable working in an environment where requirements evolve through prototype testing hardware bring-up and cross-functional design tradeoffs.

• Strong written and verbal communication skills especially when working across software electrical controls test and systems engineering teams.

Preferred Skills & Experience

• Masters degree in Computer Science Computer Engineering Software Engineering or a related technical field and 1 years of experience developing production software

• Experience working in regulated or safety-critical environments such as nuclear aerospace defense automotive maritime medical devices industrial controls or robotics.

• Experience with real-time systems RTOS-based development bare-metal firmware or safety-critical embedded software.

• Experience with hardware bring-up board-level debugging root-cause analysis and firmware validation.

• Experience developing firmware for sensors actuators power electronics control systems data acquisition or telemetry systems.

• Exposure to Hardware in the Loop testing automated test frameworks simulation environments or continuous integration for embedded systems.

• Familiarity with bootloaders firmware update mechanisms device drivers low-level peripherals and embedded communication stacks.

• Familiarity with software or firmware development processes for configuration-controlled systems.

• Familiarity with relevant standards guidance or development practices in safety-critical systems including IEEE IEC DO-178C DO-254 IEC 61508 ISO 26262 DOE nuclear standards or similar.

• Experience contributing to formal design reviews hazard analyses verification plans or qualification documentation.

• Demonstrated ability to take ownership of ambiguous embedded systems problems and drive them to closure.

Compensation

• Firmware Engineer I: $120000-$135000

• Firmware Engineer II: $135000-$160000

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

• Go Where the Work Is - Never miss a chance to meet a customer user or stakeholder face to face even if that means hopping on a plane. If you cant make it find a teammate who can channel your intentions and go in your place. Deep work can be done from anywhere but we believe teams are built in person and aim to maximize our time together

• Operate in the Grey - Embrace nuance in pursuit of truth. Question every fundamental assumption

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.

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