Nuclear Instrumentation and Controls Test 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.

Formed in 2023, the Antares team hails from SpaceX, The White House, MIT, Rigetti Computing, The Air Force, General Atomics, Relativity Space, Ursa Major, Ultra Safe Nuclear, and Los Alamos National Laboratory. Antares has raised over $39M in venture capital from top-tier investors and has over $4M in government funding.

About the Team

The nuclear engineering team at Antares is responsible for nuclear design, analysis, instrumentation, and controls for all Antares reactors. We are nuclear engineers, software engineers, and physicists with who joined Antares from advanced reactor vendors, aerospace companies, national laboratories, and top universities. We're here because of the mission: making nuclear power available anywhere it's needed--on Earth and beyond.

Roles and Responsibilities:

• Collaborate with the Nuclear, Mechanical, Electrical, Software, and Controls teams to design and implement Hardware in the Loop (HITL) test stands and platforms

• Design around, and operate, and build test stands involving thermal chambers, vibe tables, shock fixtures, vacuum, and gaseous purge systems

• Synthesize and execute on test stand requirements per I&C given requisite test objectives for nuclear sensing Devices Under Test (DUTs), and requisite proxies for nuclear sensors

• Synthesize and execute on test stand requirements per I&C given requisite test objectives for coupled electromechanical-nuclear-sensor DUTs

• Write and maintain test code, which interfaces with DAQs, CD&H systems of commercial and custom in-house design varieties

• As needed, aid design engineers with I&C component/vendor selection, system-level peer-review, synthesis of nuclear environments, simulation/model correlation

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Physics, Electrical Engineering, Nuclear Engineering, Systems Engineering, or a related technical field

• 4+ years of experience testing and developing instrumentation and controls systems in nuclear, aerospace, defense, or other high reliability environments

• High proficiency working with thermal sensors including thermocouples, RTDs (Resistant Temperature Detectors) and/or neutron sensors

• High proficiency working with DAQ modules including Labjacks and National Instruments CDAQs

Preferred Skills & Experience:

• Experience with Python programming

• Working proficiency with C/C++

• Working proficiency with PLC programming

• Experience with ethernet and serial devices interfaces in a test-stand context

• Experience operating thermal chambers, vibe tables, and shock test stands

• Demonstrated ability to write clear test plans, procedures, and reports, and to communicate findings to multidisciplinary engineering teams

• Experience working with radiation sources in a test environment

• Experience calibrating neutron sensors

• Nuclear reactor operator experience

• Experience developing Human Machine Interfaces (HMI) for nuclear reactor operations

Location

• We are located in Torrance, CA in a 145,000 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”

• 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

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.