General Counsel

Antares; Torrance (CA); On-site; USD 250,000 - 360,000; Full time

Job summary

Antares is seeking its first General Counsel to build and own the legal and compliance foundation for nuclear microreactors, guiding the company from prototyping to full-rate production. As GC, you will partner with the CEO and leadership team and collaborate with engineering, operations, finance, and business development to enable rapid execution within regulatory requirements.

The ideal candidate brings deep experience in government contracts, export controls, and regulatory matters, with a

Qualifications

• JD from an accredited law school and active bar membership.
• 12+ years of legal experience.
• Experience in 2 out of 3 areas: government contracts, export controls, or commercial/regulatory matters.

Responsibilities

• Serve as Antares’ first in-house general counsel and primary legal partner to leadership and functions across the company.
• Oversee government contracts and government-funded programs, including proposals, compliance obligations, data rights, and risk management.
• Manage DOE/DoD relationships and contractual obligations with federal agencies.
• Draft, review, negotiate, and maintain broad commercial agreements (NDAs, vendor, services, software) and strategic partnerships.
• Provide legal counsel on nuclear regulatory matters and licensing frameworks (NRC, DOE).
• Build and improve export controls programs (ITAR/EAR) and related policies, training, and workflows.
• Manage external counsel across specialized areas (contracts, corporate, IP, litigation, real estate, financing).
• Define contract lifecycle management, governance processes, documentation retention, and board support.
• Create scalable templates and negotiation playbooks to reduce bottlenecks as Antares grows.
• Offer day-to-day pragmatic legal support to enable rapid execution while safeguarding risk.

Skills

Legal leadership

Contract negotiations

Regulatory compliance

Cross-functional collaboration

Export controls (ITAR/EAR)

Education

Juris Doctor (JD) degree

Job description

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, and National Laboratories like Los Alamos, Idaho, and Oak Ridge. Antares has raised over $600M in venture capital from top-tier investors and has over $13M in government funding.

About the Team

Antares is looking for its first General Counsel — a seasoned legal leader who will build and own the legal and compliance foundation required to take our nuclear microreactors from prototyping through full-rate production and commercial deployment. This is a defining leadership role at a pivotal moment in the company's growth.

As GC, you will serve as a trusted advisor and strategic partner to the CEO and executive team. You will lead legal and compliance functions across the company, and you will partner closely with engineering, operations, finance, supply chain, business development, and people teams to enable rapid execution while ensuring Antares operates within an appropriate legal and regulatory framework.

The ideal candidate has deep experience at the intersection of government contracting, nuclear or regulated environments, and export controls, and thrives in the ambiguity and pace of an early-stage, mission-driven company. You are not just a legal advisor; you are a builder, a business partner, and a key member of the leadership team.

Roles and Responsibilities:

• Serve as Antares’ first in-house legal hire and primary legal partner to leadership, engineering, operations, finance, supply chain, business development, and people teams.

• Support government contracts and government-funded programs, including proposal review, flow-down analysis, contract negotiation, compliance obligations, data rights, deliverables, reporting requirements, and program execution risk.

• Serve as the primary legal point of contact for DOE, DoD, and other federal agency relationships and contractual obligations

• Draft, review, negotiate, and maintain a broad range of commercial agreements, including NDAs, vendor agreements, services agreements, consulting agreements, manufacturing and supply agreements, software/SaaS agreements, testing agreements, teaming agreements, and strategic partnership agreements.

• Provide legal counsel on nuclear regulatory matters, including NRC licensing, DOE regulatory frameworks, nuclear materials handling, and compliance with applicable federal and state nuclear safety requirements.

• Build, own, and continuously improve Antares’ export controls compliance program, including ITAR, EAR, and other applicable regimes, including policies, procedures, training, technology-control plans, visitor controls, deemed export processes, data handling practices, and escalation workflows.

• Manage and scope external counsel across specialized areas including export controls, contracts, nuclear regulatory, corporate, employment, intellectual property, litigation, real estate, and financing matters.

• Define the company’s legal infrastructure and procedures, including document retention, signature authority, contract lifecycle management, legal intake, entity management, board support, and corporate governance processes.

• Create scalable contract templates, negotiation playbooks, approval workflows, fallback positions, and internal guidance to reduce legal bottlenecks as Antares grows.

• Own day-to-day legal support across the company, providing practical, business-oriented advice that enables rapid execution while appropriately managing legal, regulatory, and reputational risk

Basic Qualifications:

• JD from an accredited law school and active bar membership

• 12 + years of legal experience

• Experience in 2 out of the 3 areas of expertise

  • Demonstrated experience managing government contracts (FAR/DFARS) and government-funded programs

  • Hands-on experience building or leading an export controls compliance program (ITAR and/or EAR)

  • Experience with commercial contracts and regulatory matters

Preferred Skills & Experience:

• Experience as General Counsel or Deputy General Counsel at a high-growth technology or deep tech company

• Deep familiarity with NRC licensing processes, DOE contracting vehicles (e.g. CRADA, WFO), and nuclear materials regulations

• Experience supporting board governance, venture financings, and M&A transactions

• Broad experience in a range of legal domains across contracts, intellectual property, export compliance, and others

• Proven success in a start-up environment or similar, with the ability to manage ambiguity and wear many different hats

Additional Requirements:

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

• Ability to travel to regulatory locations as needed

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.

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.