Senior Turbomachinery Aerodynamics Engineer

antares; Los Angeles (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 220,000; Full time

Job summary

Antares in Los Angeles is seeking a Senior Turbomachinery Aerodynamics Engineer to own the aerodynamic and structural design of compressor and turbine stages for nuclear reactors. You will develop turbomachinery from early sizing through detailed aerodynamic design, life analysis, and test validation, collaborating with rotordynamics, mechanical design, and system engineers.

The role requires experience with high-speed turbomachinery and the ability to balance performance, life,

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical, Aerospace, or related engineering discipline.
• 5+ years of professional experience designing compressors, pumps, and/or turbines.
• Strong understanding of turbomachinery aerodynamics and design methods.
• Experience with structural analysis of turbomachinery rotating components.
• Knowledge of fatigue, creep, and modal resonance in high-speed rotating hardware.
• Ability to trade off performance, structural margin, life, manufacturability, cost and schedule.
• Demonstrated ability to clearly communicate technical information.

Responsibilities

• Own the aerodynamic and structural design of compressor and turbine stages.
• Support architecture trades through meanline analysis, preliminary sizing, and performance modeling.
• Design blades, vanes, diffusers, volutes, and related flow-path components.
• Develop and maintain compressor and turbine performance maps with system engineers.

Skills

Turbomachinery design

Engineering tradeoffs

Communication skills

Mechanical/Aerospace background

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical or Aerospace engineering

Master’s degree preferred

Tools

ANSYS Mechanical

CFX

BladeGen

TurboGrid

NX

AxSTREAM

PUMPAL

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.

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 a Senior Turbomachinery Aerodynamics Engineer, you will own the aerodynamic and aeromechanical design of compressor and turbine stages for Antares nuclear reactors. You will develop turbomachinery from early sizing and architecture trades through detailed aerodynamic design, structural and life analysis, and test validation. You will work closely with rotordynamics, mechanical design, manufacturing, test, and systems engineers throughout development.

The ideal candidate has strong experience designing compressors, turbines, pumps, or similar high-speed turbomachinery and can make sound engineering trade-offs between aerodynamic performance, structural integrity, life, manufacturability, and system requirements.

Roles & Responsibilities:

• Own the aerodynamic and structural design of compressor and turbine stages.

• Support architecture trades through meanline analysis, preliminary sizing, and performance modeling.

• Design blades, vanes, diffusers, volutes, and related flow-path components.

• Develop and maintain compressor and turbine performance maps and work closely with system engineers responsible for Brayton-cycle performance.

• Perform stress and life analysis of rotating hardware, including static structural, modal, LCF, HCF, and creep analysis.

• Evaluate aerodynamic forcing and vane-blade interaction for structural and life assessments.

• Develop and improve analysis and test methods to correlate aerodynamic, structural, and life predictions with component and rig testing.

• Investigate performance and structural issues identified during development testing and implement design improvements.

• Contribute to turbomachinery design practices, analysis tools, and standards for aerodynamic performance, structural integrity, life, and reliability.

• Support design reviews and technical decisions throughout the product lifecycle.

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical, Aerospace, or a related engineering discipline.

• 5+ years of professional experience designing compressors, pumps, and/or turbines.

• Strong understanding of turbomachinery aerodynamics and aerodynamic design methods.

• Experience with structural analysis of turbomachinery rotating components.

• Knowledge of life-limiting mechanisms in high-speed rotating hardware including fatigue, creep, and modal resonance.

• Experience making engineering tradeoffs involving performance, structural margin, life, manufacturability, cost, and schedule.

• Demonstrated ability to communicate technical information clearly.

Preferred Skills & Experience:

• Master’s degree in Mechanical, Aerospace, or a related engineering discipline.

• 7+ years of professional experience designing high-performance turbomachinery.

• Proficiency with ANSYS Mechanical, CFX, BladeGen, TurboGrid.

• Experience with meanline and preliminary design tools such as AxSTREAM, PUMPAL, or internally developed sizing and analysis tools.

• Experience conducting forced-response analysis of vane-blade interactions.

• Experience validating hardware through test and correlating analytical models with test data.

• Proficiency with NX for 3D CAD design and drafting.

• Strong organizational and communication skills.

Additional Requirements:

• Flexibility to support hardware development milestones, including occasional weekend or long-hour pushes.

Salary Range:

• Senior, Turbomachinery Engineer - $140,000 - $185,000

• Staff, Turbomachinery Engineer - $155,000 - $220,000

Leveling is determined during the interviews and can change over time.

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.