Mechanical Engineer

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 an early member of the Antares supply chain team, you will define and execute the strategic roadmap required for the company to successfully iterate through prototyping and into full-rate production. This will include identifying, qualifying, and developing suppliers across many commodities, proactively maturing fragile or nonexistent supply chains, interfacing with engineering teams to ensure design for manufacturability, and creating the processes and systems necessary to scale our business. As a growing company, you will also have the opportunity to wear many hats and influence areas outside of supply chain.

 

The ideal candidate will be able to execute in an ambiguous environment, with the ability to efficiently balance many different priorities - you will be part of a small team tackling significant and complex challenges, and will have a key role in contributing to the success of the company both in the short and long-term.

 

Roles and Responsibilities:

• Define the initial strategic roadmap for select commodities, such as machined components, electromechanical systems and controls, shielding, thermal management, turbomachinery, fuel, and others

• Identify and onboard suppliers across many commodities to develop a mature supply base capable of supporting both prototyping and eventually full-rate production

• Engage with responsible and manufacturing engineering teams to review drawings and provide feedback in collaboration with suppliers on design for manufacturing

• Coordinate closely with quality teams to ensure compliance with the Antares quality program regarding supplier onboarding, quality and documentation requirements, addressing nonconformances, and developing supply chain related procedures

• Direct the business on informed make-versus-buy decision, considering factors such as design feedback loop, product function, capital and resource investment, and manufacturing methods

• Create bottoms-up analyses for should-costing to support commercial negotiations and supplier evaluation

• Develop performance metrics and reporting to identify, communicate, and manage critical path items

• Execute on near-term actions related to prototyping and development hardware to guarantee schedules for engineering and testing milestones

   

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, computer science, math, physics or related fields AND 3+ years of experience in design or manufacturing engineering, supplier development or supplier quality, or supply chain management

• OR 5+ years of experience in design or manufacturing engineering, supplier development or supplier quality, or supply chain management

 

Preferred Skills & Experience:

• 3+ years of experience in supply chain management or manufacturing for complex systems and assemblies

• 3+ years of experience in the aerospace & defense, automotive, semiconductor, or energy industries

• Proficiency in supply chain related systems, including MRP and ERP

• Demonstrated track record of managing a diversity of commodities and suppliers

• Broad experience across several supply chain functions, including planning, procurement, supplier development, supplier quality, and logistics

• Proven success in a start-up environment or similar

 

Additional Requirements:

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

• Ability to travel up to 40% when necessary to interface with suppliers

 

Location

• We are located in Torrance, CA in a 322,000 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 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”

• _Go Where the Work I_s - Never miss a chance to meet a customer, user, or stakeholder face to face, even if that means hopping on a plane. If you can’t 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.

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.