Nuclear Engineer

All levels of experience considered

About Us

At Antares, our long-term mission is to make clean energy abundant, from Earth to the Asteroid Belt. We're fueled by the belief that energy abundance and military strength are the keys to unlocking growth in the American standard of living.

That's why we're building transportable microreactors for the modern warfighter. We can solve the energy constraints of contested logistics by developing inherently safe, rapidly deployable nuclear microreactors that can be operated terrestrially or in space, thus untethering military capabilities from fossil fuel supply chains.

The founding team hails from SpaceX, the White House, MIT, Rigetti Computing, and the Air Force. They have raised over $8M in seed funding from top-tier investors, including Caffeinated Capital and Susa Ventures.

About the Role

As a member of the nuclear engineering team, you will become the responsible engineer for a key component of the Antares reactor design such as reactivity controls and instrumentation, radiation shielding, fuels, materials, thermal hydraulics, safety, or licensing.

The ideal candidate has a mix of industry and academic experience, and has worked in a team-oriented environment to mature nuclear concepts.

While you may have a specialty, you're not afraid to operate as a generalist in a growing organization.

Responsibilities

You will develop and provide expertise in a subset of the following :

• Ownership of a key reactor subsystem such as the control system, shielding, materials, thermal hydraulics, fuel, or licensing
• Develop trade studies of materials choices
• Optimizing gamma and neutron shielding materials and mass by taking into account core neutronics, planning zone, and dosimetry
• Develop neutronics simulations to trade various enrichment levels, moderator materials, and fuel form factors
• Cultivate and apply an understanding of the regulatory landscape, licensing pathway, and ideal quality program for the Antares microreactor design

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in engineering physics, material science, or other related field
• 5+ years of experience in nuclear engineering or a closely adjacent field
• Proficiency with reactor design and analysis tools, including neutronics codes like MCNP (preferred), SERPENT, OpenMC, SCALE, and NEAMS;

coupled or standalone thermal hydraulics software, such as ANSYS, STAR-CCM+

Preferred Skills and Experience

• Strong interpersonal and collaborative skills, enthusiasm for problem solving, and desire to optimize modern nuclear design and operation
• Master's degree or PhD in nuclear engineering
• Demonstrated track record of high impact / ROI contributions
• Strong project management skills and effective communication of technical concepts across multi-disciplinary teams
• Leadership experience on a project or research team
• Broad knowledge of materials science and material selections, especially for nuclear applications
• Working knowledge of a programming language, preferably Python

Additional Requirements

• Based in or ability to relocate to Los Angeles to work in person at our Redondo Beach office
• Ability to work long hours and weekends as necessary to support critical milestones

Culture

At Antares, we like to specifically tie each role to our founding document's set of values-here 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 that's "how it's 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 beginner's mindset, share knowledge, and never condescend the curious.

• Seriously Optimistic - We're ambitious and we believe we're capable of achieving things others believe are impossible. We reward audacity and don't let cynicism, sarcasm, snark, or belittlement influence us to lower the bar
1 day ago