Senior Systems Engineer

Antaresindustries; Torrance (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Antares is seeking a Systems Engineer to own product quality from design through operation and decommissioning. You will work with Quality, Mission Engineering, Mechanical Design, and Nuclear Licensing to ensure requirements are incorporated, validated, and verified across the reactor lifecycle.

The role emphasizes deep dive into product designs, building robust processes, and ensuring reliability, safety, and performance standards to support critical milestones.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering and 4+ years in design/product development.
• Experience with reliability, safety, and regulatory-compliant design is required.

Responsibilities

• Develop and manage reactor requirements based on safety and design codes.
• Validate analysis methodologies and ensure design compliance.
• Lead design reviews, document feedback, and track actions.
• Conduct reliability analyses and risk assessments throughout design lifecycle.
• Collaborate with design, analysis, manufacturing, and quality teams.
• Identify failure modes and drive corrective actions.
• Support cross-functional teams to establish scalable design processes.

Skills

Reliability principles

Analytical skills

Cross-functional collaboration

Problem solving

Effective communication

Education

Bachelor's degree in Engineering

Tools

FMEA/FMECA

ASME codes

Weibull analysis

Minitab

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 $130M in venture capital from top-tier investors and has over $13M in government funding.

About the Role:

The Systems Engineer at Antares owns the quality of the product from design through operation and decommisioning. The Systems Engineer works closely with cross functional organizations (Quality, Mission Engineering, Mechanical Design, Nuclear Licensing) to make sure that requirements are incorporated, validated, and verified throughout the design, build, and operation of the reactor.

We are looking for a candidate who is excited about diving deep into the details of product designs and passionate about building processes to ensure that current and future designs and changes are robust, reliable, and positioned for success. The successful candidate will ensure products meet reliability, safety, and performance standards throughout their design lifecycle, from concept to production. This role is critical in identifying potential risks, improving product robustness, and enhancing overall customer satisfaction through reliable product performance.

Roles and Responsibilities:

• Develop and manage requirements for all reactors based on customer specifications, safety regulations, and design and construction codes.
• Develop and implement processes for validating analysis methodologies.
• Review and develop guidance and requirements to ensure compliance with ASME and other applicable design codes.
• Establish and manage processes for design reviews, including documenting feedback, managing open actions, and tracking unverified assumptions.
• Conduct reliability analyses and risk assessments during product design and development phases.
• Collaborate with design engineers to incorporate reliability and quality considerations into new product designs.
• Identify failure modes and mechanisms, and drive root-cause analyses and corrective action plans.
• Work closely with cross-functional teams, including design, analysis, manufacturing, quality assurance, and others to establish scalable design processes.

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering (Mechanical, Electrical, Aerospace, or related discipline).
• 4+ years of experience, preferably in a design or product development environment.

Preferred Skills & Experience:

• Master's degree in Engineering.
• Strong knowledge of reliability principles, methodologies, and testing techniques.
• Familiarity with ASME codes and standards.
• Familiarity with FMEA, FMECA, or other failure mode analysis tools.
• Proficiency in reliability software tools and statistical analysis packages (e.g., Weibull analysis, Minitab).
• Experience working within regulated industries (e.g., nuclear, automotive, aerospace, medical devices) is desirable.
• Excellent problem-solving and analytical skills.
• Ability to communicate effectively with technical and non-technical teams.

Additional Requirements:

• Ability to work long hours and weekends as necessary to support critical milestones
• Ability to travel to customer and mission-relevant locations as needed
• Ability to obtain a Top Secret or Top Secret SCI clearance.

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

• 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 Is - 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

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.