Mission Engineer
US$140,000 – US$190,000 / yr base salary
Posted 13 Oct 2026
Advertised as “Senior Mission Engineer”
BranchFactor Summary
The original posting with the fluff stripped out
- Expected experience
- 5+ yrs
- Management level
- Individual contributor
- Contract
- Full-time
| Base salary | US$140,000 – US$190,000 / yr |
|---|
Field of studyEngineering
Study levelMaster's or higher
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 advanced nuclear energy can strengthen our military, solve the climate crisis, elevate global living standards, and expand humanity's presence in outer space. To achieve our mission, we’re 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
As a key member of the Mission Engineering team, you will lead programs across commercial, defense, and space microreactor missions – both on Earth and in space. You will serve as a primary technical point of contact for customers and stakeholders, driving the development, deployment, and application of Antares systems to meet mission needs. You will operate at the intersection of engineering, product development, customer program execution, and mission integration, owning how the complete product is applied to real-world missions from concept through end of life.
You'll have strong engineering and physics fundamentals – particularly in thermodynamics, heat transfer, fluid mechanics, energy and power systems, and engineering economics – with demonstrated ability to reason from first principles, develop quantitative models, and maintain high technical rigor across disciplines. You will own product integration into operational end-user environments.
The ideal candidate is a technically rigorous generalist comfortable moving between engineering disciplines, hands-on analysis, hardware, program execution, and customer-facing work. They can rapidly develop depth in unfamiliar areas, communicate effectively across engineering teams, and drive ambiguous problems to closure. Experience with DoD, DOE, NASA, or other government sponsors and procurement processes is preferred.
Roles & Responsibilities
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Lead execution of customer-facing and customer-funded R&D programs, owning cost, schedule, quality, contractual compliance, milestone execution, technical deliverables and internal/external reviews to align stakeholders and ensure mission success.
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Manage program costs, schedules, quality, and deliverables; translating customer needs into technical requirements; and performing or coordinating the engineering needed to close cross-disciplinary gaps.