Senior GSE / Tooling Design Engineer

Antares; Los Angeles (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

Antares, a pioneering company in advanced nuclear energy, is seeking a Senior GSE / Tooling Design Engineer to lead the design and development of essential tools for our microreactor assembly. The ideal candidate will possess extensive experience in mechanical design, particularly in creating both large-scale and precision tooling suitable for complex assembly requirements. This role involves close collaboration with various engineering teams to ensure robust designs that meet safety, quality, and performance standards.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience designing tooling in production or R&D.
• Strong proficiency in mechanical design and FEA.

Responsibilities

• Design and develop tooling for advanced microreactor systems.
• Collaborate with design and manufacturing teams for tooling solutions.
• Conduct structural analyses to ensure tool performance.

Skills

Mechanical design fundamentals

Electrical control systems

3D CAD proficiency

Finite Element Analysis (FEA)

Education

Bachelor’s degree in engineering

Tools

3D CAD software (NX preferred)

FEA tools (e.g., Ansys, Simcenter)

Job description

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Base pay range

$140,000.00/yr - $200,000.00/yr

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

As a member of the R&D team, you will be a critical part in Antares’ mission to manufacture and assemble cutting edge nuclear reactors. You will be responsible for developing the tooling used across our first R&D facility where we develop things like control of precise chemical reactions to large, industrial equipment integration. This requires you to iterate quickly with the design team to enable rapid design maturation while still meeting all safety and quality requirements.

The tooling required to build our reactors will require strong mechanical design fundamentals along with electrical control and drive systems. You are expected to design tooling based on structural calculations and finite element modeling. Depending on the scale of the project, you will present milestones in design reviews to ensure all goals are being met. You will be expected to have high attention to detail and thorough documentation to ensure a seamless handoff of the end-user and ongoing maintenance.

The ideal candidate will have experience designing both large tools capable of manipulating heavy payloads and also precision equipment used to control critical features or processes within a production environment. You will have proven experience in identifying key requirements from the stakeholders and carrying a project through the full lifecycle to customer hand-off. Additionally, you will have design for manufacturing experience, with a track record of giving feedback to designers to help influence a design direction. You will ultimately be responsible for the critical equipment required to bring Antares from the prototype phase through serialized production of multiple nuclear reactors per month.

Roles and Responsibilities:

• Design and develop custom tooling to support the assembly, integration, and testing of advanced microreactor systems
• Collaborate closely with design, manufacturing, and test engineering teams to rapidly iterate tooling solutions for evolving hardware
• Translate functional and safety requirements into robust mechanical and electromechanical tool designs
• Conduct structural and thermal analyses (hand calculations and FEA) to ensure tool performance and safety under operational loads
• Create 3D CAD models and detailed drawings to source designs from both internal and external tooling partners
• Present tooling concepts and progress in formal design reviews, incorporating feedback from stakeholders
• Generate detailed documentation packages including assembly instructions, maintenance plans, and safety considerations for each tool
• Support procurement, vendor communication, and shop floor commissioning of custom tools and fixtures
• Provide hands-on troubleshooting and updates to tooling based on feedback from technicians and operators
• Participate in continuous improvement efforts to upgrade tool performance, reliability, and ease of use as Antares scales into production
  
  

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering
• 8+ years of professional experience designing tooling, fixtures, or mechanical equipment in a production or R&D environment
• Extensive proficiency with 3D CAD software (NX preferred) for modeling complex assemblies and creating detailed drawings
• Demonstrated experience with FEA tools (e.g., Ansys, Simcenter) for structural validation of tooling designs
  
  

Preferred Skills & Experience:

• Master's degree or 10+ years of professional experience in mechanical or aerospace engineering
• Deep understanding of mechanical design fundamentals, including structural mechanics, material selection, and thermal effects
• Proven track record of leading tooling projects from concept through design, fabrication, validation, and handoff
• Familiarity with actuated tooling systems (e.g., pneumatic, hydraulic, or servo-driven) and relevant safety interlocks
• Hands-on experience working directly with machinists, technicians, and operators to debug and iterate tooling in the field
• Strong documentation skills, including creating usage guides, maintenance manuals, and risk assessments
• Expertise in designing both large-scale industrial tooling and precision fixtures for critical assemblies or chemical/mechanical processes
• Experience using test instrumentation and control components (e.g. pressure transducers, thermocouples, strain gages, relays, solenoid valves, etc.)
  
  

Additional Requirements:

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

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
• Loyally Collaborative - Team > Self. We win together. There is nothing more precious than a high-performing team
  
  

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.
  
  

Compensation Range: $140K - $200K

Seniority level

• Seniority level

  Mid-Senior level

Employment type

• Employment type

  Full-time

Job function

• Job function

  Engineering and Information Technology

• Industries

  Defense and Space Manufacturing

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